Today we made some changes from our original itinerary and they were all great changes. We started our day meeting Rona, our new guide just for today, who did a wonderful job teaching and connecting with us. Instead of the original hike and cave experience we decided that we had had some amazing hiking and caving experiences already, but, except for the Holocaust Museum, we had not really visited any museums. We went to spend the morning at The Israel Museum and it was fabulous! Not only did we get to see the Dead Sea Scrolls but also the world's smallest Bible engraved on a gold plated silicone chip, the size of a small grain of rice.
At the Israel Museum there were so many exhibits of amazing archeological finds. There were also exhibits about Jewish life- life cycle, holidays and synagogue- from Jewish communities around the world and from different historical periods. The Israel Museum also has an amazing model of Jerusalem from the period of the Second Temple (Roman Empire). This model was at least the size of our atrium and it was made from Jerusalem stone.
We had lunch on the street in a nice neighborhood of Jerusalem called Emek Refa'im. An important ending to our trip was going to Israel's National Cemetery on Mount Herzl. We walked past rows and rows of graves of soldiers who gave their lives to defend Israel. We stopped at the graves of some young heroes and dignitaries and our guide told us their inspiring stories. Some of the graves included Yoni Netanyahu (killed in the Entebbe Rescue), Hannah Senesh (a young woman soldier from Israel during WWII killed by the Nazis), Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin and the father of modern Zionism- Theodor Herzl.
Back at the hotel we finished our Israel trip scavenger hunt and spent some time catching up on journal writing. Dinner was at a really nice dairy restaurant with a huge variety of delicious food. We got our official Alexander Muss Lippman Kadimah Israel T-shirts, designed by Jace and Eliana. We gave a big round of applause and cheers to thank our great and unbelievably skilled bus driver, Yoav, and our Israeli counselor, Dikla, who worked so hard to make our trip exceptional. Before going back to the room to pack our suitcases to leave tomorrow, we had a final activity with Dikla.
Tomorrow morning we drop off our new friends, the Kadimah students from Buffalo, at the airport at 8:30 am. We have a full day planned after that for the Lippman students, until we have to be at the airport in the evening. We will be visiting Kibbutz Gaash, where our Akron Israeli Emissary, Ofri, grew up. His parents will host us and give us a tour of the kibbutz as well as special time at their Kibbutz spa with pools and hot springs.
After lunch we will be going to a special "museum in the dark" for children to learn about living with blindness. Final stop will be a Supermarket for important food items (like candy and Turkish coffee or whatever other food items students and staff need to buy to take home.)
We are all sorry to leave Israel and to see our wonderful trip end, but we are excited to go home and see our families. We have so many great memories and have learned so much. We are all grateful to everyone who helped give our students this amazing experience, especially parents and supporters of our school.
We hope you enjoyed our blog posts and photos. We will be adding more student reflections and photos in the next few days.
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