Yes, I had a little “link” problem. Please try to view the photographs from Day Three again…the link is fixed and there are more pictures than were originally posted. You can see them HERE
Now to day four…
We started off light. The Beit Canada absorption center enables new immigrants to integrate into mainstream society. This program is brilliant. Basically, students/immigrants receive five months of daily intensive Hebrew instruction along with living quarters and cultural training. They are given support and help with finding a job, social services (if necessary), etc. Preventative and supportive help to new immigrants helps to ensure a successful transition. We were split into two groups and visited classrooms where we met students and participated in a Hebrew class.
We then visited Hadassah hospital. Wow. It is HUGE and had lots of people coming through its doors. The strangest thing about it was the entrance. To get into the hospital, one enters a shopping center area with several coffee houses and many vendors selling their wares. We learned about their new trama center, underground hospital shelters and breaking cancer research. We met with an innovative and top cancer researcher about the direction cancer research is turning. We ended our visit at Hadassah by viewing the stained glass windows in their synagague…commissioned by Chagall.
Lunch! Moshav Ora. Yummy — Fresh — Yummy!
Yad Vashem, the Holocuast memorial, has state of the art exhibits that present the material from the prospective of the individual, original artifacts, personal prossessions and survivor testimony. The structure that housed this exhibit was incredible. The museum was informative, touching, sad, and the whole range emotions one would expect. The museum’s artistic manner in which it educated and moved us through the timeline was truly powerful. We were not allowed to take pictures there.
A last item for the evening was dinner at a local restaurant with the St. Louis Carnahan-Green mission. A speaker named Avraham spoke to us about not being an ethnic group…not being a religion…but being a family. Our roots started as and still are that of a family, a nation…a tribe. In those terms (which most Americans do not necessarily define Judaism that way), and in that framework, we can see a validity about having our own land. For us, it was a long evening, mainly because we had our museum experience still saturating us. However, the company was great, the speaker dynamic and the food delicious.
You can see pictures HERE.