Dear Parents,
Here are some of our most important events this week.
On Tuesday we went to the Israel Museum. My favorite part of the visit was learning about and seeing the Dead Sea scrolls. These manuscripts are estimated to have been written between 300BCE and 100CE and were found in caves near Masada.The scrolls are a collection of 981 texts, of ancient Hebrew Scriptures and of writings that outline Jewish customs, and day-to-day activity of the Jews living in the caves of the Second Temple Period. Reading first hand accounts of Jews from 2,000 years ago was inspiring and incredibly humbling.
On Monday evening ,we meet with John Fransman a Holocaust survivor. John is a founder of The Child Survivors Association of Great Britain. He was born in Amsterdam, three weeks before the Second World War began, to a large Anglo-Dutch Jewish family. He is a child survivor of the Holocaust.
is a link interested to hear the story of John-/link
John’s story is certainly exciting, but what moved me is how attentive our students were. They asked him many questions. It was very exciting to see the younger generation showing such respect and absorbing every bit of information they could.
On Tuesday night both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv students were honored to attend a Masa event for Yom Hashoah. The first part of the day was held at the education center on Har Herzl. Yad V’shem ran workshops for us and we heard the incredible story of a survivor. Following that we shuttled to Yad V’Shem at the base of the hill and ate dinner. All of the students then were privileged to sit in on the national Yom Hashoah ceremony and listened to the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President’s Reuven Rivlin addresses. We heard more stories of survival and prosperity from some of the oldest survivors alive in Israel. Overall, it was an unforgettable experience.
Finally, I want to tell you about an interesting project we started Aardvark. The Ten Days of Gratitude weave the days from Yom Ha’Shoah to Yom Ha’atzmaut together with a thread of gratitude – amidst our national sorrow we also appreciate the gift of sovereignty. The Ten Days of Gratitude provides us with a chance to appreciate and give thanks for the accomplishments, achievements and successes of our nation, integrating gratitude into our way of being for this period of national reflection.”
Here are some quotes from our students:
“I am thankful for my family”
“I am grateful for the privilege of being in Israel”
” I am thankful that I’m happy”
Next Week at Aardvark-
We’re going to experience one of the special events we have in Israel:
Yom HaZikaron-Memorial Day
Yom HaAtzmaut-Independence Day
I will tell you all about our experiences in the following letter
