Shalom!! I am here to share my experience with you about Israel. First of all, I want to say it will not be easy to describe my trip because I had the most incredible, amazing and overwhelming experience in Israel. I am originally from North Hollywood, CA and currently a third year student at Rochester Institute of Technology, New York majoring in Nutrition Management.
The Birthright Israel organization provided $200 million dollars for 6,000 United States students to go to Israel for free for ten days. The Birthright program’s purpose is to educate Jewish American students about Israel and to help young people, ages 18-26 discover more about their Jewish identity and roots. The hope is that these students will come back to the United States feeling stronger about being Jewish. Learning about this opportunity from Rochester Institute of Technology/National Technology Institute of the Deaf (RIT/NTID) Hillel and WOLK Club for the Deaf excited many of us. What was even more exciting about this trip was there would be four sign language interpreters traveling with us!
On this trip, there were exactly forty students (20 deaf and 20 hearing) from Rochester, New York and forty students from Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA. It was a great experience because we not only felt closer to Israel but we felt closer to each other as a group. The deaf and hearing merged with each other so well. It was great to see many hearing students wanting and willing to learn sign language. Cont’ on Page 4 Birthright Trip To Israel coat’ from Front Page We visited many important places in Israel. We went to Old City, Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, the Western Wall, Masada, Golan Heights, the Dead Sea, and even experienced staying on a Kibbutz for two nights. We learned so much about the history of Judaism and Israel from our tour guide Yeshy and our Rabbi, Ari Israel from the University of Rochester.
After ten days were over, some students remained in Israel to travel on their own while most students went back home to the U.S. I was one of those students who remained there for another four weeks because my goal was to learn Israeli Sign Language, explore my Jewish roots, interact with many deaf Israelis and get to know the culture in depth. It was worth staying there for the next four weeks because I did learn so much about Israeli life style and I got to see the cities where my group did not have the opportunity to go.
For the first week and a half, I stayed in Tel-Aviv with Sara and Moshe Beldengruen, who had lived in Los Angeles for many years and then moved back to Israel. It was a great experience staying with them because they told me a lot about their life (stories about their growing up) and their Jewish family history. Meanwhile, I met an Israeli, Lolik, who introduced me to Tel Aviv. We went to the beach, popular restaurants, a popular bakery, and different museums. He also introduced me to the Deaf Club as well as his other friends.
Deaf Clubs in Israel are very popular. They exist in different cities all over Israel and many Deaf people go there weekly for different programs. For instance, they will have one night a week for their youth to get together to socialize, one night for the Deaf and blind to be together, their older people to get together and watch the worldwide news from an interpreter and so on. The Deaf community feels close when they go to the Deaf Club.
After staying in Tel Aviv, I went to Jerusalem for a week where 1 visited with another Deaf Israeli friend. Then I went to Haifa for four days. Haifa is a very interesting city. It reminded me of Philadelphia because there are many factories and they do a lot of exporting and importing. After Haifa, I traveled to Eilat, which is at the bottom tip of Israel. Eilat is a resort for Israelis and for people who are traveling. Eilat is a beautiful city but VERY hot!
From traveling to different cities and reading about the history, I understood the Fodor Travel Book, “Exploring Israel” when the author, Andrew Sanger said, “Tel Aviv is known as a play city, Jerusalem a praying city, Haifa a working city and Eilat a resort city.” I found that definitely true. Not only that but I saw that the different cities have their own styles and cultures like different cities in the U.S.
Now, I want to mention this one student who was in my group, Joseph Ferraro. He died from meningitis the day he arrived back from Israel. This was very shocking and scary news for everyone in the group when we found out he had died. All of us had to take antibiotic to prevent ourselves from developing meningitis, in case we had been exposed. We feel sad that he had to die so shortly after coming home from Israel because the last ten days of his life were incredible ones. Like most of us, Joseph had never been to Israel. I saw that he enjoyed every moment of his trip. He had a video camera that his grand father gave him for his birthday and he filmed most of the lectures and stories given by Yeshy and Ari. He filmed everywhere we went. He knew sign language and interacted with both the hearing and deaf in the group. Joseph, 20, attended RIT. He was a very special person with a big heart. He cared about everyone and he was a very loving person. On the last night of our trip in Israel, our group sat around in a circle to talk about our week, our experiences and how we felt about coming to Israel as well as going home the very next day. When Joseph expressed his thoughts to the group, he spoke about his family and then about his grandmother who died a few years before and how proud his grandmother would be that he finally touched Israel. When he talked about his grandmother, he touched my heart and made me have tears because he made me think about my own grandfather who had died just four days before I left for Israel. While I was looking at him and thinking about what he just said, I saw him put his hand over his heart and look down and close his eyes. I will never forget that moment and what he said and did. I saw a lot of happiness and sadness in his eyes. He will always be remembered by many people. If you would like to check out a web site that his best friend made for him, it can be found at: www.rit.edu/~cwh9672/joe/opening.html.
Traveling to Israel is an experience I will never forget. Israel now feels like my second home. The Birthright organization will be having another program this Winter break. I strongly recommend students sign up at: www.israel2000.org because it is a ten day experience that will last a lifetime!
Shalom and thank you Birthright!
