This week we went on an amazing tiyul in Tel Aviv. On Tuesday, our original tiyul was canceled so we ended up taking a fun little trip to Nachalat Benyamin which is a beautiful, outdoor market. There was handcrafted art made by native Israelis. I loved looking at all of the jewelry. I couldn’t help but buy some. We also got amazing ice cream. One thing I’ve come to realize on this trip is how much better the ice cream is here! I’ll definitely miss the gelato place in the Hod when I come home. Then Thursday was when we had our real tiyul in Tel Aviv. The day started out with us stopping at a playground by the beach to have class for about half an hour. Before we started learning we took pictures by the water and climbed on the playground. We got a really cool picture of everyone on a giant spider web type climbing thing. After that we ventured into the streets of Neve Tzedek. We saw a lot of historic homes and buildings that date back to the early nineteen hundreds. Then we stopped for ice cream yet again. As a continuation of our lesson we stopped at Independence Hall to learn about when Israel was fully established as a state. 

Finally, we went back to Nachalat Benyamin to explore a more cultural side of Tel Aviv. We were given an assignment of interviewing different types of Jewish people that were walking around the market. Some of the people that we talked to was a secular jew, a recent immigrant, a senior citizen, an IDF soldier and more. Seeing how the varying levels of observance affected their answers was extremely interesting to me. We asked things like “To be a good Jew do you need to believe in God?” and “What Jewish rituals to you practice on a daily basis?”. We were able to explore Israeli Jews living in our own time to see how the differing age groups and denominations answered these questions. These modern Jews, while still being religious, focused more on nationalism for their country. Their honor and pride for the state of Israel made me extremely grateful to have people like this standing with the Jewish community. Seeing how nice and willingly these random people were was incredibly surprising to me. Even if it seemed like they were busy, they took time out of their day to talk to us for a small school project. I would consider that to be the biggest culture shock for me as a whole. The way that total strangers treat each other is so much kinder than what I see in America. There is a much better sense of community and I think that the state of Israel is what does that. It really unites the people together and gives them something to strive for and rely on each other for. The upcoming week is also filled with amazing things. We are dressing up to different themes each day for Purim, we are spending a day studying the holocaust and having two more tiyuls and not to mention, my birthday is this week too! I have high hopes that it will be the best week yet!