Temple Ahavat Achim

Note: The first day’s itinerary will be subject to change depending on when the flight arrives

• Arrive at Ben Gurion International Airport, with assistance by a Makor Educational Journeys representative
• Proceed to Tel Aviv
• From the Four Corners of the Earth, welcome program from the Jaffa overlook, overlooking the Mediterranean, the gateway to the Land of Israel for centuries
• Tel Aviv as a Jewish City, Tel Aviv as an Israeli City, Tel Aviv as a City of the World, with scholar Rachel Korazim at her home in Jaffa
• Check in to the hotel
• Opening Dinner and introduction/orientation – TBA

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Visit a High Tech company in the Kiryat Atidim High Tech complex
• Independence House: Israel as a Start-Up Country
• Stroll down Rothschild Blvd, a quasi “open air” Bauhaus museum lined with many buildings designed by European immigrant architects and influenced by the work of the architectural “International Style”, where some 4000 Bauhaus buildings were built in the 1930’s – a development which turned the fledgling Tel Aviv city center into a forward-looking architectural gem
• Tasting Tour at Levinsky Balkan Spice Market, with lunch on own in the market
• Urban Art Tour in the bohemian Florentine Quarter: explore one of the most thriving street art scenes in the world
• Dinner on own

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Travel to Ariel Sharon Park, the former Hiriyawaste dump that was shut down in August 1998 and has been renovated into an environmental park and boasts 3 recycling facilities, for a guided tour of the site to learn about how the RDF (Refuse Derived Fuel) facility, the largest and most advanced multi-refuse facility in the world, is operating to turn waste into an energy resource
• Possible to ride bikes/hike, weather permitting
• Study session: The New Israeli Spirituality, with BINA – The Jewish Movement for Social Change
• Lunch on own during a guided walk through Neve Zedek, one of the first neighborhoods outside Jaffa and home to author S.Y. Agnon, Israel’s first Nobel Laureate, with an opportunity for exploration and shopping
• Meet with a representative from the Masorti movement at the Neve Schechter – Legacy Heritage Center for Jewish Culture in Tel Aviv’s Neve Zedek to discuss Issues and Challenges of the Masorti Movement in Israel
• Tour Sarona, once a flourishing Christian Templar agricultural settlement in the midst of the isolated plains north of Jaffa and today the refurbished, exclusive business park in the heart of Tel Aviv
• Dinner on own in Sarona

• Breakfast at the hotel and check-out
• Proceed south
• Visit Rahat, a Bedouin village, to learn how these now semi-nomadic people are dealing with challenges of modernity
• Lunch with the Culinary Queens of Yerucham, a social business project in which Yerucham women host groups in their homes for a rich meal of ethnic delicacies, home hospitality and stories
• Visit the grave of David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of the State of Israel, in Sde Boker overlooking the valley in to Nahal Tzin that the Children of Israel had come through on their way to the Promised Land
• Proceed to Jerusalem
• Check in to the hotel
• Dinner on own

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Briefing at the Western Wall (Kotel): Ezrat Yisrael: Decision or Derision?, with Susan Weiss, founder and CEO of the Center for Women’s Justice, which is representing the Original Women of the Wall in the Supreme Court
• Enter the Old City through Jaffa Gate and encompass the Old City of Jerusalem by following the Ramparts Walk along the top of walls that were built by the Ottoman ruler, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent
• Guided tour of the Jewish Quarter, with emphasis on the First and Second Temple Walls, including the Western Wall
• Lunch on own in the Jewish Quarter
• Travel along the line of the wall that used to be the border between Israel and Jordan (1948-1967)
• Tour the Neve Ya’akov neighborhood, bordering on the Palestine Authority, accompanied by Herschel Katz, urban planner, to see the security barrier and its effect on the neighborhood, as well as the invisible social, economic and religious barriers between the 4 main population groups in the neighborhood
• Shabbat dinner at the hotel with Yosef Abramowitz, President and CEO of Energiya Global Capital and co-founder of the Arava Power Company, and his wife, Rabbi Susan Silverman, an activist for religious pluralism, African asylum seekers and international adoption

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Morning at leisure
• Lunch on own
• Options:
• Walk along the 3-mile urban exercise route: Read fitness information on signs shaped liked walking silhouettes; work out on four different machines artfully arranged in a park that operates by utilizing calisthenics to obviate the need for actual weights; drink at several route-side water fountains; and even weigh yourself on a solar-powered scale—and learn about Jerusalem as you go along!
• Israel Museum (on own)
• Shabbat afternoon walk through Yemin Moshe, with the poetry of Yehudah Amichai in hand
• Havdalah
• Dinner and evening on own

• Breakfast at the hotel and check-out
• Neot Kedumim, the Biblical Landscape Reserve and a living museum of Israel’s “green archeology” creating an ecological awareness as expressed in Jewish tradition and heritage, to focus on the ever-important water issue and creative solutions from the past and the present
• At Neot Kedumim plant a tree because Jewish tradition teaches: If you are about to plant a tree in Israel and the Messiah arrives, finish planting the tree, and then go out to greet the Messiah
• Proceed north via the Trans-Israel Highway for a security seminar along the Seam Zone between Israel and the Palestinian territories, stopping at several observation points to understand the geopolitical realities
• Lunch on own en route
• Beit Shearim is a famous archaeological site due to its catacombed-necropolis, where Jewish families from many countries around Israel had requested to be buried in order to be close to Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, whose tomb is located in one of the tomb clusters
• Travel to Hararit
• Participate in a spiritual workshop with Gabriel Meyer HaLevy of The Human Program
• Check in to the hotel
• Dinner at the hotel

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Travel to the Golan
• In Jeeps, drive across the Golan Plateau, with both nature and stories from the Six Day and Yom Kippur Wars, arriving at Bental for a view to Syria and an in-depth briefing on the geopolitics and security situation on Israel’s northern borders
• Lunch on own
• Visit the Golan Brewhouse, where you can learn how beer is made, see the beer in the making and taste 4 different kinds of beer
• Visit Rosh Pina, established in 1882, was the first settlement in the Galilee following the earliest major wave of immigration, the First Aliya, which created small agricultural colonies along the coastal plain and stroll about the village’s cobblestone streets, reminiscent of old European towns and follow in the footsteps of Zionist pioneers
• Proceed to Maghar and participate in an authentic Druze Cooking Workshop that affords you a hands-on, true-to-life, cultural immersion that’s not just about good eating, but also about exploring foreign cultures through taste, smell, and experience

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Proceed to Haifa
• Overlook on to Haifa from the Yefe Nof Promenade
• Trace the Art Trail from Beit HaGefen Jewish-Arab Cultural Center, an initiative that promotes a shared society by creatively to bringing together the various religions, cultures and nationalities living in Israel, through the Wadi Nisnas neighborhood, as part of the “Art of Shared Society” project
• Social Action Project with Haifa P2G Partnership
• Lunch on own
• Meet with Sivan Ya’ari, founder of Innovation: Africa, a not-for-profit that brings innovative solar and water technologies to remote African villages
• Proceed to Tel Aviv
• Check in to the hotel for day-use rooms
• Afternoon at leisure
• Optional walking tours in Tel Aviv
• Bike riding
• Farewell dinner TBA
• Proceed to Ben Gurion International Airport for your departure flight

*Program is subject to change.