SH-25-152's blog

We started our first days in the Negev with a hike in Ein Ovdat. It was SO beautiful. We climbed up a mountain in the desert and saw an incredible running stream and waterfall. Some of the people in our group found themselves completely reconnected to nature and the environments around them. We looked on the mountains for ibex but didn't see any...yet. There were some ladders going up the mountain that were pretty scary, but we all helped each other out and made it up ok. It was incredible the way the temperature seemed to change from minute to minute.

We started our Sunday on a sad note at Yad Va'Shem, the Israeli Holocaust Museum. Even though a lot of us had been to Holocaust memorials and museums before this was more powerful for us. First we are older and able to understand the Holocaust a little more, but also the Museum in Israel had a different feel and atmosphere. We were really inspired by some of the stories we heard, including one about a woman and her mother. The girl was a survivor of Auschwitz, and when she arrived she accidentally had her mother's glasses.

Hi everybody!

On Thursday morning we went to an incredible historic site: Independence Hall, where Israel declared its independence in 1948. We learned a ton about Israeli independence from a great informational video and a tour guide. We learned what a miracle it was that the state was even created and how much the Jews had to go through to make this happen. We learned a lot of new information and even supplemented some of the information we learned in classes at Brandeis.

On Tuesday morning we woke up early to head to our first hike, Banyas. Banyas is at the foot of Mount Hermon, the largest mouintain in Israel. On the bus to Banyas we saw the most beautiful landscape in the Golan, and we couldn't wait to get hilking! It seemed like any other trail except it was a little more intense. Instead of hills we had mountains, instead of poison ivy we saw cacti (Sabras) and instead of a little bit of mud, we had a lot of mud! The hike was incredible and we saw a beutiful waterfall and running stream of the river. It was lilke nothing we have ever seen before.

Hi everybody!

You can breathe a little easier, we all made it to Israel safely! After meeting everyone at JFK this morning we headed on to our Delta flight and 10 hours later landed at Ben Gurion aiport in Tel Aviv. It was a long and tiring flight but our energy was high when we walked out of baggage claim to complete our group. We added our Israeli friends (mifgash), our tour guide Shiri, our security guard Max, and our bus driver Evgeni.