Thursday, June 27, Welcome to Israel

Today was a great day!  These are words that you are going to hear a lot during this trip.  After more than 2 years of planning today was the official beginning of our trip!  It is so exciting to be officially on this journey together as a community.  But before we get to that, let’s begin with…

BREAKFAST! 

Not a bad view to accompany a wonderful meal!  After breakfast, we had a few hours before the tour began.  Many of our TAE families made their way to the beautiful beach on the Mediterranean to relax and enjoy the water and the sun. 

In the afternoon we welcomed our final travelers who arrived on the last flight in and we were ready to go.  I was so excited to introduce our group to Uri, an incredible educator who will be guiding and teaching us all about Israel.  I have worked with Uri before and know that each and every person on the trip will fall in love with him as they did 4 years ago when he led our last family trip to Israel.  He becomes a part of our family.  I am so grateful to be working alongside my good friend again!  

We loaded our bus and noticed the sign on the front…

It didn’t take long for people to appreciate Uri’s knowledge as we made our way on our bus to our first stop, the ancient port of Jaffa, and began to understand the thousands of years of history that occurred in that place.  

We made our way through the staircases and alleyways to the Jaffa overlook to get our first look at the grand city of Tel Aviv, or the Big Orange as it is called.  

This gave us our first chance to get our first of many group photos, this time with the Tel Aviv skyline in the backdrop. 

Following this, we made our way to our bus and met Mati, our bus driver.  On the way we stopped at a theatre located in Old Jaffa.

This theatre, the Arab-Hebrew Theatre has Israeli actors on stage with Arab actors.  It is funny, but we rarely hear about such collaborative efforts between our two communities.  Uri reminded us that in Jaffa, there are a multitude of people living right next to each other.  He pointed out that on one corner there was a Mosque, and right across the street there was a synagogue.  These sparks of light are the hope for a peaceful future.  Don't get me wrong.  There is still much work to do.  But there are sparks of light.  I hope we can add to those sparks of light as a community.  

Mati carefully navigates our bus through the narrow streets to Tel Aviv’s Yemenite Quarter and took us to our welcome dinner at Maganda.  

The food was delicious!  I do not think anyone left this meal hungry (although I know some chose to go out for some ice cream afterwards!).  Uri gave us an overview of the trip and the hope that Israel not just be a place to ooh and awe at the sites, not just a place to experience the history of our people, to learn our story, but to discover more about ourselves.  Israel can change the way we interact with the world.  I can’t wait to see the impact she has on each of our travelers.  Today was a great day…  Tomorrow will be even better!