May 3

We woke up at the old city of Jaffa at 8:30 (the latest yet) and ate our most extravagant breakfast all trip.

We headed over to the Palmach Museum, which was about the brave Palmach, the first all Jewish military since the time of the second temple. They were a fully integrated army between men and women and treated everyone as equals. The Palmach started as a political movement to show the British that we could survive as an independent state. With only 700 members at its founding it fought valiantly and grew to employ over 6,000 16 to 30 year-olds.

Next, we headed over to Neot Kedumim, a biblical nature reserve, for a lunch of sandwiches that we had ordered the day before. After lunch, we went into the reserve and helped plant trees and learn about how things were made in biblical times, such as olive oil, cisterns and zatar. We crushed our own zatar but we weren’t allowed to bring it on the plane.

We then drove into the heart of Old Jaffa where the flea market is. We split up into groups of four and had free time. They had everything there, from motorcycles to mezuzahs and fried donuts to fried locusts. 

After that, we went to Na La’Gaat (“Please Touch”) center for the deaf and blind in Jaffa.  We had a very meaningful experience communicating, learning sign language, and playing games with two deaf people.  We learned about their life as deaf people and how they coped with it.

Then we went on a walk around old Jaffa and ended up at a park and talked about our favorite experience on the trip.  We then went back to Na La’Gaat to have a lovely dinner served by deaf people.

After this we went to the Independence Hall in Tel Aviv.  We learned about how David Ben Gurion declared Israel an independent state.  We heard footage of his exact words at the meeting in 1948 and finished by all singing the Hatikva together.

Finally, we headed to the airport, said goodbye to leaders of the trip, boarded our plane, and made our way back to the Bay.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ethan and Eli S.