Jerusalem Weekly – May 27, 2021

Hello Parents and Students,

This week, following the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, things were less stressful and we were able to get some rest after last week’s amazing Golan Heights trip.

On Sunday night, Aardvark Israel hosted a Prom Night! The students had an opportunity to mingle and say goodbye to their friends from the Aardvark Year program. We enjoyed a night of good food, music, dancing, and great memories with friends.

This week for FOI (Faces of israel), our students discovered the magic of Nachlaot through a personalized and interactive tour by one of its longtime residents, Ayo Oppenheimer Abitbol. Nachlaot is the second neighborhood that was built outside of the Old City of Jerusalem, and is known for its colorful diversity.

During the tour, students not only discovered some of the sweetest hidden places in Nachlaot, but also connected with half a dozen families who treated them to funny and interesting stories and live concerts, as they shared their unique journeys of how they ended up in this neighborhood.

The best part? The students came away from the tour with a whole lot of invites for Shabbat meals, cooking lessons, Jewish study, ultimate frisbee pick-up games, and more. It was so fun to see our students connecting with the local community.

For Tiyul Tuesday, we went to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum. We split into two groups. One group was made up of students who had been to Yad Vashem before and one group was students who had never been. We walked through the museum, where we learned about the Holocaust and saw the atrocities that happened. Many students were shocked by what we saw and moved by what we experienced.

It was an incredibly moving moment of necessary learning and thought. It was a very important opportunity to experience a time in our people’s history.- Matthew Wein

This Thursday, students on the Extreme Track went for an adventurous bike ride in the Ben Shemen Forest area.

It was very fun the electric bikes go quite fast and the forest was very fun to ride around

Billy Galeota

Internship in the Spotlight by Jade Kabatznik

My internship is at the Jerusalem Media Group, where we film projects and edit videos. It’s been a lot of fun learning behind the scenes of something that I’ve been interested in for my whole life. I would recommend this internship to anyone who is interested in radio and tv broadcasting. I’ve been learning how to edit videos and how to help with camera work for recordings, as well as working with mic checks. The project I am working on now is a video that features students who have finished their college degrees. The video is designed to convince people who may be questioning the choice of higher education. We filmed a doctor and a drama student, and now we are editing the video.