Tribe L2L Jerusalem Blog Day 3

Day 3 of our experience! Written by Rachel Kendal, Ari Deller and Rebecca Ebner-Landy

Yesterday we all had a very emotional day. We visited the site of Yad Vashem and each reacted in way that felt natural to us. To start off the day we had a talk about why the Jews have been persecuted repeatedly through history. We discovered that the reasons given for this persecution are simply excuses.

Soon after, we traveled to Yad Vashem. We were lucky enough to be told a story about an elderly holocaust survivor and a young man. They met on  a plane and discovered their religious differences. After going their own ways they met again many years later, only to discover they were father and son. This story made us feel uplifted and hopeful.

      

     The museum section of Yad

Vashem allowed us to gain an extensive knowledge behind the horrors of the Holocaust. We watched accounts from survivors of the concentration camps and these truly resonated with us. We were overwhelmed by the numbers of Jews killed as the facts under the surface. After lunch we heard a beautiful but deeply saddening story about a mother who had to give her daughter away to save her from the final round ups. This touched us because it made us think of our own family, our own mothers who if we were born at a different time might have had to do this for us.

The memorial to the one and a half million children who were killed was extremely emotional for all of us, as children ourselves. It made us think of our families again. There were two candles which were reflected by many mirrors. The sheer number of reflections represented the children. Joseph, one of our new friends worked out that it would take a third of a year to read out the names of all the children. This really had an impact on us and helped us to understand the enormity of the brutal murders of the Holocaust. Following this we read Kaddish in remembrance of every child who died, every life that was cut short and all the dreams and aspirations gone forever. All these children had a life just like us. They had dreams, they had wishes to achieve and they had potential to succeed.

 

Rebecca read out the response of the daughter, who was given away by her mother. Her mother had perished in the Holocaust, yet she had survived and miraculously had the letter that her mother left for her - this gave us a sense of hope.

We then gathered in the Valley of Communities. We stood in a circle around an Israeli flag and listened to songs, with our arms linked and our heads held high. After this we davened Mincha and felt an extreme sense of spirituality. We felt empowered by the strength of the whole group. We are Jewish communities, just like those that we stood to remember. Ending with a sense of hope and pride, we traveled to go Go-Karting, and enjoyed this afternoon greatly.

Afterwards we went to 'pantry packing,' a program in which volunteers help pack bags filled with rice and chickpeas for charity. The bags would then go as part of a needy family's monthly box, which would completely provide for them food-wise. We were split up into teams of seven and each team worked as a unit: putting stickers on the bags, stamping them with the expiration date, filling them with rice, sealing them and packing the boxes with thirty bags each. It was brilliant for team-building and inspired us to work together for the good of the poor. It was exactly what we needed after the deeply-spiritual, self-reflecting, emotional roller coaster that was Yad Vashem. The experience helped us bond as a group and it felt really good to contribute to the welfare of people we had never met before. The leader of the charity mentioned that the program costs $3,000,000 per year and they clearly need our support.

Overall, the events of the day were very diverse and affected us in various ways. Yad Vashem was very personal and emotional and the children's memorial in particular helped us to relate to the Holocaust in a very different and more emotional way than we have ever done before. The transition from the upsetting and deeply-moving experience of Yad Vashem to the fast-paced and exhilarating Go-Karting was difficult but it allowed us to recover for the rest of the day. This meant that we started the pantry packing feeling positive. We then ended the day on a high, having helped people to put food on their table, which is something that we have never had to do, and this made us realise just how privileged we are.