Two days ago we spent time in Tel Aviv and Yaffo, two of the most interesting and contrasting cities in Israel. As we learned from our guide Lior, the former is only 104 years old and originated as a satellite neighborhood of the latter, but you would hardly know it from today’s high-rises and busy beaches. It felt distinctly different from Jerusalem and helped to illustrate the extraordinary diversity of Israel.
My most meaningful experience, however, seemed far from the tree-lined
boulevards of Tel Aviv or the sunny alleys of Yaffo. It took place in a piece
of history from 1948: Independence Hall. We began by watching a movie and
hearing from our guide about the founding of the State of Israel. It was, and
still is now, difficult to understand how truly recent this was; in 1948, when my
own grandmother was 35.
But it was not difficult to understand or to feel the
joy, desperation, and sheer chutzpah with which David Ben-Gurion and other
Zionist leaders fulfilled the dream of self-determination for the Jewish
people. We learned that the invitations for the independence ceremony did not
go out until a day before, that the name of the future Jewish state was not
decided until an hour before it was declared, and that the Declaration of
Independence read by Ben-Gurion was merely on pieces of paper in his own
handwriting. Immediately after the parades stopped early the next morning, the new state was attacked by four Arab armies. All of this just less than three
years after the Holocaust. As we sat in the room listening to the story of Israel’s
founding, the incredibility of it all really was palpable.
We ended our experience in Independence Hall by listening to an original
recording of Ben-Gurion at the ceremony of 1948. I didn’t understand a word of
the Hebrew he spoke, but I understood every bit of what he was feeling that
afternoon 65 years ago. As the recording finished, the entire room erupted into
song with Israel’s national anthem, the Hatikvah. I have never felt more
connected to Israel or its history. Its English translation is entitled
‘The Hope’- something Israel was
founded upon, and something I (and many others) still feel today. The rest of
the day was spent exploring the market in Yaffo, the beach in Tel Aviv, and the
history contained in each street and alleyway of both cities. In the evening we
drove to a nearby Kibbutz - which felt very uniquely Israeli - where we ate
dinner and spent the night. It was a day full of learning, exploring, and most
of all feeling an emotional connection to this land.
B’shalom,
Ari Goldstein
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