May 31 - Doriel, Eli W-B, Jeff

On Sunday morning we went to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum, which is the largest one in the world.  We were led through the museum by a tour guide and were able to go to the main museum and the children's memorial.  The beginning of the museum focused on how things were before the Holocaust and the rest of the museum was in chronological order until the Holocaust ended.  It was an extremely emotional experience and each of us was particularly moved by certain aspects of it.  The end of the museum was a cicurlar, multi-level room with binders of survivors' stories, and in the middle are pictures of Holocaust victims.  After the museum and the children's memorial, we had a group discussion about our reflections of the museum and our personal experiences with antisemitism.  

After Yad Vashem, we ate lunch at a strip mall (mostly falafel and shwarma) and then went to Har Herzl, which is the IDF memorial site.  One of the most emotional times of this trip was hearing our Israelis' personal connections to people who were killed at war.  One particularly moving moment was when Tani, one of the Israelis who joined the trip, tearfully spoke about one of his friends who was killed.

We then spent some time at Ben Yehuda Street where we went shopping for food, souvenirs, and questionable cane/swords.  After, we drove to the Negev and stayed at the Kramim Kibbutz and had dinner and played fun icebreaker games.  We also celebrated Dana's birthday and participated in games led by our Israelis.  The first was a blindfolded taste test with Israeli foods and the next was a game where we had to dress up in the soldier uniforms after which we went to sleep in preperation for an early hike up mount Masada. We are now signing off from Avia, our Tel Aviv hotel.  Sababa! 

Doriel, Jeff, Eli.