Making Our Way Back Up North

"After a chilly night, we davened, dined, and dashed. Our next stop was the heart-shaped wonder of Machtesh Ramon, a naturally formed crater named for the Romans who used the area as a trade route. Breaking from the expansive wilderness that transformed our last few days, we toured the home of David Ben Gurion, former Prime Minister and champion of the Negev. After discussing the character of Ben Gurion, we sang Hatikva around his gravesite as the sun set over the mountains. In the evening, we began our brief stay at Mashavei Sadeh with "Refusenik", a documentary detailing the journey of Soviet Jewry. A part of our exploration of the demographic makeup of Israel today, the documentary explained the desires of over 3,000,000 Soviet Jews to leave the USSR, the government's refusal to allow them to, and what it meant to live in such refusal. Our students were suprised to learn of the immense efforts of world's Jewry to free the Soviet Jews, especially in the United States. As we finished our last full day in the south, the bond forged between the group and the land became even more apparent. Nearly all of us have been to Israel before, and each time we are asked if we "connected". For many, answering in the affirmative was a way of appeasing expectant teachers or group leaders. It seemed like what we were supposed to say. This time, there was a shift. The individuals in the class of 2011 seemed to truly find something in the desolate beauty of the sandstone and granite, something powerful and inexplicable. We want to stay in touch with this place, by means physical or cognitive. This blogger has a feeling we will all find a way to do so." Aliza Small
After waking up in our luxurious lodgings and davening, we piled onto the bus and continued our drive north to the development town of Yeruham. Founded in the early 1950s, it was one of the many such towns designed to accommodate the sudden influx of Jews Israel experienced in the first decade of its existence. The task of absorbing the DPs, the emigrating Jewish refugees from the Middle East, and all others eager to make the new state their home was challenging: the population literally more than doubled and all those people needed jobs, places to live, and the attendant infrastructure. Israel engaged in a decade of building. One solution was to develop the Negev, with many towns springing up from the ground and constructing all the appropriate buildings. Schools, hospitals, houses and apartments, stores, community centers, synagogues. Many of these towns still stand today and are struggling in their self-definition in the 21st century. The same problems that accompanied their founding are no longer as relevant, so they in some ways are socio-economic dinosaurs, not attracting the residents and the investment to make the community thrive. We discovered this by walking the streets, interviewing the people, getting of glimpse of this, yet another way of life in Israel. What we discovered surprised us. While many expressed the traditional stereotype of “wanting to escape this dead end town,” some expressed their love for it and defended their decisions to raise their families here. We visited a community center, a technology building, and a school and understood a little bit more about this side of Israel. We concluded our time in Yerucham by making paper kites and drawing our “visions for the future” on them. Flying the kites, with some soaring high and others failing to make flight, we learned relevant lessons about the need to persevere with certain visions, the need to drop or step aside with others. We left Yerucham and made our way for the heart of modern Israel, Tel Aviv. A modern metropolis in the Middle East, the city boasts a big population and has everything a modern city should have. As we get ready for dinner and our outing at a play performed by the deaf and blind, we also prepare for our Free Weekend, where our students will stay with friends or relatives throughout Israel. Although our time here is gradually drawing to a close, there is still plenty left. We wish you a wonderful upcoming Shabbat and will return on Sunday with new updates. Kol tuv.	r