Day 2: Exploring Jerusalem!

So we started off our first full day in Israel by going to mount Herzl, a mountain where most deceased Israeli soldiers are buried.  We visited a few of the soldiers grave sites  including Michael Levine's, an American soldier who came to Israel when he was our age and fell completely inlove with the country. When he got a bit older, he decided that he wanted to serve in the army. He came home in 2006 and then found out that all of his army brothers were fighting in the Lebanon war and felt the need to be back there fighting with him. Unfortunately he didn't make it.  This was a story that touched us all since we could all relate to Michael in certain ways. We thena spoke about how heroes and we realized that heroes do amazing things for our world which everyone recognized. We also discussed how just little things can make a small difference.  We then went on to visiting the graves of other important people including the late prime ministers.

Next we visited the Herzl museum and learnt all about the man who was so passionate about having a Jewish state. In this museum, we watches a film made up of several clips which explained how Herzl got to creating Israel. Personally, I didn't know a lot about Herzl was before walking into this museum, but once I left I felt like I knew him.

We then visited Yad Vashem, the holocaust museum. We were extremely lucky since we had one of the most amazing guides with us throughout our visit. As we entered this museum, our guide presented us with a challenge; to remember the name and story of one person that touched us. This museum was so moving and the guide really made the experience inspirational. He made us all think about what a hero really is, how a sad women smiling can make so many other people happy, making her a heroine. At the end of this museum we all realized how important it is to remember someone's name and story because that's all they have left. 

After the museum, we went on to Yehuda market. There were so many people there since it was a Friday afternoon and it was a really great experience. It allowed us to get a different taste of Israeli culture. Since it was Shabbat, we went to an orthodox synagogue in Jerusalem and had a Friday night service. The service was followed by a delicious dinner and our nightly magal laila.

By: Leanne Lemish