The World Stopped for 2 minutes

Growing up, I have always learned about the Holocaust and Yom Hashoah. Attending a Jewish Day school most of my life, I became aware of what the Holocaust really meant. Visiting Poland helped me visualize and develop a better understanding of the nightmare that lasted years. I am aware of what happened but what I experienced on Yom Hashoah in Israel is something I have never experienced in my lifetime. It was around 9:45am and Lisa brought us into the center of Hod Hasharon. As soon as the clock turned to 10am, silence surrounded the country. An alarm went off for two minutes. As the piercing sound traveled through the city, everyone was frozen. It seemed as though the world had stopped and no one was able to move. The siren lasted forever, it felt like, and everyone was showing the upmost respect for towards all of the people who perished in the Holocaust.

I was moved after the siren played. I wasn’t sure how I should have reacted. Everything stopped for a few minutes and as soon as the siren ended, the day continued and the cars turned back on and drove on their daily paths. It was shocking to see how as soon as the sound stopped, there was a moment where everyone remained quiet, but then daily life went on. Hearing about how the country stops for a certain amount of time to preserve the memory of the Holocaust victims doesn’t seem as real or intense until you are standing in the middle of the street watching people getting out of their cars to hear the siren. After those few minutes of silence, the day preceded like a normal day in Israel.

As of now, school is becoming harder for many of us. Studying is starting to take over most of our free time, along with completing assignments for Core class. I have never been in an environment where school doesn’t come first. Here, the focus of our trip is to travel and learn about the history of Israel, and making time for our American classes when there we aren’t doing anything. Here, I learned that I shouldn’t stress as much as I do about school because I am able to learn valuable lessons that I don’t get taught at when I am sitting in a classroom. I realized there is more to life than completing homework assignments and studying for tests – they are important, but I shouldn’t be worrying about my schoolwork all day. Because of the recent tiyulim we have been going on, day after day, I have learned how to prioritize my time more efficiently in order to get everything I can get done, before leaving campus for the night so I can focus on truly grasping Israeli culture.

As the semester is quickly approaching the end of the session, I have grasped a better value of what is important to me here and how I want to end the last couple weeks I have here. It is important that I strengthen the bonds I have with many of my new best friends and try to make more meaningful friendships with the people who I don’t know as well. I am excited to see where these next few weeks take me and hope to continue on making incredible memories.