Belated post from Friday

(From Friday in Jerusalem)

By Daniel

Blog post
The hostel we got to sleep at last night had exceptionally comfortable beds,quality mattresses that most seemed to get great sleep on. For our breakfast in the morning the fellows and I appreciated the wide range of food options available to eat. There was plenty of carbs and vegetables available.

 We headed out after breakfast around 8:15. On the morning bus trip Emily introduced the days activities as well as her quote of the day. After that summary Emily gave an in depth introduction and background information to our first activity, Mt Herzl. Mt herzl is one of the foremost military and political cemeteries in Israel and in the whole world. Our guide explained many important political graves starting with Herzl's then we got to see Prime Ministers and presidents and other politicians that greatly affected Israel. At that point we visited the military section of the cemetery. It was incomprehensible the amount of young soldiers that were represented in this massive cemetery. However our guide was able to bring the human aspect of the cemetery out by sharing personal stories of those that laid to rest there. Something optional, however something that everyone chose to do was lighting a candle and putting it in a soldiers Candlebox. 

From this powerful yet emotional journey we ventured over to another emotionally charged landmark. This landmark is the Holocaust Memorial and museum called Yad vashem. Our guide for this memorial was a Swedish lady named Hedy. She was extremely knowledgeable and upbeat and was able to present the information in an articulate manner. While this museum was incredibly sad, she managed to make it feel like there is hope and a purpose for survival for the Jewish nation. Similar to the approach of the cemetery, we were immersed in the museum by learning personal stories of those that helped Jews during the Holocaust and those that perished during the Holocaust. I personally, was overwhelmed with the amount of personal and historical artifacts that they had amassed at this gigantic memorial. I have been to Holocaust Memorials before, like the one in Washington DC but this was on a completely different level. An approach that Hedy employed was to focus less on the traumatic, brutal things that occurred during the Holocaust and more on the events leading up to it and the stories that happened within. While people were quite tired from the 2 1/2 hour tour and mentally exhausted from bustling through an enormous crowd, it was clear that everyone had taken a meaningful message out of that experience. 

Next: Armed with 35 shekels we set out to the shuk in Jerusalem to eat lunch and enjoy the market atmosphere. I enjoyed falafel as well as fresh challah and yummy candy. Many people took advantage of the various souvenir vendors to purchase elephant pants and various other gifts.I thoroughly enjoyed this experience and because Jews that actually live there shopped at this market, it felt like a real, genuine experience. After this lunch outing, We drove back to the hotel for Shabbat prep. Many people took time to get ready and dressed in presentable clothing, as well as many others took time to nap and relax with friends. After that, we headed to the old city for shabbat candlelighting ceremony. It was brief but the singing that we participated in was nice. Then we walked over to the Kotel. Being Kabbalat Shabbat, The site of this holy wall was squeezed full with many, many people. It's a large number of orthodox Jews as well as people from around the world that came to see this. We got a period of time to go to the wall and experience it. Although I did visit Israel before I was with people I know and I trust, and I was actually able to see a small section of the wall that I had never visited before. We went back to the site of where we lit the candles and sat down for a white tablecloth dinner. While we were waiting for dinner, we met two other cohorts, one from Montreal and one from South Africa. It was cool to see the diversity and dynamic people that diller had brought together.I personally really enjoyed the food that they had to serve us. The last thing we did in this jampacked day was walk on a partially silent and partially guided discussion walk from the old city back to our hostel. The old city was beautiful at night, I really enjoyed the deep discussions that I was able to get on the walk back. We came back late but not much later than we would've gone to bed anyways. 
Daniel moll