Israel is a very small country, which means that every bit of land has a unique importance. As we travel, we get to learn about the story of every place. When I think about Israeli history, I think of the word ‘heroic’. The most Israeli thing that we have experienced is walking through random parts of the country, and realizing that it is actually a crucial part of history. This has happened so many times, and every time it strikes me how cool that is. Early on in the trip, when we were still discussing biblical history, we were on a Tiyul, and the bus pulled over. We were between two farms, right off a big highway and we got off to sit down in a field. Although this was just another plot of land, we learned that it was supposedly where David beat Goliath. The old city of Jerusalem has pizza places, jewelry stores and homes, but it also has thousands of years of history. Qumran, which at first looks like just another sand dune in the Judean desert, was the house of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Masada, a beautiful hike, is home to one of the most touching stories in Jewish history. Under farmland, we crawled through the same caves that soldiers did during the Bar Kochba Revolt, with goats and dogs running over our heads. In Tel Aviv, the earliest and most important buildings lay along major modern streets, with thousands of people walking by every day. This week, we sat down for class on a beautiful beach south of Haifa. We learned that this beach was an entry point for Holocaust survivors during Aliyah Bet, when men of the Haganah brought them to the shores.

To me, these are all “only in Israel’ moments. I live in one of the most historical places in the US. Philadelphia used to be the country’s capital, and I can list at least five battlefields within comfortable driving distance of my house. George Washington and his men supposedly marched right past my school, but still that never crosses my mind. Here, we drive for hours and I think about it the whole bus ride. I absolutely love that everywhere we go, there is a story to be told, there is a person who worked with all of their heart and soul for this country that walked the same land. It makes me proud to know that we are following in the footsteps of these heroes that we learn about, and I think it is beautiful that we live happily on the land that they fought for.