Congregation Etz Chayim

Note:  The first day’s itinerary is subject to change depending on the arrival time.

• Arrive at Ben Gurion International Airport, with assistance by a Makor Educational Journeys representative
• Proceed to Tel Aviv
• And Equality for All: Founding Tel Aviv: the Founders Monument and Fountain, located opposite the home of the first mayor of Tel Aviv, Meir Dizengoff, on Rothschild Boulevard, is where the historic lottery for the distribution of plots was held on April 11, 1909
• Check in to the hotel
• Text study session with Noam Zion, Hartman Institute, based on his trilogy, Tzedakah & Social Justice
• Dinner at Meshek Barzilai, a veteran gourmet vegan restaurant and a session on The Consumer Narrative and Social Justice

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Dual narrative tour of Jaffa with two perspectives – Jewish and Arab – on modern life in an ancient city
• Dual narrative tour of south Tel Aviv on African asylum seekers and local residents
• Lunch on own
• Musical Kabbalat Shabbat at the Tel Aviv Port with Beit Tefilah Yisraeli, a creative, innovative and inclusive Jewish-Israeli community that uses Jewish rituals, texts, customs, music and traditions for inspiration to create, develop and sustain an indigenous Judaism relevant to modern Israeli life
• Shabbat dinner at the hotel

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Morning: Time for services
• Exploring Jewish Communities, with social historian, Paul Liptz, who will provide background on the general fluidity and characteristics of religious divisions in Israel, followed by visits to different “communities” and explore the parameters of Jewish expression
• Possible visits
  • Secular Judaism: Bina/ALMA/Kolot
  • Judaism and the LGBTQ community (Gan Meir)
  • Yemenite Jews (ethnic lunch in Yemenite Quarter)
  • Kabbalah Center
• Afternoon at leisure
• In the spirit of Ruth, who went out to the fields to glean wheat for her elderly mother-in-law, volunteer opportunity serving food and helping in the restaurant and kitchen at Lasova, an organization that ensures basic human needs to any needy person by establishing and operating soup kitchens, supplying 2500 hot, tasty, nutritious meals per day at various venues
• Return to the hotel for Shavuot dinner.
• Hop between a number of Tikkunei Leil Shavuot, the traditional all-night study session for Shavout – with a large selection of pluralistic study options, a new phenomenon in Tel Aviv.

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Morning at leisure
• Lunch TBA
• Your People Shall Be My People: Meet with former soldiers from the IDF NATIV program that offers a conversion program while serving in the IDF and/or people who have undergone conversion in Israel outside the rabbinic establishment
• Havdallah
• Dinner on own

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Check out of the hotel and proceed to Tira
• Meet with Dalia Fadila, an educator who seeks to change the Israeli Arab world from within and the first female dean of an Islamic college in Israel
• Lunch on own en route
• Continue to Tzippori
• Visit Tzippori, the most important city in the Galilee in the first four centuries CE, a spiritual center, seat of the Hebrew academies, and home of Talmudic scholars
• Proceed to the old synagogues, narrow alleyways and artists’ studios of Safed, pronounced Tzfat in Hebrew, known since the 16th century as a major center of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism and one of Israel’s four holy cities
• Check in to the hotel
• Dinner at the hotel
• Speaker: Israel’s Strategic Position in the Middle East

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Drive across the Golan Plateau to Bental to overlook Syria, for an up-to-date briefing on the delicate relationship between Israel and Syria
• Visit the Druze village of Bukhata on the Golan and meet with residents for a discussion about some of the challenges of living as a Druze in the Golan
• Lunch on own
• Visit the Kinneret Cemetery, for a glimpse into the trials and triumphs of the early Zionist pioneers, through the lives and poetry of Rachel, the poet, and Naomi Shemer, songwriter of Yerushalayim Shel Zahav, with Muki Tzur, former Secretary-General of the United Kibbutz Movement and considered one of Israel’s preeminent Kibbutz thinkers
• Proceed to Jerusalem
• According to Jewish tradition, Joshua and the Children of Israel crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land and Elijah handed over the prophecy to Elisha and rose to heaven on a fiery chariot in the area of Qasr al Yahud, on the banks of the Jordan River; Christian tradition associates the site with Jesus’ baptism by Matthew
• Check in to the hotel
• Dinner on own

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Enter the Old City through the Jaffa Gate and walk along the Rooftops of the Marketplace for a glimpse at the weave of people and places that make up the Old City, concluding with a tour of the Western Wall Tunnels
• Halachic Flexibility: Divine Law in Human Hands, with Susan Weiss, founder and executive director of the Center for Women’s Justice, which is systemically attempting to end injustices perpetrated against women in the name of religion
• Built by the Rothschild Foundation, the Supreme Court building, with its striking design, is a fitting home for the judicial branch of the Israeli government, with a legal system representing a true combination of Jewish, Turkish, and British law, adapted and molded to suit modern Israeli realities
• Lunch at Beit Alliance, the headquarters of Ruach Hadasha (New Spirit), an initiative to strengthen the young adult population in Jerusalem through the arts and community building, including a special program with the various artistic cooperatives (dance, video, drawing, writing, painting, drama)
• Stopping at relevant sites along the route, travel by light rail along what was once the wall dividing Jerusalem, while listening to stories from Jews and Arabs living on both sides of the now-invisible division about the past, present and future in Jerusalem
• With urban planner, Hersch Katz, tour the Neve Ya’akov neighborhood of Jerusalem, which encompasses a microcosm of the Jerusalem macrocosm
• Dinner on own

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Israelis and Palestinians: Two Narratives, One Land, a discussion at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Hebrew University
• Depart Jerusalem for the Northern West Bank/The Land of Benjamin
• My Home in Judea and Samaria: I am Here to Stay, visit Psagot, a flagship Gush Emunim settlement, for an understanding of the origins of Jewish settlements in the West Bank/Judea & Samaria, while overlooking the Palestinian cities of Ramallah and El Birah
• Lunch at the Psagot Winery
• My Home in Palestine: I am Here to Stay, visit Rawabi, the first fully-planned Palestinian city, for a glimpse at a synthesis of private investment and national aspirations and a basis for possible agreement scenarios for the future
• Return to Jerusalem
• Dinner on own
• Optional: Visit the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center including the Avenue of the Righteous, the Historical Museum and the Children’s Memorial

• Early breakfast at the hotel
• Proceed to the Dead Sea Basin
• Ascend Masada via cable car for a guided visit through the site and an exploration of the symbolism and questions that arise from the Masada story and their implications for Jewish life today
• Proceed to a Dead Sea Hotel for lunch and float in the Dead Sea
• Optional: The Dying Dead Sea: an ecological tour of the Dead Sea sinkholes and beach
• Hike up to and then cool off in the refreshing pools of Nahal David (David’s Stream) at the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve, where the landscape, climatic conditions and water sources at have created a unique ecosystem of water, surrounded by lush greenery in a desolate desert setting
• Return to Jerusalem
• Candle lighting
• Musical Kabbalat Shabbat at the First Station and Dinner TBA

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Check out by noon.

*Program is subject to change, pending confirmations.