Week 3

The first stop of the day was the Atlit detention centre where we learnt about labour Zionism and the spiritual connection of working on the land. We also discussed European Jews who lived in displaced persons camps following their journey to the British mandate of Palestine (now known as Israel). We explored a ship that was used by Jews to sail from Europe to Israel and saw several short films that educated us about the strategies that the British utilised to stop the Jews from entering Israel. Many of those Jews who made the journey who were successful in entering Israel were initially placed in detention camps similar to the Atlit detention camp. In addition to learning about the Jews journeys to Israel we also explored their escape from Atlit detention camp.

Our next stop was at the Akko jail. The Akko jail was built during the Ottoman period over the ruins of a 12th century crusader fortress. In the 1900’s the prison was used by the British to hold prisoners, several jewish. We learnt about and explored the jail ending our tour in the gallows in which several prisoners were executed by hanging.

Our last stop of the day was the Akko urban education kibbutz. We discovered that this kibbutz was not the stereotypical Israeli kibbutz, as the kibbutz lives within one apartment building and has between 90-100 residents. This was a special experience as it redefined my definition of a kibbutz. The day as a whole was amazing, we truly walked through Jewish history and the future of many Jewish communities.

Post by Liam Engler and Jordan Fleischer

We were originally going to go to Castel, but we were hit by some strong rain, however fortunately we were able to go to an incredibly interesting and entertaining museum. This museum is called the Eretz Israel museum and is located in Tel Aviv. The museum's exhibits displayed various artefacts from different historic eras, from prehistoric times to the modern era.

Post by Tal Boskila and Aden Cohen

Wednesday was a day mostly focused around Tel Aviv, with us exploring the areas of Neve Tzedek and Florentine. Rabin also ran a service as the Yarkon River Bridge commemorating the accident that occurred there 22 years ago at the Maccabiah Games.

One recurring theme of the day was the small bus arriving at our destinations long before it’s larger counterpart did. At the beginning of the day, when we, residents of the small bus, first arrived at a park in Tel Aviv, we ended up waiting at said park for 40 minutes. The exact duration of our stay at said park is unknown to me as my pocket watch broke during our stay there (which I later fixed by hitting against a metal pillar late into our eventful park visit.)

We then travelled to, and spent the first portion of our day in, Neve Tzedek. Neve Tzedek in interesting in that it used to be a part of Jaffa, predating Tel Aviv. As a result, the area is fairly historical (and fairly expensive apparently). The highlights of this portion of the day were getting ice cream (whilst everyone piled into and crowded the store), as well as the photo scavenger hunt that Akiva's class did.

The graffiti tour in Florentine was also highly enjoyable, with the graffiti being especially interesting, as well as some of the motivations behind it, political or otherwise. The quality and artistic merit of the graffiti varied from work to work, however the teachers did well in directing us to, and teaching us about, well-made and interesting pieces of graffiti.

Overall, Wednesday was a day of culture, with rich and unique cultures being shown through the different parts of Tel Aviv we travelled to. Whilst not a hugely important day overall, it was still certainly one to remember.