Friday Oct 28th

Yad Va'Shem
Hazy Flint (our Guide) and Rich

Head phones at Yad Va'Shem

Garden of the Righteous

Entrance to Yad Va'Shem

Our view when we exited Yad Va'Shem

Ghetto of the children

Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery

Mahane Yauda Market as Shabbat is to start

The annoucement that the shops most close for Shabbat

He walked the entire market

Shabbat at the Western Wall

deep in prayer

Shabbat dinner at the Colony in Jerusalem

October 28, 2011 Friday – Shabbat in Jerusalem

The title of our itinerary for today is MEMORY & SACRIFICE – SPIRITUAL RENEWAL
TOWARD SHABBAT.

We began our day with a visit to Yad Va’Shem – the Holocaust Memorial Museum,
located atop Har HaZikaron, literally the “hill of Memory”. It was established in 1953, as the world center for documentation, research and commemoration of the Holocaust. Lenny and I were here twice before – the first time was 23 years ago and the last time was 17 years ago. The Children’s Memorial was just opened a short time.

Despite being here twice, we were overwhelmed with emotion as we toured the museum for over four hours with our wonderful guide, Hazy Flint. Rich knew her through his
daughter Lisa and grandchildren and from a mission he led two years ago. Hazy exposed us to the Garden of Righteous Gentiles (including Oscar Schindler),Ghetto life, deportations, Einsattzgrupen (Nazi mobile killing units),concentration camps and the crematoriums and much more. She expertly drew out our inner feelings as she made each picture of each person come to life. Not once did anyone complain about standing on our feet for that whole time. I was overtaken with emotion when we stopped to see some original notes left by Jews from Lodz, Poland, the city near where my maternal grandparents were born. We also saw such information about the ship, Exodus, which brought many Jews to then what was known as Palestine. Some of Lenny’s Blender side of the family came here on this ship. It was very moving and disturbing at the same time.

We also visited briefly the gallery which is filled with art from survivors but
due to time constraints, we were really unable to view it – just take a peak.
The Children’s Memorial was as moving as ever – so simple with its five candles
shooting out 1.5 million lights in remembrance of all the children who perished in the Holocaust. As crowds walk silently through this dark exhibit with it lights above, the names of each child are read one by one with their age at the time of their death. When we came out into the outside, it took a few minutes for our group to compose themselves. Lenny and I walked together hand in hand quietly and looked out over Jerusalem for a few minutes before joining our group for our walk up to the Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery. Here too, we could only take a short peak at all the gravesites and memorials spread out in the hills over Jerusalem.

A good break from the solemn feelings of the visit to Yad Va’Shem was a lunch
stop at an Israeli restaurant and as usual we ate too much, tempted by the huge
spread placed in front of us. A quick stop at Mahane Yehuda Market where we saw people rushing about buying last minute fruits, vegetables and flowers to prepare for Shabbat and we saw a “Black Hat” blowing a trumpet to herald in the start of Shabbat and to alert people to head home and businesses to close. The market is an exotic blur of colors, scents and sounds. The market has been around for over a century and gives you a great peak into Israeli culture. The market is between Jaffa Rd. and Agrippas Street.

A trip to the wall to welcome in Shabbat ended our tour for the day. The remains
of the external retaining wall of the Second Temple, destroyed in 70 CE, this site is considered the most sacred in Judaism and is the most visited site in Jerusalem.
The site draws visitors of all faiths. Hundreds and hundreds of people were there.
Each member of our group had prepared special prayers on small pieces of paper
to place in the cracks in the wall. We were all moved by the experience of
being there at the start of Shabbat. Lenny and I placed notes and prayers there
for our cousin Joyce Oppen and friends; Ruth Siegal and her granddaughter,
Steve Jablo and Eliot Charnas. We were very emotional about it.

Crazy Rich danced and sang with the Israeli Scouts. We returned to our hotel for a few minutes of R&R. It was really 2 hours but Rich did not want us to let others know he let up his normally full day with a 2 hours break. We told him we would keep his secret.

Dinner tonight is at the Colony restaurant. It was a cut above. It had a very nice ambiance and a large wide rectangular table that easily accommodated our group. We honored David, our bus driver at dinner by putting him in the center of our group picture.

ON TO MASSADA AND THE DEAD SEA TOMORROW!!!

Thursday October27th

We were there the day before!!!
Avraham Infeld talk

View of old city and young couple

The old city

Rich with Jerusalem in the background

Ophir giving us a history lesson

Anne and Annette

Bobbie goes for Ophir

group at view point of the old city

our bus

Supportive Community for the Elderly a JDC project

The "father" of the support group

our hero

our group and there group

here she is again

The Knesset visit

Best Falafel we had!!!

Our special bullet/bomb proof bus

General Nehemia (retired)

was with us through out the trip

and made it a special trip

Dani Dayan west bank settler

talk about the West Bank city of Ofra

The hill just right of center is where Jacob of Jacob's ladder stood

according to the Torah

seen from the city of Ofra

Synagogue in Ofra

inside the Synagogue

View from our Jerusalem hotel room of the old city

Dinner with former Minister of the PLO

October 27th Thursday

Today was titled “ Jurusalem the Epicenter of Israel’s Dillemas”.

Reports in the paper and online were that rockets were fired from Gaza into the city of
Rohovath last night. This city north of Gaza and not far from where we were on
Sunday. Israel responded by firing into Gaza later in the day. It hit us that
the dilemmas are real as are the horror of war.

We started the day with breakfast which consisted of many choices that we really enjoyed. Our first meeting was with Avraham Infeld. Among his many credentials was that he was the head of Hillel International. We thought every college student in the US should hear from him.
He was outstanding. He was thoughtful, humorous, engaging, convincing and
talked from his sole. He lead us through a discussion that being Jewish is not
religion but rather being a people that are bound together by the memories of
our past. We are a family that takes care of each other. His work can be seen at
www.5leggedtable.org

We drove through Jerusalem with a stop at a spectacular view of the old city. Ofer
not only told us about what we were looking at but gave us a history lesson. He
is amazing.

We then went to the Supportive Community for the Elderly a JDC project. This
program allows elderly people to stay in their own homes while being supported
for social, medical, emergency and handyman services. He heard from the
professionals and the “father” of the group who responds to the needs of the
people. He spoke about changing light bulbs, fixing toilets to helping people
purchase hot water systems. He then installs it for them. The highlight was
hearing from 6 elderly people praise the program and the fellow who they call
the “father” of their support group. It was a very heart warming session for
all of us.

Our next stop was the Knesset. With passports in hand and tight security we entered
the building. We meet with Benny Begin a Knesset Minister and son of the former
Prime Minister. We talked to us about the current political and international
status of Israel. He was very open and willing to express his thoughts and
opinions. He also answered our questions ranging from the current government, Gaza, the settlements and US media coverage to name a few. We then toured the building.

We had a late lunch about 2:00pm of falafel and shwarma.

We the transferred to a bullet proof bus for our drive into the West Bank/Judea.
We went to the city of Ofra which sits which has 3 Arab cities surrounding it.
We got a bus tour of the area with Dani Dayan. He pointed out the Jewish
historical sites in the area. This included where Abraham walked and where the
Jacob’s ladder story came from and others. He was justifying his right to live
on the West Bank land to us.

We returned the city of Ofra and met with the Rabbi of the city, Rabbi Avraham Gisser. He told us his personal story of why he came to the area and why he plans to stay. Their homes are modest but modern. The main Synagogue is actually three different types. He told us he
thinks he is in paradise. He truly seemed to have no concern about the Arab villages around him
for himself, his family or for the people living in his city. He sees only a continuation of the present situation; that is Jews and Arabs living together in the land but separate. He has no solution for this and says time will be needed to change the minds of the Arabs. He really believes in his position. People came in for evening services and seemed very content. It was
hard for us to understand their devotion to their position. We were riding in
our bullet proof bus while they live there all the time.

The Rabbi is an idealist. He has created a small initiative to bring Arabs and Jews together in the area. He told us that after Ramadan, they invited several leaders of the closeby dinner to his home to break their fast with a meal. They came and had a dialogue and an agreement to try to continue to work for peace. We cannot understand how this can happen. Arabs need permits to visit the Jewish settlements and Jews need permits to visit the Arab towns. It is all very complicated.

Many people napped on the bus ride back to Jerusalem. Once again the
free time that we were promised, vanished into thin air. Some of us stayed up to hear Nehemia talk about our experience and to also express our opinions. Our brains are working overtime with troubled thoughts and perhaps a small thread of optimism. We returned to the hotel at 6:30 and needed to be ready to receive our dinner guest in just one hour.

Our dinner was in a private room at the hotel with Ashraf Ajrami, former Minister to the Palestinian prisoners. He, himself was in an Israeli
prison for 12 years. He told us that he was provided with TV, books, newspapers, learned Hebrew and studied every day. He was a very polished speaker. Our group asked some very visceral questions: When will you recognize the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish State?
Are you concerned about Hamas taking over and becoming even more hostile? How will the Arabs live in the Jewish State and why would they want to be here at all? Why won’t the
Arab countries absorb the refugees? We questioned him about the refugees and the “Right of Return”.

He talked about the issues from the PLO point of view and never agreed that the Palestinians would accept Israel as a Jewish State before an agreement about a two state solution with
the 67 borders and land swaps included. He blamed Israel for stopping the peace process. He also said that the PLO wanted Israel to absorb another 200,000 refugees into Israel. They also want the land swap near East Jerusalem to be at 1.5% for the Arabs and 4.5% for the Israelis.
Our group was polite and civil but shocked. We didn’t feel good about what he said and most of us felt that he was sincere in his thoughts but not believable in any way.

Today was truly a day of dilemmas and it showed how complex and fragile the situation in Israel truly is.

Wednesday Oct 26th

Tank unit in the Golan
Tank

soldiers in the tank unit

just some talk

Geri and Nehemia

Geri and the soldiers

She has protection

Bruce, Janet and soldiers

Rich and Geri--- on top of the world

Bobbie, Don, Rich and Geri and one tank

Tank unit

Arab city not far from the tank unit

We saw mine fields

Bruce takes pictures in the safety of the bus

Here they are again

Druze village we stopped at

another view of the village

Bedouin/Muslim memorial for those that died fighting for Israel

Inside the Memorial

Water purification plant

Water plant entrance

A gift to us from the Blue and White Gallery

we gave it to Ophir for his children before we left.

View from our hotel room of the old city

Mickey Rosenthal representative from the Israeli police

Mickey gave a very eye opening speech

group picture ith Mickey

Mickey says goodbye

October
26, 2011 – Wednesday
This is our three breakfast day, beginning with our 5:00 wake-up call and a light
breakfast (HAH!) of amazing sandwiches, fruits and vegetables and cappuccino.

After breakfast, we drove to the Golan Heights where we brought hot barekas for
breakfast to the Israeli tank corps, located within feet of the Syrian border. We found ourselves literally standing within four feet of a field filled with land mines. We stood on a hill and looked over the Syrian town complete with Hamas and new apartment buildings. The head of
the corps was 28 years old and had just gotten married on Tuesday. Many of the kids were 18 to 21 years old. They proudly allowed us to climb on their tanks and took their pictures with us.
It was a wonderful and moving experience full of joy and sorrow at the
same time. As I am writing this, with Rich’s input, we are passing an F-16 fighter jet being towed to its destination, another exciting moment and one that most Israelis simply take for
granted.

Our third breakfast was in Beit Jan, a Druze village in the Golan. Despite being totally full from our first two breakfasts, at 9:30, we all dug in to the delicious spread that they prepared
for us. There were egg white omelets made with spinach and olive oil, Druze bread with cheeses and homemade preserves and the most delicious buckwheat pilaf. Then we had a talk and discussion with the mayor of the town who spoke about reincarnation and his loyalty and military service for the country of Israel.

We had a quick roadside stop at a small park with a memorial to the 178
Bedouin/Muslim soldiers who died defending Israel in various wars. This was an interesting stop.

The last stop of our day was at the “Hamobil Haartzi-The National Water Carrier of
Israel”. The plant purifies water for the country from the Sea of Galilee using
charcoal filters, chemicals and fish. We are now on the Highway 6 for our 2.5
hour drive to Jerusalem where we will be staying at the David Citadel.

This evening, MickeyRosenthal, the representative of the Israeli chief of police, Yohanan Danino, who is a personal friend of Rich’s family, joined us for dinner at the Olive and
Fish Restaurant. He spoke to us about the work of the Israel police in dealing with threats to Israel in the form of terrorist. He gave some descriptions of recent cases they have solved. He also talked about the many police that are on the streets of Israel cities and are able to respond in minutes to threats. For example if a store owner reports a suspicious package is seen in front of their shop, police will be there in minutes coming from various directions to deal with the situation. We heard how they work on the borders, in prisons and they even handled the transfer of Gilad Shalit. He also talked about the close cooperation they have with the US
from the CIA, FBI and anti terrorist organizations.