Floating in the Dead Sea. Its 30% salt content (as opposed to 3% in the Pacific Ocean) ensured that no matter how heavy the body (in my case, getting heavier and heavier with each delicious meal) we floated. Boy, was it cold! So cold, in fact, that we made quick work of the floating. Six …
Or Ami Israel Trip Participants blog on through Israel. Teen Andrew Gurewitz writes: I had a great time in the jeep ride through Maktesh Ramon. Well really they were a land rover. Today it is poring rain as we drive through the desert. The jeeps went all off road. One of the jeeps almost fell …
Bruce Sallan writes: While I know it’s a spiritual coincidence, I love the irony of our two back-to-back days in Jerusalem…days of contrasts. First was the contrast of going to Yad Vashem, followed by the Mahane Yehuda open-air marketplace and then, we had the unplanned contrast of today. Arnie and I detoured from the group, …
There is a rabbinic notion about descending from heights. Yerida l’shem aliyah, they call it. Descent for the purpose of ascent. Arising out of the experience of our Biblical ancestors of leaving the Holy Land – from Abraham and Sarah to the generation who left the famine in Canaan for Egypt, this precept reminds us …
We are driving down to Masada. Jonathon Wolfson contemplates leaving the holy city of Jerusalem:As we leave Jerusalem, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I am sad to be leaving this spiritual place, this heart of the Jewish homeland. We have spent an amazing five days exploring and learning about this special place. On …
So many pictures. So little time to post. Here’s a partial group shot, some tasty elongated kiwi, a Daniel Statue at the Israel Museum, Rach and Yonina reconnecting, and the group outside Jaffa Gate.
Our Sunday began walking in the dimly lit passages of the tunnel that runs along the base of the Temple Mount. Our touring Sunday concluded as Rabbi Uri Regev, head of the World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ), challenged us to live up to the ideals of Congregation Or Ami’s name (“Light of My People”) …
Following a Havdala ceremony to end Shabbat and a surprise cake and candles for this Rabbinic Birthday Boy, we shared dinner with Lucille and Ryan Goldin at the Rimon Café, just off Ben Yehuda Street (Paul Goldin stayed back to recover from a bad cold). We chose Rimon Café upon discovering that Michelle’s favorite Aroma …
I am thrilled and overjoyed to be back in Israel – and I am so grateful to Congregation Or Ami for welcoming me with open arms on this trip! Returning to Jerusalem, where I recently lived for my first year of graduate school at Hebrew Union College has been both wonderful and challenging: I loved …
We greeted the Shabbat bride beautifully. In Jerusalemite tradition, we meandered through the crowded noisy alleyways of Machane Yehuda, witnessing the cacophony of Jewish communal life: sellers hawking their brightly colored fruits and varieties of nuts and spices, fish salesmen showing their still-flopping catches, bakeries offering the most delicious still-hot challot and burekas. After changing, …
6:30 am. All’s quiet on the Israeli front – or at least here in my darkened hotel room. This will be the fourth birthday I have spent in Israel. Birthdays post-High School on the Reform Leadership Machon and during the first year of Rabbinical School were part of year-long programs. A birthday present trip in …
Random pictures, powerful memories from some really wonderful days in Jerusalem. From the Cardo to the Kotel to Delicious Falafel.
Trip participant Bruce Sallan writes:A day of juxtaposition. The morning at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and museum; the afternoon at the pre-Shabbat chaos of Machane Yehuda, Jerusalem’s famous open-air market. We walked through the new Yad Vashem museum, opened approximately 18 months ago, along with swarms of others, mostly youth groups on birth-right trips. …
The mystery deepens in the middle of the night. At 3:27 pm California time, it is merely 1:27 am (in the MORNING) in Jerusalem. Sitting in the lobby, I note with exhaustion the hordes of energetic college students on the Hillel Birthright trip have taken over the hotel cafe. At first glance, aside from the …
We arrived. Tired but excited. Once passing through customs, we drove the back route to Jerusalem so we could pass by Modi’in. Our first glimpse of Jewish history coming alive: in Modi’in, brave Mattathias rallied those who refused to bow down to King Antiochus’ idols and together they fought the Assyrian soldiers sent out to …