Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom

• Depart Canada for Israel.

• Arrive at Ben Gurion International Airport, with assistance from a Makor Educational Journeys repres
• Tour Old Jaffa, the ancient port city once known as Zion Gate from which Jonah tried to flee and where Solomon brought the Cedars of Lebanon on the way to Jerusalem. Today paintings and sculptures have been installed in its ancient alleys.
• Shehecheyanu – Welcome ceremony on top of Tel Jaffa, overlooking modern Tel Aviv.
• Lunch on own
• Guided visit to the Joseph Bau House. Joseph Bau was a Holocaust survivor, the father of Israeli animation and a master forger for the Mossad.  His wedding appears in the film Schindler’s List.  The visit will be hosted by Cilila and Hadas Bau or Libby Cohen, Joseph Bau’s daughters and granddaughter.
• Check in to hotel in Tel Aviv.
• Erev Yom HaShoa: Opening dinner and orientation at hotel.

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Speaker: Rachel Korazim (pending availability) The Memory of the Holocaust in the Contemporary State of Israel
• 10:00 am: Stand in solemn silence as sirens will sound marking Holocaust Remembrance Day.
• Visit London Square, site of the “Aliyah Bet” Memorial to hear the story of the illegal immigration operations which rescued Jewish refugees and Holocaust survivors before the founding of the State of Israel.
• Walking tour of historic “Little Tel Aviv” – Discover the quaint Neve Tzedek neighborhood that gave birth to the “first Hebrew city in 2,000 years,” once home to Zionist cultural pioneers Eliezer Ben Yehuda, S. Y. Agnon and Nahum Gutman.
• Lunch on own.
• Join participants of Bina: The Jewish Movement for Social Changeon a walking tour of Tel Aviv’s Neve Sha’anan neighborhood, called The Strangers Among Us: Immigration, Refugees and & Jewish Values in a Jewish State
• Free time and Dinner on own

• Breakfast at the hotel and check-out
• Travel north along the Mediterranean Coast.
• Guided visit through Caesarea, one of the most important cities in the Land of Israel during the Roman Period, to explore its Roman Theater, Promontory Palace and Hippodrome cum Amphitheater.
• Proceed to Pardes Hana and Noam’s bee-hive!
• Lunch en route on own
• Visit the Beit HaGefen Cultural Center in Wadi Nisnas in Haifa. Meet with Ulfat Haider, an Arab female professional athlete who is one of the leaders of social change in Israel.
• Check-in hotel
• Dinner: Abu Christo Restaurant on Old Akko’s waterfront.

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Tour Akko including meeting with artist, Walid Ashash, who specializes in street and urban art.
• Lunch on own in Akko.
• Meet residents and staff at Kishorit, a community for special needs adults which is integrated into Kibbutz Kishor in the Upper Galilee.
• Conclude the day at the Lotem Organic Winery on Kibbutz Lotem for wine tasting and dinner overlooking the Sea of Galilee.

• Breakfast at the hotel and check-out.
• Travel across the Jezreel Valley, which is steeped in biblical history and was the cradle of the kibbutz movement and modern Zionist settlement. (Sites to be determined).
• Lunch and meeting with a settler at the Rotem Café in eastern Samaria.
• Continue along the Allon Road, constructed to implementing of the Allon Plan, one of the earliest Israeli initiatives to deal with the territory formerly held by Jordan that was occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War.
• Proceed to Jerusalem
• Introduction to Jerusalem from the Mt. Scopus overlook
• Check-in to the hotel
• Thursday night, there is already the feeling of Shabbat in Machane Yehuda with the frenzied shopping for Sabbath-related delicacies among the overcrowded throng. Tour Machane Yehuda and taste the potpourri of foods from all across the Jewish world.

• Breakfast at the hotel with representatives of the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance, a community center serving people of all sexual orientations and gender identities.
• Enter the David’s Tower Museum, for an interactive journey into the history of Jerusalem.
• Visit the traditional prayer area of the Kotel–Western Wall with time for introspection, as well as Azarat Yisrael – the egalitarian prayer plaza near Robinson’s Arch.
• Lunch on own in the Jewish Quarter.
• Continue to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
• Return to hotel to relax and prepare for Shabbat.
• Friday night services at Kol HaNeshama, a local Reform synagogue.
• Shabbat dinner with members of Kol Haneshama (pending confirmation from synagogue leadership).

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Visit the East Jerusalem Women Beekeepers, in conjunction with Muslala.
• Free time for leisure and/or return to the Old City.
• Lunch on own
• Optional guided walk through Yemin Moshe neighborhood, using the poetry of Yehudah Amichai as your guide
• The “Jerusalem Mosaic,” with journalist, Sarah Tuttle Singer.
• Havdalah with Rabbi Grushcow.
• Free evening and dinner on own.

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Visit the workshops of Yad Lakashish, which provide meaningful, creative, and serious artistic and craft expression to Jerusalem’s elderly and special needs populations.
• Visit Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial and museum, including Avenue of the Righteous, Holocaust History Museum and Children’s Memorial
• Lunch on own en route
• Guided walk through the Mea Shearim Ultra-Orthodox neighborhood and meet with a Haredi woman in her home.
• Dinner at the hotel.
• 8:00 pm Siren marking the beginning of Yom HaZikaron
• Shirim BaKikar – Join Jerusalemites for an evening of singing Memorial Day songs, in the presence of Mayor Moshe Leon and Israeli performing artists at Safra Square.

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Travel across the Judean Desert to the Dead Sea
• Ascend Masada by cable car for a guided visit through the ruins of Herod’s Palace and the last outpost of Jewish independence 2,000 years ago, followed by a discussion about Masada in contemporary Israel society.
  • 11:00 am Siren marking Yom HaZikaron
• Lunch and swim at Kalia Beach on the Dead Sea
• Return to Jerusalem
• Dinner on own

8:00 pm Witness the transition from the solemn memorial of Yom Hazikaron to the celebration of Yom Ha’atzma’ut: join the festivities in the streets of downtown Jerusalem.

• Program TBD

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Transfer to Ben Gurion Airport
• Arrival in Canada