How crazy is it that we woke up in Jerusalem yesterday, spent the day in Tel Aviv and Jaffa, flew from Tel Aviv to New York…and then onto Boston? Yesterday, we checked out of the hotel and took the bus to the site of the Knesset -- the Israeli Parliament. We compared and contrasted the Knesset to our US Capitol Hill…but the differences were striking. First, the Knesset is located in the hills of Jerusalem and surrounding by magnificent gardens and a park. While nothing was o

We have had a wonderful time in Jerusalem, where the weather was like summer! We left off on Thursday morning when we awoke to the brilliant sunshine in Jerusalem and headed from our hotel to YadVashem. Because there are no pictures permitted in Yad Vashem, you will have to talk to the students about the experience…it was amazing and quite moving. The fact that we had a phenomenal guide (the best I have ever had at Yad Vashem) made it an absolutely "perfect" experience - i

Evan Kaster is our Guest Blogger for Wednesday! It was a very, very long day…so we thank Evan for taking on the responsibility! We woke up at 4 a.m. in the Bedouin tent on Wednesday morning. We got almost no sleep the night before in the tent! After having some hot tea at about 4:30 a.m., we got on the bus and took a 15 minute bus ride to the bottom of Masada. Along the way we saw a 250-member male infantry unit from the IDF doing an exercise that was very important, and par

Written by Guest Bloggers: Carly Eiduson and Evan Kaster We woke up and packed our luggage and went to the school to say goodbye to our Israeli friends. With all the close connections that we made, it was hard to say goodbye knowing that we might not see each other for a while, but we will be sure to keep in touch. After a tough goodbye, we got on the bus and totally passed out into a deep sleep on our way to Tel Aviv. After arriving in Tel Aviv, we stopped at the Palmach Mu

We had a great day on our final day in and around Haifa, as you can see by the photos it was quite varied in mood and atmosphere. On Monday morning, together with a few of our Israeli friends, we started our day at the Alon Elementary School. There, we met our elementary school partner classes who have a school-match program with our 5th and 6th grade students. We were welcomed by the students, teachers and administrators at the Alon School with a beautiful presentation in

It is Tuesday already, and we left Haifa this morning, made a stop in Tel Aviv and are on our way south to the Negev desert! We are a couple of "blog" days behind…but that is no fault of our wonderful student travelers. We have been so busy that we literally have not had a moment to fill you in on details. But thanks to portable wifi and a laptop, we are going to try to catch you all up on our adventures. Leo Saitz is our guest blogger today. Below is a conversation he ha