By Lauren Gelber

It’s Friday morning. The lack of sleep on top of travel, with a side dish of busy schedules, equals the first morning some of us needed mom to wake us up. Traveling on our incredibly fancy bus (USB ports, lean back seats, and even party lights) we rolled on to Jerusalem. As we travel the highway we slowly start to see the landscape changing, and despite our exhaustion you can feel the excitement on the bus that we are finally arriving at this amazing in inspirational city.

Our first stop is at Hatzalah (a volunteer ambulance service) that provides free first response care throughout Israel. This visit has thus far won the prize for the most tears shed. The informational videos that Hatzalah showed us started the tears. But the real event that brought it all home was when Mindee was provided with a plaque commemorating her son’s Bar Mitzvah tzadaka project which was donated there — as well as introduced her to the volunteer that the donation sponsored! We were so grateful to share that moment with her.

Next we were off to Mehane Yehuda market to purchase fresh produce which we then prepared dinner with assistance from Ruth & Esther Yudkowitz (with Ruth’s business “Shuk and Cook”). Before shabbat dinner we took a brief and hilly tour of Jerusalem. We proceed to the Western Wall were we first stood in silence from a ledge above taking in all the activity below. We proceeded to The Wall and took our time individually praying, thinking and meditating. Many people believe that The Wall is reserved only for “real Jews”, but the most important idea that all of our new Israeli friends have left us with is that you and you alone define what being Jewish means to you. You can’t be too Jewish or not Jewish enough. People go to the Wall to find many things and often to leave things as well, some of those are tangible and some are spiritual. I am so thankful I was able to experience this event amongst my newfound lifetime friends.

We finished our evening by enjoying an excellent shabbat dinner back with the Yudkowitz family, which I must say thank goodness a great chef made those tasty chicken balls because they were such a hit! We went for a brief walk to watch a 10lb dog fight with a 5ft branch and take in some final amazing views for the evening. We said our goodnights and headed home.

On a much lighter note, an observation. It seems that Israel does not have squirrels. They instead have cats…everywhere. In Tel Aviv, the cats were scrawny and very skiddish. On the kibbutz they were full figured and very relaxed. In Jerusalem they are of average size and are comfortable scampering through the crowds of pedestrians. What does all of this mean? Probably nothing, but we sure had fun and took a picture or two or thousand of them.