Tel Aviv

That was it, we were on our own. A cab ride to the hostel, a nice beer with no fear of expulsion if we were caught and we slept. But I didn't get the chance to sleep in for the first time since before Birthright, I already had plans. I was going to meet my maternal grandmother's cousin (that would be my third cousin, twice removed), Meyer Rothstein.

I heard about Meyer after my mother had lunch with him the year before on her trip to Israel and he sounded like a man I wanted to meet. Meyer was born in England and enlisted in the army to fight the Germans in World War II. He was captured and put into a POW camp. When the Soviets liberated the camp Meyer joined them for the remainder of the war and later uncovered a concentration camp with the army. He finally made his way back to England as part of a prisoner exchange after the war. In the 1970s he immigrated to Israel and now lives in a retirement home in Herzliyya. And that's where I w heading.

I boarded a sherut to the train station, paying close attention to the route in case I got lost. We pulled up next to a large building and I hopped off. Upon entering it was apparent that I had made my way to the bus station by mistake. But no problem, buses will get me there too. I found the right platform, boarded, paid, and we pulled away.

Driving down the highway I realized that I had no idea where this bus would drop me off. I had waking directions from the train station but knew nothing else about the city. We pulled into the city and I made the decision to wait one stop more. The next one came and I hesitated, maybe I should just go to the end of the line and cab. As the doors began to close I glimpsed the train station out of the corner of my eye. I grabbed my bag, hopped over the barrier in front of me and scrambled out the door.

I was lucky to make it, but my bag wasn't. I pulled at it, trying to free the strap caught in the door. As the bus started to pull away I gave a big yank and tumbled backward, bag in hand. Solo traveling is tough... I had a nice, uneventful stroll from the train station and arrived with plenty of time to spare. Meyer's daughter had come to join us and they tell me about their family, and his life. We say our goodbyes and I have a comparatively easier ride home.

The next few days are uneventful, we rested our bodies after the nonstop schedule of Birthright, and saw Paz, D'vir and Aviv on a few of our nights out.

Shavuot comes and Aviv's invited us to his family's home for dinner. Six of us jump on the offer, interested to see what an Israeli celebration looks like, and eager for a home cooked meal. The celebration is surprisingly simple. Israel is not the Orthodox, strange country I expected. It is very much like home. The meal after the Seder however, is enormous. A second table is brought in to support the quantity of food and I fill my plate with a sampling of each. Each dish is fantastic, and after my plate is cleared it's refilled with new foods I hadn't seen the first time around. We have all eaten as much as we think we can but when we retire to the balcony there's a table of fruit and cheesecake waiting for us. I do my best to finish the small piece I take, it's the dairy festival after all.

Our remaining time together in Tel Aviv is uneventful. Birthrighters slowly leave the city, for home or for new countries as the rest of us lie on the beach. And finally it's my turn, I say my goodbyes and head east, into Palestine.

Saying Goodbye

There are no breaks on Birthright. After our wild evening the night before we all would have loved a chance to sleep in. But the schedule had us up bright and early to do some spelunking. But first was time to give out the gifts we had all brought for the soldiers. I was unsure how to distribute ten bottles of pure Canadian maple syrup amongst eight soldiers. One extra for Alon, since we had roomed together for the trip, and the other I'd give to the soldier with the best reaction. It was a tough choice between Shaul, whose mouth dropped open at the sweet nectar, and Arel, who grabbed me in a choking bear hug when I tossed him the bottle. And thinking back, I can't remember who I chose...

Finally it was time to go. The bus twisted up a mountain road, the drinks from the night before sloshing around my stomach. Looking around, it was clear I was not alone with this feeling, and seemed like only a matter of time until someone ruined the ride. Amazingly, we all made it to the drop off point without incident and we scurried off the bus, eager for some fresh air.

The caves were interestingly designed, in the shape of a cross to remove the need for and support beams. The walls were covered in holes, designed to nest carrier pigeons. As badly as I wanted to use them as foot and hand holds to climb the walls I could only imagine the nastiness inside them.

We gathered around to recap our journey together. The soldiers handed out their gifts: pins from the intelligence division of the IDF. Once everybody had gotten theirs I greedily asked for a few more, a couple extra memories to take back home.

And that was it. There was just one more drive and one more lunch with the soldiers. We sat together and reminisced about our time together. It was amazing the memories we had formed as a group in five days: floating on the Dead Sea, walking through Mt. Herzl, and we did our best to piece together the events of Ben Yehuda street. And finally it was time. Shaul said goodbye first, followed by Tzukit. We walked back to the bus and said farewell to the other six and that was it.

The bus looked how it did the first four days but it now seemed strangely empty, unoccupied seats was out of the ordinary to us. We drove back to the hotel, picked up our group shirts (luckily mine fit perfectly), and prepared ourselves for Shabbat.

We drove to the Western Wall, the holiest place in Judaism. It was an amazing site to behold. I'm not a spiritual person, and the wall did nothing to change this but the impact it has on the thousands gathered around it was amazing. Grown men weeping at the site of it, some dancing and singing in the square in front of it. I was stunned by the power a structure, made by men, of brick and mortar, could have on so many. And as I placed my prayer into the cracks of the wall I felt more touristy than holy.

Sundown approached and our group rejoined for a Shabbat service. We walked back to the hotel and I was surprised to see so many people still doing their business. I had expected Jerusalem to shut down and become a quiet, almost eerie place after sundown. But there were vendors selling bread on the street, cars driving and lights going on and off in houses.

We had a quiet evening and a chance to sleep in the next morning. The Shabbat elevator slowed everyone down as we group in the lobby, ready to walk to the Knesset. Eleven of us had decided to reconfirm our Bar/Bat Mitzvah (although I was partially in it for the chair ride). We sang the Haftarah blessing together and read our Torah passage aloud in turn. After the holy reverence, the party began. We lifted the first of us in a chair, singing Siman Tov u'Mazel Tov. Each of us went up, until it was my turn. A few reinforcements came to take my now vacant place under the chair and up I went.

The celebrations were over, and we sat in a large circle, tossing around a ball of string. The possessor sharing their favourite experience of the last ten days before tossing it to the next person.

Dinner, frantic packing, and a bus ride and it was time to say goodbye to those of us that we're leaving Tel Aviv, either back to Canada or on their own adventures. Birthright was more than I expected. It started off as nothing more than a free flight and express tour of Israel but quickly turned into one of the best experiences of my life. If I'd gone home then, with most of the group, I would have had a worthwhile summer and a lifetime of memories to cherish. But I wasn't going home, I was off to Tel Aviv, with a dozen of my new friends. And as sorry as I was to see the others go, I wasn't sad. We'd all see each other soon enough (reunion plans were already in the works) and my adventure was just beginning!

Lows and Highs

It was going to be an emotional day, we all knew it. The first stop: Yad Vashem (יד ושם), Israel's national holocaust memorial. We all filed into a large auditorium where an elderly woman sat facing us in front of a dozen microphones.

She introduced herself and told us the story of her childhood. She was born in a small village in Poland in the late 1920s. When she was 8-years-old the Nazis placed her and her family in a ghetto, then moved her, her mother and sister to a concentration camp. She was sorted into a separate line but jumped the barrier to be with her family. Later she found out the line she was placed in was for the gas chambers.

As the allies moved closer to the camp the SS officers in charge ordered a death march. Exhausted, she and her family fell into a ditch and lay motionless. The officers assumed they had died and the march carried on as usual. An American scout found them, gave the food and water, and brought them to his headquarters where they joined other liberated concentration camp survivors.

She spoke with a steady tone, almost monotonous like she was reading off a script. But I can only imagine the hardness one must force upon themself to recount that horror over and over again. We asked our questions which she answered as best she could. That by the end it was more about surviving so you could help keep others alive, that the only will they had to live was for each other.

We carried on through the museum, seeing the horrors that we had all seen in movies and museums before. Letters written during the war, photos and videos of the ghettos and camps. It was strange, like it's something I'd seen so many times I'd become numb to it. But when we reached the end, I wasn't prepared for what came. My sister had warned me how powerful the hall of names was, the room filled with names of Jewish holocaust victims but when I entered it was something completely different than I'd expected.

We walked through a small halway and emerged in a circular room. When I entered I was surround by thick, black books on every shelf. As far up as I could see, these book lined the walls, with no space between them. As I looked around I noticed a large portion of the shelves were empty, for the 1.8 million names still lost in the war. 4.2 million pages, stuffed into black binders was more enormous, and more powerful than I could have imagined.

We broke for lunch, it was a quiet atmosphere at first but we slowly began to speak more and more leaving Yad Vashem behind us. I felt almost back to normal but there was some residual emotion left over from the museum.

Up to Mt. Herzl, the Israeli war cemetery, it was what I expected. Graves of Israeli politicians, who we all knew were long dead, did nothing to rile my emotions again. We came to the soldiers' section, thousands of graves in neat rows. But it was what we'd all seen before, in person or in movies, what we'd all become calloused to. I stared at the endless rows of graves, my eyes fixed on those in the distance, feeling nothing for the soldiers that I didn't and would never know.

We stopped at one grave, of no one in particular, and Eilam translated the simple writings on his tombstone: Reuben Cohen - Air Force - Killed 16 November 1967 - Aged 16. Eilam had us imagine the things that Reuben would never be because of his service to Israel: get married, have children, graduate high school. This last one resonated with me, not because it personified his youth, but because it was something I had experienced, something all of us on birthright had experienced. It was a simple thing that we all take for granted, that people have sacrificed so we can have the privilege of experiencing it. I realized that we could play this game with every soldier in the graveyard, and every name in the books lining the shelves of Yad Vashem. And the realization of millions of unnatural deaths, all at once was too much for me. I pulled my sunglasses from my head and put them over my eyes. And I wept silently to myself. And that was our morning, stories of soldiers and civilians killed in war.

The evening schedule seemed poorly planned to me. Our night out on Ben Yehuda street, Jerusalem's entertainment district, was something I thought should be done after a relaxing day of floating in the Dead Sea, or hiking through the forest. But it was the right choice. Not only was this night our last with the soldiers but we were able to drown our sorrows the most efficient way. I can't speak much about our night (partially because none of us have a complete recollection of the events) but there are plenty of photos documenting the event. I do remember it being a fantastic time, and a great send off to the soldiers.

The Desert

I wake up early, hours before breakfast. I grab my sleeping bag and makeshift pillow and toss them into the tent. The sun is about to peek over the mountains as I walk from the camp to the outskirts of the Bedouin village. I find an open space and sit down on a rock, facing east. I wait patiently for a few minutes before the sky ignites in yellow and orange. I watch as the sun climbs over the mountains illuminating the desert.

When the sky turns fully blue I head back to camp. I watch as the Bedouins guide the camels around, readying them for another day of tourists. They release the donkeys into the camp and they stampede around the stable and past our tents. I get some breakfast, heavy on the Bedouin tea, and sit near the stables as, one by one, my companions groggily emerge from the tent.

When everyone's up and had their fill of breakfast we board the bus. I stare longingly back at the camp until it's out of sight before closing my eyes and falling asleep.

When I awaken a lone red hill stands before us, isolated from the mountains behind us. From the base, squinting through the sunlight, I catch a glimpse of Masada, site of the mass Jewish suicide to avoid capture by the Romans. We start our ascent and I dart up the mountin in ten minutes flat. I towards the sun and gaze east. In the distance I glimpse the Dead Sea and imagine Herod staring the same way over 2000 years ago.

I rejoin the rest of the group and we tour the ruins, learning of the symbolism the fortress has in Israeli culture. I talk to the soldiers about being sworn in at the peak and they all describe the obligation they felt here to defend Israel. We descend the snake path, one hour down in desert heat.

After a quick rehydration break we drive to the Dead Sea. I imagine how refreshing a dip in cool water will be after our sweaty morning. I'm one of the first in the water. I immediately feel a sharp pain in my heel. The blister I'd developed hiking is feeling the theraputic powers of the mineral-rich water. I wonder what other cuts I'll discover as I wade in up to my waist. The water is warm and slimy, not what I expected. Nevertheless, I take the plunge and sit down. It's like nothing I'd ever experienced before. You can't help but float, and it takes effort to move your legs. Eyes closed it's impossible to tell you're in water.

I get out, rinse off and head to the mud pit. We all coat ourselves in slime and let ourselves cook in the sun. Thoroughly exfoliated, we run back into the slimy water. My cuts don't hurt nearly as much now, I guess this stuff really works. A quick dip in the pool and it's back on the bus.

Our last stop is quick. We walk through Ein Gedi until we reach three magnificent waterfalls. Finally a real chance to cool off. Everybody goes exploring or is still slowly changing as I throw my head under the first waterfall I can reach. The cool blast of water pouring from I head is euphoric, and I hold myself there for what feels like an hour. I wander down some rocks and find a small crevice where I rest and let four tiny rivulets pour down on me from overhead. I close my eyes and let time slip away until I hear the call to go.

We talk and sing on the bus until Eilam calls for silence. He starts a countdown as we enter a tunnel and I'm excited for what awaits us at one. The countdown ends and we emerge into the sunlight. On my left I see the what looks like the whole city of Jerusalem. I'm too excited nd too tired to think of searching for the holy sites and I just take in what parts I see.

My long day has exhausted me and with the help of some arak I sleep through the night.

Hebrew word of the day, salt: מלח (me-lach)

Mifgash

Wake up, check out, load the bus, board the bus, drive. We've gotten good at this routine. Our first stop today is an elementary school. I duck under a doorway clearly made for the second graders we're here to see and take a seat on the floor. The principal explains our activity or the morning: decorate the wrapping paper for care packages en route to IDF soldiers. She opens the door we had just enter through and in flood hoards of children. The first one through slides half the length of the floor to settle beside Jon and me.

Our brown wrapping paper is immediately filled with Magen Davids, and a landscape of flowers, maple leaves and airplanes. We slap stickers over the paper and I draw a 3x3 grid in a corner and add an "X" to the center square. One of the kids nearby immediately adds his own "O" to the corner. After an intense battle I lose the match and my opponent graciously accepts my high-five.

A couple games later and recess is called. The kids grab a beaten, foam ball and pick teams for an all-out soccer match. We quickly lose track of the score and enjoy running around, none of us acting our age.

Before recess ends I find one of my drawing partners and raise him up onto my shoulders. He's excited by the vantage point and giggles happily as I run him around the schoolyard. I put him down and another boy jumps on my back. I run him around and when I reach the starting point I notice. Line has formed. I take each one around in turn, all of them loving the experience. As I'm heading for the gate I feel a lat tug on my shirt and look down to see the first child hoping to get another turn. I oblige and run around another lap. When I crouch down to let him off he refuses to let go. Unable to resist his happy grin I run him around another lap. And another.

We continue like this until I'm on the verge of collapsing. His teacher comes to the rescue and pulls him inside. One last high-five and I board the bus. The kids had exhausted me and I fall right asleep.

I wake up as we pull into Rabin Square. We can see the eight soldiers that will soon be a part of our group waiting for us on the benches. When the bus stops everybody rushes to greet them. We play our ice breakers, get a lesson on the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, relive the birth of Israel at Independene Hall and head to lunch at the Carmel Market.

One satisfying falafel later and we drive south for several hours. As usual, I sleep through most of the drive and wake up to find the landscape drastically different from the one we left. The palm trees are replaced ith mountains and the grass with red sand as we go through the heart of the Negev Desert. We drive off road and reach our Bedouin Camp.

We're led to an area where two women are handing out tea and coffee. I take a cup of each and take a big gulp of the tea. Its sweetness surprises me but I love it and down the cup quickly. Moving onto the coffee, I drink about half the cup before I realize there's nothing but grinds left. These Beouins like their coffee strong!

Just outside the camp there are a group of camels and donkeys. I'm a little too slow as the last camel is taken just before I reach it. I hop on top of a donkey and let my feet dangle comically close to the ground. We ride out a couple hundred meters before the guide halts our rides and tells us to dismount. It's finally time. The camels have dropped onto their knees and I hop on top of the one in front. I feel a jolt as it raises to it legs and starts the walk back to camp. The camel's taller than I expected but I lie the ride nonetheless. We get back to camp and I slide off.

Dinner is a feast. We sit on the floor in groups of four as dish after dish is brought to us. Mounds of couscous and beef later we're all stuffed. We play games in our tent of 50 and sit around the fire. This is by far one of the best camping experiences I've ever had. One of the soldiers, Shaul, plays songs for us on guitar. He knows all our requests and I start shouting out tunes from the piano bar I love back in Toronto.

When the fire dies, everyone retires to the tent. I grab my sleeping bag and lie on a bench outside, staring at the stars. Their natural light makes me realize how far from my big city home I am. But I don't care. I think about how much I love it the exact moment I'm in and fall fast asleep until dawn.

Hebrew word of the day, happy: שםח (sa-may-ach)

Tzfat

We checked out of our kibbutz early. When I boarded the bus I didn't envy the girls. Dressed conservatively in long skirts and t-shirts I imagined how uncomfortable they must be in a bus sitting under the Israeli sun. We drove through the hills to Tzfat, one of Israel's four holy cities and center for the Kabbalah religion. We walked in pairs through the narrow, stone roads admiring the houses built into the mountainside.

Eilam led us to a small courtyard where he explained the history of Tzfat and the Kabbalah religion in detail.  As we were preparing to leave an orthodox man carrying a large, leather case joined us in the courtyard. After some rapid Hebrew with Eilam he introduced himself as one member of a trio that played music inspired from every country in the world. A second member joined him shortly after and they sat down and began to play for us. We were hypnotized by two songs showcasing a steel drum, a sitar and other instruments whose names I could not pronounce. After their show, with their wonderful tunes stuck in my head, I couldn't resist the lure of their CD. My first souvenir...

We carried on happily down the narrow streets until we reached a rather unimpressive building. We went inside and were given a view minutes to take in the view. The city and the mountains from the top of the building were breathtaking. We took in the thousands of years of history before us and headed inside for our next activity. Separating into groups, we were told to debate the decency of man. I played devil's advocate and argued that if a person is completely selfish and unsympathetic then they are unable to change. We took a quick break for lunch and wandered through another one of Israel's open-air markets.

Back in the bus we drove to our tour of the Galil Mountain Winery. The tour was rather mundane and we walked through lifelessly until we reached the exciting part: wine tasting. The process was explained to us: swirl the wine, sniff it, sip a little, drink the remainder. We followed this algorithm for several varieties. Swirl, sniff, sip, drink. It was amazing how drastically the taste of the wine changed from this, it was wonderful compared to the eight dollar bottles I drank back home.

Back at the hotel, right on the sea, we were given a small area to walk for our night out. Sitting on a patio next to the beach we had another night of our favourite group activity.

 Hebrew word of the day, wine: יין (yah-yeen)

Our First Shabbat

We have another full day ahead of us. The leisurely hike through the Banias Nature Reserve is intensified by our occasional lessons on the 1967 Israeli-Arab War. It's a hot day for hiking and the long stretches of trees offer us welcome protection from the sun. After an hour of hilly terrain we reach a patch of flat ground. I can hear the waterfall's roar intensify as we carry on through the woods. One more bend and we're there. It's an overwhelming site, we all take our pictures and line up for the group shot. Eilam and Asaf take their selfies and then snap a couple photos of us. It's a perfect backdrop.

The hike is over and thankfully all forty of us are still there. We visit the abandoned bunker at Mount Bental, built during the 1973 Yom Kippur War and site of one of the bloodiest and most miraculous Israeli victories in history. Our view into Syria is sobering. We all know that just below us people are still fighting and being killed. I question the price of peace and how it will be reached in the region.

The group heads into the bunker. Eilam leads the pack with a flashlight and Asaf looks our for stragglers with a headlamp at the rear. At some point we lose the rear of the group. But no problem, we still have light at the front. A hundred meters more and the tunnel goes pitch black. Eilam has gone ahead with a few people and a half dozen of us are left alone. Fortunately, there's only one path to follow but we trip over each other as our eyes slowly adjust to the darkness. We finally reach an opening and after a second of adjustment we see a gorgeous view directly into Syria. Interesting that forty years ago the landscape was so entirely different.

On to our last, and what turned out to be most enjoyable, stop of the day: rafting on the Jordan River. I hop in a raft with 5 others and we shoot down the ramp, crashing into the water. It's a relaxing ride as we listen to a few of David's more inappropriate stories. I have one of the two oars (actually a kayak paddle) but the raft is difficult to control, especially when I'm trying to avoid smacking my boat-mates with the paddle. We bump into rocks and push straight through weeds until we reach a small beach. Knowing we were the first ones into the water we beach ourselves and go for a swim. The water's refreshing and washes away the sweat from our hike that morning.

Back in the water, shouting "Shalom" to every Israeli we see on shore, we come across a man standing waist hike in the water wearing a vest matching ours. Through his broken English, and our horrendous Hebrew, we learn that he fell into the water and his friends, not knowing how to stop their boat, carried on. We pull him aboard and carry on down the river. He spots his friends in the distance and yells out for them to stop. We paddle hard and after a couple of bends we reach them. It's not the happy reunion we expected. He splashes water at them, angry for their betrayal and we join in. We blast them with the super soaker on board and paddle off before enemy can retaliate with splashes of their own.

More stories and crashing into branches and we near the end of the trail. We look behind us and spot group number two gaining ground on us. My competitive instincts kick in and I paddle furiously, keeping our boat steady and away from branches and rocks. We cross the finish line first (none of us mention our head start) and we hop aboard the bus that will take us back to the start. We're the only ones from our group aboard and we wait half an hour for the rest of our companions to arrive, eating ice cream and pears that we'd smuggled out of the kibbutz.

We make Shabbat preparations back at the kibbutz and I put on my one wrinkled dress shirt and jeans. Kabbalat Shabbat is similar to what I know from home and I join in the singing, very off key. We have another great meal and head over to the pub.

I have my first good night's sleep since the trip began. It's an easy day, we walk through the kibbutz and take a look into Lebanon and down into the Hula Valley. It's another hot day and people are feelings the affects of the night before. I pass my water around to a half dozen people and there are drops left when it's returned to me. I refill it and drink it all when I get back to my room.

A group of us organize a five on five basketball game. I'm playing center against Eilam and with his size and talent I feel lucky with every rebound or shot I get. At 191cm I hadn't felt short in quite a few years but that game made me look small.

Shabbat ends and it's back to the bar.

Hebrew word of the day, to sleep: לישון (la-shen)