Our Boston Tel Aviv group had our first overnight trip last week to the southern part of Israel! Our first stop was the Hirbat Midras Bar Kochba caves, where we crawled through a dark, secret tunnel system that was built during a Jewish revolt against Roman rule. Participants helped guide each other through the darkness to navigate through the narrow twists and turns. The next stop was to Atachlit, an Ethiopian village that is dedicated to preserving the legacy of Ethiopian Jewry. At Atachlit, we got to hear the inspirational stories of some community members, learn and tour the village, and eat an authentic Ethiopian lunch. The final stop of the day was at Bat HaMidbar, where we listened to a moving story of a Bedouin woman who left her life to study in London and later returned to her village. In her story, we learned about the unique face, hair, and body products she learned to hand-make from her grandmother. We were even lucky enough to make our own olive-oil-based rosemary hand cream!

Kayla Prag
Kayla Prag (Courtesy photo)

After spending the night on a beautiful kibbutz, we spent our second day in Gush Etzion. We listened to the stories of an Israeli and Palestinian resident in this area. Hearing about the different challenges of coexistence, we had a chance to ask questions and have a meaningful dialogue with the speakers. We finished our second day visiting Pat B’Melach bakery. In a guided workshop, we got to make our own delicious pretzels and eat them fresh out of the oven!

Our first trip was filled with engaging, meaningful conversation and learning for all.

Kayla Prag, Penn State University ’22, is a public relations major from Foxboro interning with the international design entrepreneur Jacob Peres in Tel Aviv through the Boston Onward Israel program. 125 students from schools across Massachusetts have professional internships in their fields of interest in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa.

This post has been contributed by a third party. The opinions, facts and any media content are presented solely by the author, and JewishBoston assumes no responsibility for them. Want to add your voice to the conversation? Publish your own post here. MORE