By Eric Cortellessa
To visit Israel as a Jew, without reflecting on our history, would be neglecting an incredibly important and ever-present element of what it means to be a Jew now. Today we were able to do just that. We took the time to meditate on our past in order understand who we are as a people now and how to formulate our trajectory.
We spent our morning at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem, where we witnessed the result of the effort of Jews and others around the world to make sure that one of the most dreadful, catastrophic events in the course of human history is forever remembered. Yad Vashem is the largest Holocaust Museum in the world and documents the horrors of the effort to exterminate Jews from Europe and in parts of North Africa, serving to continue the essential lesson of the International conversation on its subject: never forget. It was one of the most daunting and overwhelming experiences of the trip. It was visibly observable that everyone on the trip was deeply emotionally affected by the haunting impact this tragic moment in time had on our people, being able to feel in their bones the horror of the degradation, the sorrow of how much we lost. More than anything, we all realized that it is the responsibility of our generation to keep this awareness alive and to make sure that the generations that come after us always remember too.
After lunch, where we all enjoyed our favorite authentic Israeli cuisine, Shawarma, we spent the afternoon at Har Hertzel, the military cemetery of Israel. As we passed grave by grave, each a different life, a different story, we couldn’t help but notice the ages on all the tombstones, most of them right within the vicinity of our own ages. To walk throughout the cemetery, alongside the Israeli soldiers who we’ve gotten to know over these last five days, inspired us all. The tears that emerged came as we saw firsthand the countless amounts of men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for the cause of this country, the cause of a Jewish homeland. We saw the grave of Michael Levine, an American Jew from Philadelphia, who joined the Israeli Defense Force, and perished in the Second Lebanon War, leaving each of us to think what our own contribution will be.
Afterword we said goodbye to the soldiers, who each gave us a portal into Israeli culture, an understanding of what it means to be Israeli, and an example of honor and service. We then headed to a Kibbutz where we would have dinner and spend the night, continuing this journey through Israel and our selves.
To visit Israel as a Jew, without reflecting on our history, would be neglecting an incredibly important and ever-present element of what it means to be a Jew now. Today we were able to do just that. We took the time to meditate on our past in order understand who we are as a people now and how to formulate our trajectory.
We spent our morning at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem, where we witnessed the result of the effort of Jews and others around the world to make sure that one of the most dreadful, catastrophic events in the course of human history is forever remembered. Yad Vashem is the largest Holocaust Museum in the world and documents the horrors of the effort to exterminate Jews from Europe and in parts of North Africa, serving to continue the essential lesson of the International conversation on its subject: never forget. It was one of the most daunting and overwhelming experiences of the trip. It was visibly observable that everyone on the trip was deeply emotionally affected by the haunting impact this tragic moment in time had on our people, being able to feel in their bones the horror of the degradation, the sorrow of how much we lost. More than anything, we all realized that it is the responsibility of our generation to keep this awareness alive and to make sure that the generations that come after us always remember too.
After lunch, where we all enjoyed our favorite authentic Israeli cuisine, Shawarma, we spent the afternoon at Har Hertzel, the military cemetery of Israel. As we passed grave by grave, each a different life, a different story, we couldn’t help but notice the ages on all the tombstones, most of them right within the vicinity of our own ages. To walk throughout the cemetery, alongside the Israeli soldiers who we’ve gotten to know over these last five days, inspired us all. The tears that emerged came as we saw firsthand the countless amounts of men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for the cause of this country, the cause of a Jewish homeland. We saw the grave of Michael Levine, an American Jew from Philadelphia, who joined the Israeli Defense Force, and perished in the Second Lebanon War, leaving each of us to think what our own contribution will be.
Afterword we said goodbye to the soldiers, who each gave us a portal into Israeli culture, an understanding of what it means to be Israeli, and an example of honor and service. We then headed to a Kibbutz where we would have dinner and spend the night, continuing this journey through Israel and our selves.
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