Updated: Sunday, May 13, 2008 - 12:00 AM

pictures: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4

Wednesday May 07, 2008

When all of our class arrived at the Memphis airport, all our cheeks hurt from smiling so much for the cameras. After the pictures, Moreh Knafo and Morah Almalem gave us our Travel Agents envelope with our passports in it. Then Mrs. Meyers gave us our boarding passes. After we all checked in and said goodbye to our parents we all went through security. Ashley was stopped at security because she didn’t take her Kabbalah bracelet off. After, we all walked to our gate and waited two hours until our plane arrived. When we finally got on our plane, it was so small! The seats went one, two, one, two, and so on. By the time our plane took off, we were all situated in our seats. The plane was so hot! Our air conditioners were on full blast, but it didn’t help a lot. In one hour after we took off, everyone was listening to his or her ipods, reading magazines, sleeping, or talking. We finally got over it being so hot, and had a semi-bumpy ride. It just so happened it was one of the flight attendants birthdays, so we all sang happy birthday to her. At the end of the flight, after we smoothly landed in Newark, the flight attendant announced, “Have a fun class trip!” When we all got Young Travelers Room. After we put our things down in the room, we all went our separate ways to lunch. After everyone was done, we went back to the Young Travelers Room. The room had black couches that are really comfortable around it, which we all relaxed in. The room also has a television, so we watched American Idol, against the boys’ wills.

As we were heading to the gate we met 2 tourists that sat with all our group at the gate , playing guitar and singing songs…it was so cool!
The flight was great and we all sat next to each other, listening to songs and watching movies.
When we landed in Israel we were very excited.we went together through the passport check in, and took our luggage. As we exited the terminal, we were welcomed by the Ramah tour guide , by St. Louis’ students and by Mr. Notowich- Samantha’s father. He helped Andrew and Ashley to charge their Israeli cell phone, and then we went up on the bus, heading north to Kibbutz Hanaton.we got our rooms and we put our luggage in the room and went to eat our first Israeli dinner. The food was delicious.
After that we had an orientation activity with the St. Louis group, and we got to know each of the students.
Then, at 9pm, we traveled 40 minutes to the city of Tiberias to celebrate the  sixtieth Independece day. It was amazing. There were so many people, and some Israeli singers performed , followed by a long fireworks show.we were very tired but also excited about the chance to celebrate this days with the city of Tiberias.
We got back to the Kibbutz at midnight, and tommorow we suppose to wake up at 7am, and have a fun day, visiting an open airforce base, and then, meet other solomon schechter schools.

Monali

Thursday, May 8, ‏2008‏

Today we started off with a Torah service. The Memphis Schechter kids lead, but tomorrow it will be St. Louis’s turn. After prayers and breakfast, our whole group went to an Air Force Army Base. Since it was Yom Ha Atzmaut, there were thousands of people and special events. We got to see different models of jets, planes, helicopters, and missiles. We even got to see a parade of jets and helicopters.

After the base, we headed back to the kibbutz and had a special BBQ and pool party with two other Schechter groups from Connecticut and New Jersey. We swam, ate some good food, and just hung out. Then we headed off to Kibbutz Mishmar Ha’Emek to meet with other Israeli 8th graders like us. Everyone was extremely nice and between our Hebrew and their English, we could carry on full conversations. We all had a great meal, played soccer and “Shalosh Boom”, and enjoyed learning about the differences and similarities between our lives. Tomorrow we are heading to Tzfat and will then again meet up with the teens. And just if you are wondering, all of us are wearing tons of sunscreen and drinking lots of water. Shalom!

Rebecca McAlexander

Friday & Shabbat, May 9-10, 2008

Shalom from Israel,

As we continue our marvelous trip, I look back at the last few days as the a great start of a one of a lifetime experience.

This eighth grade had eight years of education at BSSS, but this trip is causing the students to feel what we all expect from young Jewish adults. The friendships that they form are beyond school experience; the support that they each perform towards their peers is more like a family ties and the learning experience that they had here swings between past, present and future.

After we touched the present of Israel by celebrating the 60th birthday of Israel and meeting the Israeli students at the Kibbutz, we had a sharp turn to the past, when we visited the mystical city of Tzfat. While we walked in the Cardo of Tzfat, Our tour guide asked all of us to stop, close our eyes and touch the stones on the ground and on the walls and try to imagine who are the people that walked on these stones hundreds of years ago. The past came to life in each of our visions and we felt the history of our ancestors right here.

As we continued to the Shabbat experience, we were still confused about were we are… What does being in Israel mean? Does it mean experiencing the past or connecting to the present?

Today we will start with the archeological digs at Beit Guvrin and then will have lunch at a modern Israeli shopping mall. We expect the students to buy their lunch while talking in Hebrew and again, meet and speak with Israelis and enjoy.

Here are some of the experiences as the students continue to write their journals:

Friday morning, we woke up, very tired, and went to Tzfat. We saw holy sights such as the Ari Synagogue in Tzfat , which is very old.  We saw the candle factory with beautiful candles of all shapes and sizes. We saw candles shaped as little frogs and giant houses. They were amazing! Then we drove around to drop us off at our host families. Rebecca, Monali, and I went to stay with Morah Almalem’s family in Ashdod. Morah Almalem and her sister, Chen, took us to the beach and we walked along the coast. We got really wet and climbed over big rocks. We buried our feet in the sand and took lots of pictures. We went back to the house and took showers. We went downstairs to have a Shabbat dinner with Morah Almalem’s family. Her grandmother, grandfather, mother, father, sister, brother, sister-in-law, two nephews, and friend were there. I sat next to her grandmother and she made me try EVERYTHING! It was actually quite good, just different. There were lots of different salads and I think I had a bite of every one. After dinner, we went upstairs and went to bed.

I woke up at 7:46 the next morning and waited three and a half hours for Rebecca and Monali to get up. We went to breakfast downstairs then went shopping with Chen. We bought lots of cute stuff! Then we went to meet the rest of Morah Almalem’s family and we had lunch. We went to the beach and saw the sun set. It was amazingly gorgeous. We went to have dinner and then came to a kibbutz. We are spending the night there now, so, good night!

ZOE ZELONKY

After a long Thursday, everyone woke up on Friday morning to get ready to leave Kibbutz Hannaton. We went to Tzfat to visit the biblical city and to shop. We went to a little Synagogue and to a candle factory. The Israeli children from the Kibbutz met up with us there. We finally ate falafel the first time in Israel. It was so delicious. We were there for about two hours and then we got back on the bus. We drove so long and the bus made four stops to drop everyone to meet their host Shabbats. I went to Sharon’s house for Shabbat with Mallory, Sophie, Andrew, Eli, AJ, Max, and Justin. We met Sharon’s brother – Oshri who was our “supervisor for Shabbat”and we walked to the park with him. We met many Israeli children there and played soccer with them. They were very nice. We communicated both English and Hebrew. It was actually really cool to be talking Hebrew with them and for them to be talking English to us. We then got back and showered and had Shabbat dinner. We got a really good night of sleep and woke up to a breakfast. We had a really good Shabbat lunch afterwards. Then Oshri, Sharon’s brother took us to the beach and we had tons of fun. We then went back to Sharon’s house and showered. Mallory, Sophie, Andrew, Justin, Max, AJ, Eli, and I hung out with the neighbors until Havdallah prayers. After Havdallah we all went out for pizza and Samantha Basar joined us. After dinner we got in a taxi bus for about thirty minutes then came to the Kibbutz. We waited for an hour until the bus with everyone on it will meet up with us. Host Shabbat was so amazing and very fun. It was a great experience.

ASHLEY VOGEL

May 12, 2008

Today was a very interesting day. We took a hike that lasted and hour and half, and was 3.5 miles or around that distance. Although, through all the sweat and people’s fear of heights, there was a gorgeous view from Ein Avdat (where we hiked). We ate lunch near the area of David Ben Gurion’s grave and toured his home at kibbutz Sede Boker. Then, we all went to the Mitzpe Revivim where there was an actor who was very funny and was dressed like an Israeli soldier from the 1940’s. He included us in his act and it was tons of fun. We all send good wishes and love from Israel.