Birthwriting: Yad Vashem, Volunteering, Bedouin Tents
Yad Vashem. Jerusalem’s Holocaust Museum. In Hebrew, “Yad” translates to “name” and Vashem to “memorial” and indeed the museum is a dedication to the names of those we lost. But more than just their names, the museum is for their souls, their accomplishments and the lives they lived before the Holocaust. Itt is for their families, their ancestors, and the other Jewish people in which they share a common history. Yad Vashem is an experience unlike any other - an intense look back at the worst time in the history of the Jewish people and the modern world.
And so on Sunday morning we embarked for the museum with a somber and serious mood hanging over us. We met with our guide and started our tour. The next few hours became an exercise in the extremes of emotion. Altitudes high and low. We started with the heroes. Outside the museum we learned of the non-Jews that saved their neighbors, hiding them and feeding them and we saw the trees planted in the honor of these “The Righteous Among The Nations”. We gleamed with pride for man. And as we walked through the museum, with its pictures of The Warsaw Ghetto, and then worse - the camps: Bergen-Belsen, Treblinka, Auschwitz, etc, we saw our pride fall and sadness overcame us.
Everyone took the museum in his or her own way. But we did it together. As a group we made it to the end of the tour and to ending with its sounds of victory. We made it through, past the pictures, past the stories of the deceased, into the hall where the museum is collected as many names as it can (currently near four million) and after we stepped outside in to the State of Israel, a country created in the wake of the terrible times and standing strong today.
After the museum, we were treated to a special and unforgettable experience. A holocaust survivor shared his story with us. We listened to his tale of courage, luck and fortune and got a first hand account of history that few are privileged to receive this many years past. It is our hope that these survivor’s stories will not be forgotten.
Yad Vashem was our last stop in Jerusalem this time (we’ll be back again) and we departed for Kiryat Got, the Israeli sister city of Chicago and the hometown of our guide Lior. We got in a quick and delicious lunch and then were treated to perhaps the best way to raise our spirits enough to enjoy the day - a trip to a children’s after school center.
Kiryat Got has a large population of poorer children, many immigrants, who assemble to play and study at a local center run for them. Our group arrived to an excited group of kids, ready to spend the next few hours dancing, playing sports and other games inside and outside. It was fun in its purest form - complete with children’s laughter and smiles. It was an exhausting and worthwhile experience - reminding all of us that we cannot dwell in a sad history when there is so much in our life to be enjoyed.
After a long goodbye with the children, we took to our bus again and made a long trek to another unique terrain - the Negev Desert. In the early evening, we arrived at our sleeping outpost for the night - a small community of tents run by Bedouins, an ancient desert people. The Bedouins at the area gave our group a nice introduction about their history and their status in Israel today and we dined on some delicious food. The group took a step closer to a singular loving community later on as we all slept in a giant Bedouin-style tent, proving that our time on the bus may not be enough personal time for everyone. Before we went to bed, many of the group enjoyed a bonfire outside and a few old fashioned sing-a-longs to go with the fire.
It was a packed-in Sunday - complete with terrible sadness, absolute enjoyment and a trek to an area surrounding by miles and miles of sand and nothing. Not bad for one day. Nor one country. Nor one group.
