Last summer, I had the incredible opportunity to embark on a life-changing trip to my family’s homeland: Israel. Even before my first journey to Israel last June, it always held a particularly exceptional place in my heart. For example, my father was born in Afula, Israel, a small town in the Northern Region of Israel situated South of Nazareth and East of Netanya.
My grandparents, Mordechai and Louise, currently reside in Afula for half of the calendar year, spending the other half in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After constantly hearing stories about Israel’s greatness at various family events such as holidays and barbeques, I developed a strong desire to visit my family’s stomping grounds. Therefore, I applied for the Satell Teen Fellowship, which stressed leadership and social activism.
The fellowship lasted an entire calendar year and had countless programs about how to become a stronger leader and how to be an activist in the community. It culminated in an 11-day tour of Israel where leadership and social activism were main points of visitation sites.
The trip was truly inspiring. In my passion blog, I hope to discuss the various sites I encountered in Israel and describe my experiences with the many speakers I met with. It was relatively easy for me to decide to use Israel as my passion blog topic as I know a plethora about its rich history, current political landscape, vast geography, and magnificent culture. It is also a place that I feel passionately about and a place that I truly love.
Traveling to Israel must have been a truly unbelievable experience! I love learning about my family’s history from my grandparents and aunts and uncles, so I can imagine how exciting it was to be able to travel to your ancestors’ homeland. I think it will be such an interesting blog to read because of all the personal stories and connections you have combined with the different lessons and values you learned from the fellowship. I look forward to hearing about the different sites you visited, especially the points concerning social activism.
I think that it would be really interesting and exciting to hear about your experiences in Israel. I myself am also fascinated with my own family history in South Africa so I can relate to your passion. Not many people are well-versed in Hebrew/Jewish culture so I think you have a golden opportunity to enhance the cultural awareness of the kids in our class. My one warning is that there is the possibility that the blogs may become repetitive in that you describe an experience and what you learned from it (at least that’s how I think they’ll turn out but I’m most likely wrong) so maybe try changing it up a little, but this is such a minute concern I wouldn’t even worry about it, its just a suggestion 🙂 Looking forward to reading your blog man
-Jaydin
Hi Danny!
This topic is very intriguing! This topic is very close to your heart, so you will obviously be very passionate about the topic. I love traveling and I have always wanted to visit Israel; I can not wait to live through your amazing experience. My roommate did a program very similar to what you did; it will be very interesting to connect what she experienced and what you experienced. I can not wait to read your next post! 🙂
-Erin Johnson