Night Tiyul

Sun rising as we finished our hike

On Sunday we woke up at 1am to go on a 2 hour drive to the Negev desert to Nachal Chaverim.  The Theme of the tiyul was from Choshech l'Or (from darkness to light). The hike started at 4am. It was pitch black outside. All we could see were the very evident stars above us. We didn't use any flashlights during the hike. 

We all used our night vision and trust in each other. It was a silent hike, not talking. You couldn't hear anything. After hiking for an hour and a half, we broke off into ICC classes and talked about silence in darkness and relating dark to light to our selves. After the moving discussion we had 35 minutes to our selves to watch the sunrise and beautiful mountains. It was absolutely beautiful. 

Betsalels ICC class picture after hike in the Negev (I'm on the bottom far right)

During the middle of the hike 

We then visited David and Paula Ben Gurion's grave. We also visited their home on Kibbutz S'de Boker (across from where we did Gadna). We saw his house and learned about his daily routines, including a daily headstand. 

We then got back to the Chava and were all exhausted. We had free time all afternoon. 

Where Ben Gurion lived in the Negev

Ben Gurion doing his daily headstand 

David and Paula Ben-Gurions house in the background 

Journalism project

Instead of going on a Tiyul on Tuesday, we had an Israel Core Course project. We were assigned to different groups and chose topics to write articles on. We chose the topic of the poor of Jerusalem. We went to the wealthy areas of King David and Mamilla to interview people and see what they thought of the topic. 

We all had a chance to practice our Hebrew as we interviewed different people. When we got back to the Chava, we formed our article as a Keynote and presented it as if we were presenting our article to a 'real' newspaper. Betsalel (our ICC teacher acted as the editor). We all had a great time interviewing people and writing the article. 

Below is a screenshot of the article. It is probably not readable, but I thought I'd include it anyway. 

Yom Hashoa

I'm a little behind on my blog postings. It has been a busy month on TRY. 

On Erev Yom Hashoa, Sunday evening we went to a cermemony open to everyone on our campus, Chavat Hanoar Hatzioni. The ceremony was all in Hebrew, songs and poems were recited. 

We had a special exhibition the following morning. Everyone chose a creative way to express and summarize their experience in Poland. People showed photography, music, paintings, and videos. I chose to make a cookbook full of recipes and stories. 

We later walked to a busy street to hear the siren sound for two minutes. The majority of the cars pulled over to the side of the road and the drivers got out and stood in silence, traffic stopped. We held a ceremony in the park where TRYers shared their personal family stories and writings. It was a moving ceremony, especially after being in Poland. 

In the evening we heard Jonah's grandparents; Larry and Ala Gamulka who shared with us their personal story from the Holocaust and pre-state Israel.

More blog posts coming up.