This weekend for Shabbat, both classes in my session went to Jerusalem! On Friday morning, we took our second unit test on Jewish history, and then we packed really quickly and headed out on our trip. Our first stop was to Machane Yehuda, a very famous (and very busy) marketplace. As my friends and I weaved in and out of Israelis who were just shopping or buying last minute supplies necessary for Shabbat, we got to see various strangers offering to help young men put on Tefillin, talented men and women playing instruments for spare coins on the streets, and the overall Shabbat atmosphere of Jerusalem. One of my favorite parts of being at the market was purchasing so many different foods to try with my two best friends here. For example, my friends and I went into a store that sold only dried fruit and nuts, and we bought three of each to get as many different options as possible, such as dried mango, cranberries, dates, figs, strawberries, figs, dates, and many more. Then, we went to a pastry store, where again, we bought in threes, many different pastries (which I can’t seem to remember the name of them, but they were very tasty to say the least). Last but not least, my friends and I pooled our money together to purchase a challah, cause what is more Jewish than purchasing a traditionally braided challah with sesame seeds in Machane Yehuda on Friday afternoon. After those purchases, we headed back to our meeting spot and feasted on all of our good food before the bus came to bring us back to the youth hostel. When we arrived at the youth hostel, we were given our rooms with our roommates for the night, and we got ready to walk to the kotel which would be around a 20 minute walk. So, we all got dressed and started walking through the old streets of Jerusalem, which certainly made the 20 minute walk go by way too fast. One thing that stuck out to me which I don’t see back in America is how much the city truly shuts down for Shabbat– all of the stores, from high end stores to small huts with tourist items were closed, and no one was out driving.

When we reached the Kotel, while we were waiting in line to get in the Kotel, I screamed because out of nowhere, I saw my friend from camp who I didn’t know was even in Jerusalem Friday night, and to me that was very special because I got to see her, so I was even happier than before to go to the Kotel after that lovely surprise. Then, when we finally got inside the area of the Kotel, my best friend and I immediately went through the crowd to the wall on the women’s side, which was a lot more crowded than when we went to the Kotel a few weeks back on a Tuesday. We saw some women dancing in their respective groups and we saw women with multiple books on stands with closed eyes, praying as if no one else were around them but G-d. Then, when my friend and I reached the wall, we each said our prayers and walked back to the women dancing. We danced with them for a little bit, learning that they were from Holland, which I found to be really cool. Then, when my friends and I went back out to the general area for both men and women, we got wrapped up in another dance circle, expect this one included mostly Israeli soldiers, which made the dancing that more special. One of the female soldiers brought me into the center with her, and we danced to “Am Yisrael Chai”, which made me feel so welcome and honestly made me feel like in that moment, I didn’t live in a suburb in Pennsylvania, but it made me feel like I was born and raised in Jerusalem, in eretz Yisrael. After dancing with the IDF soldiers, our group had our own little dance and singing circle. We sung various tunes that the other teacher Benji taught us, and we even had a woman join us just because she wanted to sing with us, which made me really happy to say the least; it felt like she immediately joined our session, our family. Overall, Friday was a day this past week that stuck out to me, for all the right reasons.