In Ashkelon the combined group of 100 students, soldiers, and staffers split up into two groups to conduct service projects in the area. One half went to a "beit avot," a home for the elderly, where, together, the residents and visitors worked on several craft projects. The residents of the home reflected Ashkelon's diversity, having come to Israel from Romania, Tunisia, India, and elsewhere. Two of the volunteers from Bus 35 used their Russian language skills to fluently communicate with and interpret for a few of the residents, much to the residents' delight. The other half of the combined group of volunteers went to a school and worked on several outdoor projects. Despite the language barriers, the volunteers enjoyed playing with the kids and connecting with people in Ashkelon of all ages. A few of the students from Baltimore were tasked with preparing lunch for the hundred volunteers. They put together a traditional Israeli spread, featuring meats, chummus, rice, potatoes, and other dishes. Before leaving Ashkelon the group walked by one of the only K-12 schools in the country. Kids were dancing outside, and the members of Bus 35 were quick to join them!
From Ashkelon, Bus 35 traveled to Tel Aviv. Many tourists who pass through Tel Aviv visit Independence Hall, Rabin Square, and a handful of other landmarks. Bus 35 had the opportunity to truly interact with Tel Aviv as a living, breathing city. Exploring the city by foot instead of catching glimpses of it through the bus windows, the students witnessed some of the artistic and cultural vibrancy of Tel Aviv firsthand. The students took note of theaters, structures from Tel Aviv's renowned Bauhaus architectural boom in the early twentieth century, activity in a public park, Tel Aviv's GLBT center, and more. The group also had close to two hours of free time in the Shenkin Street area, a very popular and cutting-edge shopping district. At Independence Hall the group saw a brief film about the history of Tel Aviv and the founding of the modern state of Israel. The group then filed into the very room in which David Ben Gurion declared Israel's independence in May 1948, which is set up in the same way as it was arranged on that warm Friday afternoon, and the group heard a moving recording of Ben Gurion delivering parts of that momentous speech. It had already been a long and full day, but after checking in at that night's hotel, the students found the energy to go out on the town and get a sense of the night life in Tel Aviv with their new Israeli friends.
Thursday morning the group headed to neighboring Yaffo / Jaffa. There, the whole group celebrated as six students took on Hebrew names. The ceremony was punctuated by recitations of the poem "Each of Us Has A Name" and the traditional priestly blessing, singing "Siman Tov / Mazal Tov," and rejoicing with plenty of candy. The group also got to make a stop at Jaffa's famous flea market.
The group's final destination that day was in northern Israel, but everyone appreciated the significance of the stops the group made along the way there. Michael, the tour educator, brings a great deal of experience in coexistence work to his tour leadership, and the group benefited tremendously from his expertise as Bus 35 made several tolerance- and conflict-related stops. Michael took the group to Saalem to see with their own eyes the security barrier that Israel has been constructing over the last few years. Bus 35 is the only Taglit-Birthright Israel group to have done so. The group learned about the structure of the security barrier (96% of it is fence and 4% is concrete wall, and the stretches of fence often have 40-50 meter buffers, for example), its history, its role, and the impact it has had on local residents. The students had the opportunity to hear directly from local Israeli Arabs who shared their personal perspectives. The group also stopped in Arabbe, at Tent of Peace, and met with a professor who discussed what the Israeli Arab population might want in terms of recognition. A brief film about the B’nei Sachnin soccer team, the first Israeli Arab team to unseat all of Israel's other soccer clubs and proceed to compete in Europe, gave students further insight into the intercultural dynamics at play in the region. Bus 35 then made a special trip to Michael's home, Yuvalim. Yuvalim is a "community village," a designation applied to certain successors of the early modern Zionist model of a collective kibbutz. Until recently, Michael explained, business owners needed to congregate in large urban hubs in order to achieve success. With the near-universality of internet use now in many fields, however, one can reside outside of a big city, even in a small village with a decidedly unique character, and still enjoy success. The members of Bus 35 looked out from their vantage point on a hilltop in Yuvalim as the sun was setting on Thursday. They heard a muezzin's call from a mosque in a village nestled below them. Drawing upon the day's experiences and what the group had witnessed throughout the trip up to that point, Michael posed questions about what it means to be a pluralistic society. Do we need to be a melting pot? Perhaps, he proposed, a salad bowl would be a preferable aspiration, inviting people to live in peace and with understanding, but side by side.
There is no doubt that the students will continue to consider and encounter questions like these once they return to campus. Equipping the students with the tools and desire to ask and address those questions is an invaluable gift Michael and the other staff members are offering the students. Following Thursday's face-to-face discussions and challenging the students to continue engaging in these matters, Michael told the group, "If you think you understood, you didn’t get it. And if you think you didn’t get it, you probably did.”
Bus 35 made its way to Kibbutz Gonen, in northern Israel, where the group was to spend the night Thursday.
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