Day 8

Independence Hall

Our first stop in Tel Aviv was, appropriately, Independence Hall. Israel declared its independence in this building on May 14, 1948. Although they chose this building because it was safe (slightly underground, high windows, and large enough to fit the crowd), it was fitting for a number of other reasons. Not only was this building at the time the Tel Aviv Museum, but it was originally the home of the very first mayor of Tel Aviv, Meir Dizengoff. While we were there, we heard an audio recording (translated by a guide) of Ben-Gurion declaring the independence of the State of Israel.

After leaving Independence Hall, we walked up the street a bit while we waited for our bus, and Seth gave a dramatic account of the story of Esther, which is where Purim comes from. From there, we went to Rabin Square and the Rabin Center.

Rabin Center

Rabin Square is the Square where Yitzhak Rabin, former Prime Minister of Israel, was assassinated on November 4, 1995, which just so happens to have also been my 6th birthday. At the square, they have metal plaques in the ground marking where Rabin, the gunman, and Rabin’s guards stood when he was shot. The shooter was a radical right-wing Israeli who opposed the Oslo Accords, a document Rabin supported aiming to make peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The wall memorial below preserves graffiti in the square honoring Rabin’s memory and the need for peace.

The Rabin Center itself is a museum, honoring Rabin, different historical events and efforts during his life, and also commemorating world-wide events which helped to put the Israeli history in context. The museum was interesting and well-organized, but it was a bit of an information-overload for someone like myself with a very limited knowledge-base of the history of Israel. The guide also rushed us through, but I won’t complain about that at all because it helped us get to lunch sooner. My body does not approve of eating lunch much past noon.

After lunch, though, we had my favorite session at the Rabin Center, which was a meeting with Dalia Rabin—Yitzhak Rabin’s daughter. Dalia has to be one of the most amazing women. She’s literally done everything, including working as a lawyer, a member of Knesset, and the Deputy Minister of Defense. Dalia said that while her father was alive, he did well keeping his family out of the public eye and never pushed her to follow in his footsteps, but after his assassination, she thought it was important to get involved in politics. Although she isn’t directly involved in politics anymore, it’s obvious that she still has strong opinions. When asked about the current Israeli leadership, she said she didn’t want to talk about it because we should be able to assume what her opinion is—obviously not a very good one. She currently directs the Rabin Center, in order to most directly ensure that her father’s memory is honored properly.

Gay Center

Seemingly changing the entire vein of the day’s outing, we ended our explorations of Tel Aviv at the Gay Center. While you might ask what this has to do with interreligious dialogue, my answer would be “quite a bit.” As we all know from American politics, religions have lots to say about homosexuality, and in response, the LGBT community has to talk a lot about religion. We also learned about a group they run specifically for religious Jews in the LGBT community. Some of their holiday services, for example, draw upwards of a few hundred people.

Day 7

On our 7th day we got up early to pack the buses. We were officially leaving Jerusalem. We had lots of traveling to do before we finally made it to Tel Aviv, though.

Kibbutz

The first thing we did was meet our guide for the morning, Yatir. Yatir took us to Ein Shemer, a kibbutz. Kibbutzim are collective communities in Israel, traditionally agriculturally based. In theory, all the people were supposed to work to better the community, and all the profits were pooled. They explained that in the past, children were brought up in a special center and wouldn’t even sleep in their parents’ homes. Of course, they don’t work quite like that anymore, but the community effort is still visible. Ein Shemer is an Eco-friendly greenhouse, full of interesting water displays, plants, and experiments. Below is an image of a water system someone at the kibbutz created to create fake rain in order to oxygenate the water for the fish.

While there, we also talked to an Arab-Israeli girl named Esra who is a law student at a local college. She spoke for a while about her pro-Israeli perspective, but she honestly didn’t impress me. She admitted that she felt no connection to Palestinian Arabs, which I found interesting. I would think that because of the conflict she would want to try to connect with those roots in order to be able to hear the whole story, but she didn’t seem interested in that at all. She did talk about peace and about how peace would benefit both Israeli and Palestinian people, but it wasn’t anything that I felt I hadn’t heard before. She also talked for a really long time, which gave us barely any time to ask her questions. I wish we could have asked more clarifying questions, because then maybe I would have felt like it was worth it to talk with her.

Capernaum

From there, we went to see the church at Tabgha where Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes, and then we continued on to Capernaum. In Capernaum, we saw the ruins of an ancient synagogue where they think Jesus and the apostles prayed before going to St. Peter’s house, where Jesus is said to have healed (Simon) Peter’s mother in law.

Below is an image of the floor of the church built over top of the ruins of St. Peter’s house. The church was built on what I would describe as a kind of stilts, so there is space between the ruins and the church. Here, you can see how on the inside of the church you can see through the glass floor to the ruins of the house underneath.

At this same stop, we were able to see the Sea of Galilee. It was absolutely gorgeous.

Mount of Beatitudes

From Capernaum, we took a short drive to the Mount of Beatitudes, where Jesus is said to have given the famous Sermon on the Mount. The church itself was beautiful, and behind was a wonderful lookout over the Sea of Galilee again. It was such a beautiful day, so it was nice that we got to spend a lot of it walking around outside. It was also very relaxing, though, because when we weren’t outside, we were on the bus, and chances are if you looked at me I’d have been sleeping. I listened to a lot of music and rested during all of our driving, and it really helped revive me.

Tel Aviv

Of course, to end a nice day, there always has to be some insanity. We got to our hotel in Tel Aviv, got our keys, and headed to our rooms. We were neighbors with Barkai again, so we walked with him to where we thought our room should be. He found his room… and we were at the end of a hallway. Where was our room? It was in the stairwell. Yes, the stairwell. It turns out the hotel was overbooked, and we ended up sleeping in the “safe room” (read: bomb shelter). Fun features included a collapsible shower, glow in the dark paint outlining all doors, windows, and outlets, and a ladder up to an escape hatch that opened into Jess, Carolina, and Rebecca’s room.