Day 9: Tel Aviv

Great day in Tel Aviv! OK, slow start at the Diaspora Museum, but great shopping at the Carmel Market afterward. The boys showed off their bargaining skills in the Jewish shuk, so be prepared for lovely gifts from Eretz Yisrael. Scavenger Hunt followed, "the Great Race" leading teams of a dozen kids around the streets of Tel Aviv. Lots of walking eating drinking talking laughing. Finished at Maccabi national center in Ramat Gan (Tel Aviv suburb) for dinner and grinding, er, dancing. Many of the delegations flew home tonight--we are staying an extra day and Alex Sachs, our fearless Delegation Head, scored us a private bus trip to...MASADA & the DEAD SEA!!! Kids are totally psyched, as the entire Maccabi group was originally traveling down to the lowest point on earth, but the trip was scuttled. Somehow it is back on for about 4 delegations, including ours. We'll leave the Dead Sea, shower, eat at Burger Ranch, and head straight to the airport....

Day 8: The Road to Jerusalem

Day started in Latrun, a site of bitter fighting in both the war of independence and the Six Day War. The IDF (Israel Defense Force) has turned the old British prison/fort into a museum honoring the armored corps, i.e. tanks. The Ayalon Institute was the next stop: during and just after World War II, Jews manufactured bullets literally underground, under the cover of a laundry located on a kibbutz. Third up was a tremendous experience: doing actual archaelogical research digging up pottery from the time of the Maccabees (100 B.C.E., or 2,100 years ago). We discovered scores of shards, many of them rather sizable. We also did some spelunking, walking and crawling through a lengthy cave system lit by candles. In the evening, we went to "Mini-Israel," a sort of theme park in the shape of Israel with models of prominent cities and sites. Kids ate dinner there and watched a Cirque du Soleil-style show. Full day!

Day 7: Jerusalem

Terrific day of touring in the City of Gold! First stop was Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum. Powerful learning experience for everybody. Afterward we walked up the hill to the top of Mount Herzl, where dozens of former leaders of Israel and thousands of soldiers are buried.

Next stop was a super cool tour of the Western Wall tunnels, which we thoroughly enjoyed. Afterward we emerged to the plaza of the "Kotel," the Western Wall. Many of the guys put on tefillin for the first time (courtesy of the Chabad men standing near the Wall with tefillin, prayer books, and the like), and all prayed at the Wall. After leaving the Kotel, we walked through the Jewish Quarter learning about interesting sites from our guide Lital, who gave us a well needed break for chotchkis and shwarma.

In the evening, we had a big picnic in Independence Day Park and walked back to the Old City for a laser-light show at King David's Tower. Yerushalayim Shel Zahav!