During Interterm, a group of 11 Amherst College students had the opportunity to go on such a trip. Their destination? Israel.
The trip was possible thanks to Taglit-birthright israel, an organization that gives young Jewish men and women the opportunity to visit Israel by funding educational trips organized by several individual accredited groups.
Not all of the Amherst students went on the same trip. Rather, they went in three different groups, along with other college-aged men and women. From day one, the jet-lagged students traveled up-and-down the country going from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv on an itinerary that everything from included historical visits to hiking expeditions. They visited the Baha'i Temple gardens in Haifa and the Atlit detention camps. North of the Negev, they went to archeological digs and underground man-made caves, where in the former they actually had the opportunity to help with the excavation. Students also had a chance to go on camel rides in the desert and swim in the Dead Sea.
Out of all the scheduled activities, the best part of the trip, several students seemed to agree, was the visit to the Western Wall. "They had us close our eyes, hold hands and led us into a balcony that overlooked the Wall. They organized us so that we would all have a view," said Daniel Lees '08. "That was probably the best moment in Israel."
Charles Tanenbaum '09 added, "It may be clichéd, but you can feel the symbolism as you stand there; there is such a sense of history."
According to the students, the visit to the wall was all the more impressive and significant because earlier that day they had visited the Yad Vashem (the Holocaust museum).
"It was very sad … There were shoes, hair, glasses," said Rebecca Oyen '09, also from the Israeli Experts trip. She added that the contrast between the visit to the museum and the sight of people singing and praying at the wall was particularly powerful.
As part of the trip, the group had to spend a night in a Bedouin tent in the Negev Desert. (The Bedouin are nomadic Arabs who live in the desert.) While many students enjoyed this experience, others felt it was a gimmick constructed especially for American tourists. "It was the most commercial thing ever. We stayed in a giant tent they don't actually live in. Anyone who actually talked to us was Israeli," explained Lees.
Like the extra-large Bedouin tent, some other aspects of trip constantly reminded students that even though they were in Israel, they were there as tourists. The tour guides had warned them about an imaginary boundary line that divided the city of Jerusalem into predominantly Jewish and Muslim areas. Although there did not seem to be, according to some students, clear danger in wandering into the other part of the city, the tour guides were firm in enforcing that rule, "just in case."
The armed guard that traveled with the group was also a persistent reminder that they were tourists in a land of political tension and unrest where, as a result, people walking around with rifles, and guards and metal detectors at malls were the norm.
Despite the extra security precautions the trip organizers took with regards to the group, what political tensions that existed-while not overlooked by the students-seemed for the most part to blend into the background. "I felt safer than I would feel wandering around by myself in New York City," admitted Hilary Palevsky '07.
During their trip they were able to interact with many Israelis as they walked around the cities of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. They bartered at markets for souvenirs, chatted with patrons at restaurants and mingled in bars at night. In addition, eight Israeli soldiers joined them for part of their trip, participating in the visits and tours as well as rooming with them in the hotels. The soldiers, four women and four men, were between the ages of 18 and 22, and perhaps because of their young age, quickly befriended the tourists. Indeed, they still keep in touch through e-mail.
"The soldiers were endearing. They were so similar in many ways to American youths, yet noticeably-inevitably-more mature," said Rachel Meketon '09.
A few of the students who went on the trip had previously been to Israel; for others, this was their first trip. Some decided this would be their last. A few students visited distant family members in Israel. Some have decided, as a result of the trip, to go back for another visit perhaps after graduation, or as a possible study abroad destination. One realized that Israel felt like home. As students put it, regardless of whether they go back, Israel for thrm"is no longer an abstract thing." That, undoubtedly, is why we travel.