8th Grade Israel Solidarity Trip 2024: Day 7

Day 7 - Wednesday, May 15th

We started our day on the Jerusalem Ramah campus, where we met with Rachel Goldberg-Polin. Rachel is the mother of Hersh, who attended the Nova party in Rei’im, and was taken hostage to Gaza. We had a talk with her which consisted in her telling us about her son, the kidnapping, and how she preserved her hope. She described Hersh to us as a boy who loves travel and geography. He seems like an amazing and loving person. She explained that the last 7 months for her had basically been on another planet, that for her it was still October. She told us that the last words he said on October 6th, before he went to the Nova festival were “Love you, see you tomorrow” and then the next morning when all the sirens were going off she sensed something was wrong so she decided to break Shabbat and check her phone. She opened her phone and found Hersh’s last two texts which were “I love you, I’m sorry.” She told us how after this, she lived in despair for the next couple of months. But after that some sort of switch was flipped in her, where she told herself that Hersh was alive and that she was going to get him back at any cost: public speaking, writing letters, petitions, prayers, rallies - anything to get Hersh and the other hostages home. Three and a half weeks ago Hamas was going to release video footage of Hersh. Rachel instructed her family to not watch the video before she did. After she watched it, and confirmed he was alive, she had a bittersweet moment as he was indeed alive in the video, but he was physically injured, his left arm blown off from the elbow down. Psychologists analyzed the photos and said that he was still himself. Rachel then called her father and said that Hersh was alive and her father started hysterically crying as he thought Hersh was dead and Rachel was in denial. Rachel ended her talk with us by asking that we tell the world about Hersh and the hostages, write letters and spread the message of Bring Them Home Now on social media. We will never forget this special meeting and pray that Hersh and all the hostages come home!

We continued our day with a visit to Israel’s Supreme Court. It is a magnificent building that a lot of thought was put into the architecture connecting ancient times to modern times. We attended a court session discussing budgets to Ultra-Orthodox establishments compared to secular establishments. It was different from USA courts and seemed more informal even though it was the Supreme Court.

Our amazing bus driver met us and we drove down to Tel Aviv where we went to the Carmel Market where we had a unique, enjoyable and memorable experience. We stopped to have lunch and do some final shopping. Some of us went to a Sabich stand for lunch, where the Sabich was topped with a tall deep-fried potato crisp. Fun Israeli music played in the background, and watching our food being made was really enjoyable. It was a great last lunch in Israel. Later, Maia’s daughter joined us, and we walked around the market. Some of us got passion fruit slushies, which were very refreshing. Others stopped to look at jewelry, and some of us made purchases. We also visited a candy store in the market to buy some last-minute Israeli treats. 

After lunch, we drove to the ANU Museum for a guided tour there. There were three floors, but we only had time to look at one and a half of them. There was an interactive exhibit on different non-Ashkenazi Jewish foods. There was a screen with dishes to choose between and then “make” with a stop motion video. There was another exhibit with different interpretations of items that Jews took with them on various occasions when they had to pack up and leave quickly. We also watched a short video with a brief history of every place the Jews have lived since the days of Cannan. There was also another video of an animated song with many influential Jews in fields like fashion, business, activism, the arts, science, and more. 

We arrived at Hostage Square and immediately were struck by the screen counting the days, hours, minutes, and seconds since the moment the hostages were taken by Hamas into Gaza. It was surreal to see the seconds ticking by knowing that every second we were standing there was another one that 132 hostages are somewhere in Hamas tunnels in various awful states. We then were given a briefing on the origins of the square and how it was created by the families and friends of the hostages. We learned about how these people quit or stopped going to their jobs in order to stay there every day. At first, it was surprising to learn that they had the strength to do something like this, but later we understood that this gave them a purpose in life and a reason to get up in the morning, get dressed, and be presentable even through these hard times. The first thing we did was go through a model of a Hamas tunnel. It was meant to look and sound exactly like one that the hostages would be held in. It was scary just to walk through such a place and it is impossible to imagine how people could be in there for seven months. We walked around the square for a little longer seeing the different tents and artwork. We saw an area with yellow ribbons, one for every hostage, and there was a long table that was set up Passover. It was all covered in a thin layer of concrete and had a chair for every hostage taken by Hamas including highchairs for the babies. There were cups and vases also covered in concrete and inside the vases there were yellow flowers. On one side of the table, there were pieces of bread covered in concrete with nails in them. These represented all of the hostages who died. We continued walking around and saw other artwork including one of two people holding hands. One hand had a number tattooed onto the forearm and the other had a Nova festival wristband. We also bought various things from the small store where all of the proceeds went to various ways to help bring the hostages home. We bought hats, shirts, dog tags, and pins. Lastly, we had a discussion about the trip and what the most impactful parts were. It was very interesting to hear everyone’s perspectives and each person’s different reasons for coming on the trip in the first place. 

After going to the Hostages Square, we headed over to our last meal together. We had fresh pita with various dips, chicken skewers and kebabs. The dinner was very fun, filled with laughter and intellectual conversations. 

We ended our last day learning there was a surprise in store for us… an escape room!!! We were tasked with robbing an art gallery,  we split off into two teams in a competition to steal the most goods. The puzzles were very complicated, and we tended to split ourselves into a few groups to tackle different puzzles and attempt to maximize our time. The two teams were headed by our tour guide and Maia, although we did all of the work. In the end, our tour guide’s group won by two gems. 

Then we said our last “Yalla Bye”  and went to the airport for 26 hours of travel back home. This was definitely an unforgettable journey!