Netanya Hotels
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Day 5: Yad Vashem, Tel Aviv, and Netanya
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We woke up and had a short preparation seminar, and then went to Yad Vashem. It was the most emotionally difficult part of the trip. I'd already been there back in 93, so I guess I wasn't expecting to be so affected, but I was. Maybe it was because I wasn't really able to appreciate what I was seeing when I was younger; now, I knew a lot more, so it meant a lot more. I just kept thinking that it could have been me, or any of us. The Children's Hall, with the hundreds of mirrors reflecting the candles, was especially difficult.
Afterwards, it gave me a whole new appreciation for the importance of the State of Israel. If ever, G-d forbid, something like that were to happen again, I remember thinking, at least the people would have somewhere to go. This is the most simplistic, and not really right, interpretation of course. But it's a thought that it's impossible to avoid, walking along the Avenue of the Righteous, seeing the cattle cars on one side, and the hills and valleys of the City of David on the other.
Next, we had some extra time, so Boaz worked in a bit of free time in Tel Aviv to the schedule. We headed to the markets near Shenkin, and I saw Iris. Boaz was nice enough to lend me his cell phone so I could call her and find out where she was at. As it turned out, she was just leaving work for the day, but she was in a big hurry to catch the train before the public transit stopped for shabbat. So we really only had a few minutes. Still, after not seeing her for nearly four years, it was better than nothing. It was strange seeing her in her uniform, but despite that, she hadn't changed a bit (of course she hadn't, she still hasn't!).
Shabbat was approaching, so we drove to Netanya to our hotel for Kabbalat Shabbat. Netanya is a beautiful resort town on the Mediterranean coast. We had a massive, delicious shabbat dinner, followed by a program with some other Canadian groups and the groups from Germany and Argentina. The Argentinian group was singing and dancing for hours - incredible spirit!
Friday night we went out to a bar - the official trip policy is that it observes shabbat and kashrut, but we were free to do what we wanted on our own time. They didn't have any bars that had dancing in Netanya, but one place moved aside a bunch of tables for us so we could have the run of the place, since things were pretty quiet. A beach town in the winter isn't exaclty a swinging hotspot. We went walking on the beach - too cold to swim of course, but a nice nighttime activity - before heading in to sleep.
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| 9. | Day 5: Yad Vashem, Tel Aviv, and Netanya - Netanya, Israel Feb 16, 2001 (  22 ) |
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