Learning at Brandeis
Experiential Learning
Israel Trip 2018

Altneuland

Nicholas Cole-Farrell, Israel Trip Chaperone

Today was a day of memory, and our students looked at the past through the lens of two fundamental events of the 20th century—one which attempted to annihilate an entire people from this earth, and the other which served as a beacon of hope for the future of that very same people. Our day focused towards dichotomies: alt and neu (old and new) and devastation and hope.
 
Beginning the day at the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center, our students traveled through the remarkable collection chronicling the rise of the National Socialist Party and the birth of the Reich; the establishment of the ghettos in Warsaw, Łódź, and Krakow; the Kristallnacht; the Wannsee Conference; the Final Solution; and the liberation of the death and labor camps.
 
In response to near constant efforts by the Nazi Party to dehumanize Jews and thusly rob them of their identity, Yad Vashem has set to the work of rehumanizing these victims of genocide through the telling of their stories and by refusing to allow each of the dead to be reduced to a number. Our tour guide spoke: "It is not 6 million dead, but in fact, it is 6 million killings where each death was a person."
 
It was incredibly moving to see our students step aside during our visit for a moment of quiet reflection when they were moved by the exhibition. As a former high school history teacher with a focus on European history, I was impressed with the thoughtfulness of their questioning and the nuance in their collective understanding of this incredibly devastating time.
 
With this we said goodbye to the City of Peace.
 
After a midday coach ride we arrived again in Tel Aviv, Israel's second largest city. Our first stop was 16 Rothschild Boulevard, Tel Aviv's first building. Built by Meir Dizengoff, the first mayor, the structure has served numerous purposes including meeting house, mayoral residence, art museum, and lastly as the ground for the signing of the Israeli Declaration of Independence, on May the 14th, 1948. While visiting Independence Hall our students learned lessons on Theodor Herzl and the history of settlement and rapid modernization of Tel Aviv, as well as the role that the city played in the establishment of the State of Israel. Entering the chamber, our students took part in a re-enactment of the May 14, 1948 session, applauding, cheering, and singing along with the original audio recordings in the room where it happened. Following a morning of diving deep into the devastation of the Jewish people during the period of 1933-1945, our students finished their visit to Independence Hall by singing a rousing and cathartic rendition of Hatikvah (the Israeli national anthem) in this place of significant history.
 
After a brief check-in at our Tel Aviv hotel, our students boarded the coach in white shirts in honor of Yom HaZikaron (Day of Remembrance for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terror) to travel to Petach Tikvah in the outskirts of Tel Aviv. The purpose of our visit to was to be the guests of the local school community as part of their Yom HaZikaron ceremony honoring fallen graduates of the school. While they were well prepared on what to expect by our trip leader, Debby Artz-Mor, our students were blown away by the impact and weight of this ceremony. Sung and spoken entirely in Hebrew (except for a thank you and welcome to their 'friends from San Francisco') the touching ceremony began with the siren call and featured youth dancers, relatives, and colleagues of the victims, and a school youth choir. During the ceremony three students from our group were invited to lay a wreath of remembrance. Throughout the visit, our students were amazed at the warmth with which they were welcomed into this close-knit community, even on this somber evening.
 
As we transitioned from the old (Jerusalem, founded 3000 years ago) to the new (Tel Aviv, founded 108 years ago), and from the devastation of the Shoah to hope with declaration of the State of Israel, our students undertook the important work of wrestling with what it is to be part of this unique Jewish history in a land that it both at once old and new.
 
Laila tov,
Nicholas
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