Sababus! Day 1 & 2

Day 1 and 2:
Greetings from Israel! The first two days of our birthright trip were full of traveling, sightseeing, and getting to know one another. After a long ten-hour flight from JFK, the 39 participants from Amherst, Williams, Wellesley, and a few other schools met up with our tour guide Michal, our medic Roi, and our seven awesome Israeli soldiers: Bat El, Shai, Nitzan, Natan, Amir, Omri and Shachar. We all boarded bus 86 (affectionately known as Bus Sababa, or "Sababus" from our daily Hebrew word of the day) and headed north to the Golan Heights. After a quick stop for welcomes and massages on Tel Israel, we reached our first destination - Kibbutz Afik, our home for the first three days. We me our roommates, ate a communal dinner in the kibbutz dining hall, and then got some much-needed sleep and relaxation time.

For our first full day in Israel, we traveled past the Sea of Galilee, or the "Kinneret" to Tzfat, one of Israel's holiest cities and the birthplace of Kaballah. Despite the rain, the city was beautiful. We got the chance to hear about Israel from the perpective of a deeply spiritual artist who moved to Israel from Detroit, Michigan, and told us how Kaballah and Israel is like, "so... totally... awesome... it like, blew our minds..." Needless to say, we'll remember Avraham for the rest of the trip. After some quick shopping time in the streets of Tzfat, we headed back to the Kibbutz for shabbat dinner and some reflection time. It was great to hear everyone's touching stories about past shabbats. Later, we got the chance to ask questions of our Israeli participants about their lives in Israel. Then, it was time to hang out at the local kibbutz pub and to finally sleep off some residual jet lag. Overall, the first two days here have been packed with fun experiences and lots of time to get to know each other. Sababa!

Hannah Greenwald