Day 6

After a 7:30 AM breakfast, we loaded the bus for Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial and Museum in Jerusalem. Yad Vashem was an incredible experience to say the least. To start off the tour, we watched a documentary on a Holocaust survivor who had a remarkable story to share. This was very moving for everyone. We than were toured through the museum with a guide. Following the tour, we had a group reflection and finished this event by reciting the kaddish. Although many people in the group had their own feelings and emotions afterwards, there was definitely a universal feeling of sadness.

After Yad Vashem, we went to a local mall where we ate lunch and stocked up on snacks like pomelos, Bamba, chocolate milk in a bag and pop rocks chocolate.

Then, we headed south to the Negev, the desert, to go to David Ben-Gurion’s grave in Sde Boker. Before walking over to the actual grave site, Elaun gave a very insightful lecture on the history of Ben-Gurion himself and why it is important to visit his grave sight. Ben-Gurion’s grave sight was not only the place in which we may have seen the best sunset yet, but it was also a very meaningful experience because of who he was and what he stood for. Each of us paid our respects and than were lucky to hear another group sing Hatikva at the grave sight. This was just amazing!

After dinner at the hotel in Sde Boker, we had a program in which we discussed what we feel are the more and less important things in being Jewish. This discussion required each of us to share our feelings on what we feel is important and what is not important in relations to being Jewish and living a Jewish lifestyle. It was a very cool experience and everyone really got to express their feelings within the discussion.

All in all, it was another great day in Israel on our Birthright Israel and we greatly looking forward to the upcoming days.