Hearts fill of anticipation, 12 young Netzerniks set off for Israel. The journey began
with an 8 hour marathon overnight in Addis Ababa’ s “ enormous” airport. Tired,
drained and rather smelly, we arrived in Jerusalem just in time to witness our first
sunset over the Holy Land. After an interesting marriage proposal of 15 camels
from a local shouk merchant, some intense haggling sessions for curios and an epic
Reform Shabbat Service at Kol Haneshama shul, our first taste of this eccentric city
was a zesty one. Tel Aviv was, well hot. After a scavenger hunt consisting of getting
free gifts, translating hilarious sentences and eating leftovers from different peoples
plates , we realised this vibey, dynamic city was no push over.
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Next came our adventure down south. We created eco friendly mud bricks on kibbutz
Lotan, woke up at 3am to climb mount Masada and with stinging cuts and bruised
knees made our way to the Dead Sea for a long and painful swim. The Ein Gedi hike,
even in the blistering heat was nothing compared to the strenuous hike up Masada
but splashing around under the waterfalls in Ein Gedi could never have been more
welcome.
After a couple of days down south visiting a Bedouin village and riding the iconic
desert camels we made our way up north to experience a minority culture of a
different kind – the Druze community near Haifa. One of the most incredible
experiences we had was celebrating Simchat Torah at Kibbutz Har Chalutz.
Following the celebration we went off with our host families to sample Israeli home
life, which turned out to be quite entertaining!
As the itinerary list was like a never-ending story and each experience was as
memorable as the next we can only mention a few things here; eating in pitch black
darkness in the Na Laga’ at Theatre whilst being served by blind people; touring the
old city of Jaffa; visiting Save a Child’ s Heart in Tel Aviv, listening to the history
of the Golan Heights; explored the caves of Rosh Hanikra and the Kotel tunnels of
David in Jerusalem and being moved to tears in Yad Vashem are just a few of the
lessons we learned and memories we made.
The time eventually came for us to gather up our dirty clothes, copious amounts
of halva and hippy pants, ready to depart for Africa. Leaving was by far one of the
saddest moments of the tour, some of us were even as desperate to tell the madrichim
to lose our passports in order to stay, and unfortunately this wasn’ t the case. As we
bordered the plane we looked out the window at this beautiful, phenomenal and
complex country we were leaving behind. Although this was merely a small slice of
the amazing country, we hope return to Israel one day. It definitely left an indelible
impression.