Day 4 and 5 - May 20th Trip

Saturday night the students returned from their free Shabbats. They spent their Shabbats doing many different things, some stayed in the Jerusalem area and stayed with friends, other went into Tel Aviv to relax and sunbathe while others went to visit family all over the country.

Sunday morning we woke up early and had a class taught by Ken Spiro. Mr. Spiro taught the second part of a class we had earlier in the week, History of the State of Israel. Spiro is an expert on many topics like, the roots of Arab/Muslim conflict with the Western world, Anti Semitism, and Jewish and Israeli history. Along with his talk he gave us dozens of book recommendations.

After the class we got back on the bus and headed north. We stopped at Latrun and the Alfei Menashe overlook. In Latrun there were many pictures taken on the tanks after learning about their roles in Israel's military history. After lunch at the Alfei Menashe overlook our tour guide, Yisrael Neeman continued his talk about Israel's military history.

We later went over to visit Lydia Aisenberg at Givat Chaviva. Givat Chaviva is a kibbutz where people from all different backgrounds, Israelis, Israeli-Arabs, Palestinians, soldiers and students come together for the purpose of dialogue and understanding. Lydia is responsible for the creation of the International Department at Givat Chaviva and has been working there for more then fifteen years. She took us on a tour into Barta and showed us a city that is split by the green line, part of the city is in Israel proper and then rest is in the West Bank. After our packed day we checked into the hotel.