The Druze and the Jews

When we were asked to pick weekend-long breakout seminars for our Onward program, I didn’t know what to hope for. Oftentimes the way these types of things are designed is not conducive to fun. Normally, they pack so much information into these experiences that it can be hard to tell what you actually heard, and what you thought you heard. But when I went to look through the options (avoiding my birthday weekend, of course), one stood out: “Community Activism and Diversity in the Galilee.”

The North of Israel is my favorite part of the country, and the Galilee area is filled with rolling hills and green places. It also contains uncountable amounts of Jewish history, even though today there are far less Jews living in the area. This seminar would allow us to spend Thursday evening and Friday morning in the town of Shefar’Am, which literally translates to the “Horn of the Nation.” It is an Arab town where Muslims and Christians live side by side in peace, but there is a third group in town as well: the Druze. The Druze community is ethnically Arab, but not Muslim or Christian. 

The Druze religion is quite secretive, to the point where many members of the Druze community itself don’t even know the details. There are about 1.8 million of them, the vast majority of which live in the Galilee and Golan regions of Israel, the south of Syria, and the south of Lebanon. The religion came into being around the 10th and 11th centuries, with a period of 24 years at the beginning being the only time conversion was allowed. Since that time, there is no way to convert to being Druze, and you cannot be considered Druze if one of your parents is not.

One interesting fact we learned is that the Druze community traces their lineage from Jethro the prophet, from the Tanakh. So in a way, they still find themselves connected to the three major religions. In addition, Druze culture is focused on the shared humanity of people- they treat all fellow Druze as brothers and sisters, and hold an attitude of “if you’re nice to me I’ll be nice to you” towards the rest of the world. With that, however, comes undying loyalty; Druze are loyal to the land on which they live. This means that Israeli Druze fight in the Israel Defense Forces, while Syrian Druze fight in that army and Lebanese Druze fight for Lebanon. This has resulted in multitudes of sad stories of brothers fighting against each other, of families split up, and of a yearning for peace in our time.

The culture is also focused on hospitality- and from experience, I can say that they are the best hosts you will ever meet. We met as a whole group on Thursday night, and then were divided into our host families after dinner. As we drove to the house, our host thought we should stop off at his supermarket and grab some snacks- the Druze love food! We arrived at the home, and as we talked and got to know each other I was challenged to games of FIFA, which if you know me, it is one of my favorite pastimes. We were also given a nighttime driving tour of town, and ended up at the home of our host’s cousins, who were also housing people from our program. As we expected, they were sitting on the front patio talking and snacking on what seemed like an endless supply of food. Around 12:30 AM, we made our way to bed.

The next day we woke up to an amazing homemade Druze breakfast of all kinds of pastries, tea, olive oil and cottage cheese, and so much more. We sat and talked as we ate, and then headed off to the meeting spot for the first activity of the day. That activity was to tour the village of Shefar’Am, and we learned so much along the way. For instance, there used to be a large Jewish community there too, until they left for economic reasons in the 1800s. We traced the path of the last Jewish family in Shefar’Am, as they walked to the synagogue for the last time, key in hand. Since that family left, the synagogue has been in the care of a Muslim family who lives across the street and holds the key- a true example of peace and coexistence. 

The small synagogue is quite basic and bare, but holds historical significance as one of ten places the legendary Sanhedrin once sat. For readers who do not know, the Sanhedrin was the Jewish council of elders in the time of the Temple in Jerusalem. For me, the best part of the tour was the old shuk in the center of town. Today it is mostly used as storage for those who work in the new shuk, but there are still one or two businesses and coffee shops there. One of these was Mr. Jamal, who we were lucky enough to meet. He is the last shoemaker of Shefar’Am, a profession which at one point held much prestige and included many more workers than him. Today, he mostly fixes anything with leather involved, but every now and then he still makes shoes from scratch.

As we finished the tour, we had some free time to grab ice cream as we headed to our next stop: a nearly 500-year old house where one of the Druze program leaders lives. As he explained, the building was once the home of the most powerful Druze Sheikh in the region, a position that no longer exists. In this time, we would be using the home to listen to another Druze Sheikh, who would be the person to explain as much as he was allowed to about Druze religious customs and history.

Afterwards, we would have one final group lunch together, and our group would leave for Kibbutz Hannaton, about 30 minutes away. The bus that picked us up was already half full with a group from the second of three villages that had participated in the weekend, and many of us took the opportunity to nap on the way to the kibbutz. Once we arrived and were split into rooms, we took the opportunity to rest before Shabbat. We expected to be in the community synagogue for Shabbat, but due to a Bat Mitzvah the next day, we had to DIY Shabbat services, which after deliberations as to the format, we did. The few Orthodox members of the group chose to go off and do their version, while the Reform and Conservative members combined to create a very musical and fun service.

Saturday, we began with a morning walking tour of Kibbutz Hannaton. If I’m being honest, I didn’t feel as if I learned much. It felt to me as if the program had been grasping at thin air trying to find something interesting about where we were. The only special thing I learned was that Hannaton is one of only two Conservative-affiliated Kibbutzim in Israel. Beyond that, and the fact that they accept members of all denominations and observance levels, I felt it was a kibbutz like any other. And besides the view, it was way too hot to pay attention too much. After lunch and a panel with some kibbutz members (which I also felt was not very helpful or interesting), we had enough free time to spend a couple of hours relaxing in the pool before our final activity.

That final activity was a text study on community- something I love deeply. Studying text in a group setting for me is relaxing, and I always come out of it with more knowledge than I had at the beginning. This time, we looked at the “Three Types of Community” which I won’t detail here except to give their names: Edah, Tzippur, and Kehillah. Afterwards, we headed to dinner for our final time together as a community, and finished with a moving Havdallah service on the hillside. After that, it was back to Haifa, and to work the next day.

Onward Overnight in the South

This past week, Onward Israel took our group on the first trip of the summer, beginning an early morning on Wednesday with a two and a half hour bus ride to an area just south of Jerusalem known as Gush Etzion. These are a group of Jewish towns over the Green Line in Judea and Samaria (commonly known as the West Bank). Although the Etzion Bloc hosts multiple towns, some large and some very small, we spent our time near the Etzion Junction, the focal point of the Bloc. As our guide, Eytan, told us, 80% of Jewish history is found within Judea and Samaria. For many, this is the major reason they consider it an inseparable part of the State of Israel.

The history of Gush Etzion itself goes back nearly 100 years. In the 1920s, Jews purchased the land Gush Etzion sits on, building four small villages called Kfar Etzion, Massu’ot Yitzhak, Ein Tzurim, and Revadim. These kibbutzim were legal in pre-state Israel, as the land had been bought fairly and there was no Partition Plan at the time. Fast forward to 1948, and things changed rapidly. The War of Independence saw multiple Arab armies attack the newly formed state as punishment for its creation. While Israel withstood the attacks and survived as a nation, many civilians and Hagana members were not so lucky. 

The most famous of these- and the reason Gush Etzion is integral to Israel in the minds of many Israelis, is the Kfar Etzion Massacre. On May 12th, 1948, Hagana commanders requested permission from Jerusalem’s Central Command to evacuate the kibbutz as the Jordanian Arab Legion closed in. They were told to stay, and the next day an attack from four directions broke the kibbutz defenses. As the story goes, the Arab Legion told every citizen of Kfar Etzion to assemble in the kibbutz’s park for a photograph. Due to the fact that Gush Etzion had been essentially under siege for months before May 13th, members of the community wanted badly to be in this photo, as they expected it to be printed in the newspapers. This would show family and friends that they and their community were alive and well. However, instead of producing a camera as expected, the Arab Legion’s members produced machine guns and murdered every member of Kfar Etzion, soldier and civilian alike. In the end, only three men and one woman survived to tell the tale. And the next day, on May 14th, 1948, David Ben Gurion declared independence for the State of Israel.

The main thing we did in the Etzion Bloc was a walk down a dirt road called “Derech HaAvot” or “Way of the Fathers.” In religious folklore, this ancient north-south route is the road Abraham and Sarah walked on their way to settle in Hebron, the road Abraham walked with Isaac back to Mount Moriah (in present-day Jerusalem, though the city had not been built at that time), and the road almost every major character in the Torah took at some point in their lives. To historians, the road is filled with small ruins that serve to teach about ancient Jewish and Roman culture. For example, the road is still filled with Roman road markers, which are marked with the names and dates of the emperors who built them. Additionally, there are mikvah (Jewish ritual bath) ruins along the road which can help modern historians understand the pilgrimage rituals during which Jews from all over Judea and Samaria travelled back to Jerusalem.

After lunch at the Gush Etzion Winery, we stayed in the Bloc and met with leaders from a group called “Roots-Shorashim-Judur,” known more commonly simply as “Shorashim,” which has been bringing together Israelis and Palestinian in conversation and peace since 2014. The initiative is based in Gush Etzion on land that both Palestinians and Israelis have equal access to, making it a perfect place to discuss history, personal and societal connections to the land, and a path forward. For more information, check out https://www.friendsofroots.net. 

We drove another hour and a half south, past Be’er Sheva, to Kibbutz Mashabei Sadeh for the night. The next morning, we headed back north to a suburb of Be’er Sheva called Tel Sheva. Tel Sheva is a Beduin and Arab town, founded by the Israeli government in what some consider a misguided attempt to settle Beduin people in one place rather than allowing them to continue living traditionally as nomads. Beduin who choose to live in these towns receive major financial and other assistance from the government as an incentive, while those who continue living nomadically do not.

We were in Tel Sheva to see a company called “Bat HaMidbar,” or “Daughter of the Desert.” It was founded by a fiercely independence Beduin woman named Mariam Abu Rkeek who had been the first to leave the country for higher education; she chose to go to England. She saw how the important of natural healing techniques was being remembered in England, and at the same time saw her home Beduin community losing their traditional as they moved to towns like Tel Sheva. So, when she returned, Mariam learned from her grandmother the traditional ways of Beduin healing, and turned this knowledge into the Bat HaMidbar cosmetics company and educational center. To learn more, head to https://desertdaughter.com/?lang=en. 

 

For lunch, we made a stop at an Ethiopian-Jewish experiential village called “Atachlit” on the outskirts of Kiryat Gat, a project funded by the Hineini Society. Originally designed to help Ethiopian-Jewish elders stay connected to their traditions when they made Aliyah to Israel, it has also become a place for people to learn about those traditions and the history of Ethiopian Jewry. We learned some of that history and had an incredible Ethiopian lunch that included some of their famous coffee, along with the well-known Injera bread and maybe lesser-known Dabo bread. Find out more about their work here: https://www.atachlit.org.il.

After this, we made a few more scenic stops on the way back north to Haifa, stuck as usual in never-ending traffic. Thursday nights in Israel give a feeling that every car in the country is on the roads, due to Shabbat the next day and the fact that the vast majority of IDF soldiers go home for the weekend at this time. This means extra buses and trains, and that those extra buses and trains are packed to capacity. As we had our own bus, the only problem was traffic. But eventually, around 7:00 PM, we made it home to Haifa. We rested well, looking forward to Haifa Pride and Shabbat the next day.

Tel Aviv Pride

This post recounts an event that took place on 8 June 2018. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to publish it earlier!

Including this year, I’ve now been to three Pride festivals in three different cities in the three years since I came out. The first: New York City, the original. The second: Capital Pride in Washington, DC, where I spent last summer working to save money for this trip. This year? The best of the bunch and my first international Pride festival: Tel Aviv, Israel. This year organizers estimated 250,000 people, the largest EVER for Tel Aviv and the Middle East. 

There are a smattering of other Pride festivals in this historically conservative region of the world: approximately 25,000 people usually participate in Jerusalem along with similar numbers in Haifa, and Beirut, Lebanon last year hosted a very much underground and secretive series of events due to the government’s stance on LGBT people. This year, the organizer (the same person as last year) was arrested by Lebanese authorities and forced to cancel all events. But Tel Aviv is different. At one point it was named the best gay city in the world, and is a perennial contender for this title. The city puts up rainbow banners on the lamp posts of almost every main street, businesses put up rainbow flags in their windows, and the parties become even more plentiful.

Since I was staying with my friend Lin (a former IDF soldier from my Birthright trip two years ago), she came to Pride with me and met up with other friends to make our group even bigger. We left around 9 AM from Rishon LeTzion, the fourth largest city in Israel and a Tel Aviv suburb. Arriving in Tel Aviv around 10:00 AM, we met up with a friend of hers for breakfast who would also be joining us for the parade. Another packed bus ride down to the beach later, we hopped off and walked a few blocks to the former Embassy of the United States, right on the beach. As a landmark, we knew our other friends (other Birthright friends from AU) would be able to find us. Eventually, our group grew to around 6 people and we snagged the perfect spot right on the street to watch the parade.

The parade itself starts a few blocks inland before winding its way northwest towards the beach and cutting south along the beachfront boulevard. Filled with music and a DJ on nearly ever float, participants and onlookers alike dance and sing as loud as possible, simply enjoying the freedom afforded to us on the beaches of Tel Aviv. The feeling is almost indescribable, simply being surrounded by so many people like me in what is easily my favorite city in the world. Dancing, singing, and of course rainbows and glitter as far as the eye can see- this is Pride, a celebration of humanity and a reminder that LGBT people are here and still fighting to be recognized as equals.

After the parade as we were following its tail end, we decided the heat had gotten the better of us and joined the thousands of other Pride-goers who had taken advantage of the beach just a few meters away. Tel Aviv has one of my favorite beaches of all time, with warm waters, a shallow-ish and sandy sea floor, having spent a good hour on the beach, we felt refreshed and happy with our Pride experience.

Post-parade, there is always a huge free concert further down the beach with almost every Israeli superstar present. This year that included Netta Barzilai, the winner of Eurovision 2018. While I would have loved nothing more than to be there, Lin and I were constrained by the train schedule- on Fridays, train service stops quite early due to Shabbat. So, even though I’d offered to pay for the taxi back to Rishon, we decided to start heading back so we could catch the much cheaper train.

The night concluded with a small gathering at the home of one of Lin’s high school friends in Rishon. We ended up staying there quite late, so by the time we returned to her house around 2:00 AM, both of us passed out very quickly. Having been awake and walking for 18 hours at that point, I considered it a successful day and an absolutely successful Pride festival.

10 Hours in Amsterdam

To spend ten hours anywhere is hard. To spend ten hours in a place like Amsterdam? Where do I even begin! The city is filled with canals, bicycles, cafés (yes, both kinds), and too many museums to count. So, with my seven hours, I decided to do…well, virtually nothing. Originally, my plan had been to meet up with a friend for lunch, see the Anne Frank House, café hop, maybe rent a bike if I felt brave enough. After walking to the Anne Frank House, I discovered that not only were tickets online only (that part I could have solved with my cell phone), but I’d also overheard people  saying tickets were timed- and when I saw the line to get in, I knew there was no way I was going to waste so much of what was already a short day simply standing in line.

The biggest thing I did was café hopping. I aimlessly walked around the areas I’d been told were full of them, and indeed there were too many to pick from! A pastry here, coffee there- I really did experience Amsterdam café culture to the fullest. I may or may not have walked in circles a few times, but hey- canals are confusing! My aimless walk took me from the west side of downtown, around the southern reaches of the main square over to the east side and the Red Light District, all the while avoiding a fate I would have thought more likely here than in Munich (that is, getting hit by a bicycle). 

They say Amsterdam is obsessed with this two-wheeled, people-powered mode of transport, and they couldn’t be more correct. In the central area of the city it is mostly foot traffic, but as soon as you get to the side streets in between and along each canal? Bicycles rule in this world. Pedestrians beware, and cars end up being almost slower than walking due to the cobblestoned, skinny streets. Major streets- those that connect the rings of canals- almost always have full, separate, protected, two-way bike lanes. And if they don’t, it’s usually because that road is reserved for tram and bus-use only, and you’ll almost always find bikes given space there as well.

This city is beautiful, vibrant, young, and full of so many things that don’t even come close to what we have culturally in the United States. The world seems so much more positive when you walk through a city designed for people, not cars or trucks. After all, it’s people that live there, right? Why shouldn’t our cities be designed to work for people, not vehicles?

So for those of you who are wondering, this is what 10 hours in Amsterdam looks like:

11:00 AM: Land at Amsterdam Schipol Airport

11:30 AM: Finally get off the plane, head to Schipol Train Station

12:00 PM: Arrive at Amsterdam Centraal via NS InterCity

12:30 PM: Find my way to Anne Frank House, realize I won’t get in

12:30 PM – 5:00 PM: Wander Amsterdam’s streets, café hopping and people-watching

5:00 PM – 5:30 PM: Realize my phone is going to die, sit in a café to recharge and figure out return to Schipol

5:30 PM – 5:45 PM: Walk to Amsterdam Centraal

5:45 PM – 6:30 PM: Catch NS InterCity back to Amsterdam Schipol

6:30 PM – 7:00 PM: Through Schipol security (why is Europe so much smoother at it than the US?) and find my gate

7:00 PM – 8:35 PM: Uploading and editing photos, find some last-minute snacks, prepare for boarding

8:35 PM – 9:15 PM: Boarding and waiting due to air traffic control tower delay

9:15 PM: Depart Schipol Airport for Tel Aviv – Ben Gurion

As you might expect, a large amount of time is spent traveling or sitting at the airport. That’s not to say it’s necessarily a bad thing- Schipol puts most other airports I’ve been in to shame. But even the train to and from Amsterdam is a good start to seeing the Netherlands, as it takes you through some of the rural area between the airport and the city on its short but speedy journey. It was a long day. A long 10 hours, absorbing all I could just by exploring. I know there’s more to this city- I’ll be back, Amsterdam.

But as I post this at nearly 3:30 AM from David Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, all I can think about is a feeling of being home, even though technically I’m not. 16 days of traveling around Europe, and instead of wanting a break in my own bed in Sudbury or in DC, I’m exhausted and yet at peace having landed back in Israel- truly, home.

“My experience in Amsterdam is that cyclists ride where the hell they like and aim in a state of rage at all pedestrians while ringing their bell loudly, the concept of avoiding people being foreign to them.” – Terry Pratchett

Munich: Modernity, Tradition, and LOTS of Beer

Most things you think of as being “German” are in fact Bavarian. Lederhosen, beer halls, cleanliness, and order? All Bavarian traits and traditions. Adi and I jumped straight into his Bavarian culture when we arrived. But to tell that story, I have to go back to our last day in Prague.

We had finished our last day of exploring Prague. Normally at this point we would go back to our hotel, get a good night’s sleep, wake up early the next morning and catch a bus to our next port of call. This time was different. We were trying to make the last day of a festival organized by students- which, as one would expect of a college festival in the Free State of Bavaria (as it is officially known), was full of music and beer. In order to do that, we would be catching a bus that would leave the outskirts of Prague at 2:40 AM, arriving around 7:30 AM the next day in Munich. 

And so we did. Adi and I slept no more than 3 hours each that night, and so our arrival in Studentenstadt (Student City, literally) was groggy and exhausting. We napped for a few hours before I headed off to find a place to write my Prague blog post, which you can find below this one. By 3:30 PM, we were all ready to head down to the festival. Adi’s friends had all assembled by 4:00 PM, so we grabbed our first round of beers and watched a small marching band from the Bavarian town of Augsburg perform. Then it was six hours of beer, food, and conversation in a mix of German and Bavarian (which I understood none of), and English. Finally I’d had enough, and almost as soon as I laid down, my eyes had closed. Such was day one in Munich.

Day two was when the real exploring began. I left Adi to his own devices, as he has a brand new apartment that needed cleaning and preparations before he returned to classes on Monday. My day was spent in two places, right next to each other. The first was the headquarters of the Bavarian Motor Works, otherwise known as BMW. The complex includes BMW World, a free exhibition of BMW, Mini, and Rolls-Royce vehicles that is set up almost like a car show. I spent way too much time there exploring the vehicles and partaking in virtual races with the vehicles. Then I moved on to the BMW Museum next door, which chronicles the history and future of BMW as a company and the vehicles they produced and the sectors they are interested in for the future. The second half of the museum has exhibits on megacities, population density, emissions, and what BMW is doing to contribute to each sector. It focuses mostly on the hybrid and electric vehicles, as well as a suite of apps the company has developed to stay competitive in the new global economy.

Next, I walked across the street and into Munich’s Olympic Park. It was here on September 5th, 1972, that Palestinian terrorists from the Black September organization murdered two Israeli athletes as they broke into the team’s quarters, and then took 9 more hostage in an ordeal that lasted nearly 24 hours. In the end, a failed rescue attempt at the Fürstenfeldbruk NATO airbase would leave all Israeli hostages dead, along with a German police officer and five of the eight Black September terrorists. I spent about 30 minutes at the memorial in the Olympic Park, watching the video that explains the background to the attack as well as traces the timeline of it via news footage from the day. In addition, each of the 11 Israelis and one German are memorialized there. 

To leave the sadness behind, I continued across the bridge to the rest of the Olympic Park, where a 50 meter tall hill overlooks a lake and the stadiums that make up the park. After walking through the park and climbing that hill, I continued to the Olympiaturm, the highest point in Munich. It is a viewing tower whose deck towers 185 meters above the ground, giving beautiful panoramic views of the city and surrounding Bavarian countryside. I then met back up with Adi for a traditional Bavarian dinner, and we headed back to his apartment. Day two in Munich, and I’m starting to understand why people are so proud to be Bavarian.

To start day 3, I headed to the far northwestern reaches of the city to visit Nymphenburg Palace. The land was gifted by Bavarian Elector Ferdinand Maria to his Italian consort Henriette Adelaide of Savoy in 1662 to mark the birth of their son and heir. In her native tongue the palace was to be called “Borgo delle Ninfe,” or “Castle of the Nymphs.” In German: Nymphenburg. Originally a country seat for Bavarian royals, Ferdinand Maria’s son Elector Max Emanuel (also formerly Governor of the Spanish Netherlands) expanded the palace to create a true summer residence fit for a king.

Walking through the palace, the decor and history becomes “newer” depending on which room one enters. Of course in Europe, “new” is relative, and as such the next set of rooms I entered were decorated with decor from the late 1700s-early 1800s. An informational sign in one of these rooms labels it as the bedroom of Queen Therese, the wife of King Ludwig I and mother of three different rulers: King Maximillian II, King Otto of Greece, and Prince Regent Luitpold. Apparently, Munich’s world-famous Oktoberfest celebrations can trace their origins to a horse race on the occasion of Queen Therese’s marriage. 

I spent the next hour and a half walking less than half of the palace grounds. They are massive, and include ponds, fountains, hunting lodges and hideaways, and a small forest that today is filled with biking and running trails- and believe me, Münchners seem to love them. 

I ended up back in Marianplatz (the central square) for lunch, and then headed for the Deutsches Museum, which showcases technology ranging from boats, ships, and early airplanes to renewable energy. As this was less interesting than I thought it would be, I spent only a short time there before moving on.

As has seemingly always been the case in Munich, I found myself in yet another park, this time on the southern side of the city not far from Adi’s apartment. Park Flaucher, as it is called, is absolutely gorgeous. Flowing through the park is Munich’s major river, the Isar. Due to its shallow depth and plentiful rocky beach shoals as it winds through the park, there were (and usually are, I assume) hundreds of people as far as the eye could see in both directions sunbathing, swimming, playing fetch with their dogs, or even simply sitting and doing homework on the rocks. I spent half an hour there skipping rocks and people watching. I met back up with Adi at his apartment for a late dinner, and then turned in for the night. Day 4 would be my last day in Munich, and it would also mean a 7:00 AM wake-up time.

I started off my final day as I have most days in Munich- with a Starbucks run. Waking up at 7:00 AM meant that very few museums or sites were open yet, so instead I grabbed breakfast and planned my day. That plan changed slightly when, on my way to the English Garden, I managed to get hit by a bike. I know, right? Two weeks in Europe and nothing had gone wrong, but of course my last day is when it happens. In any case, I only sustained a few minor scrapes, so it wasn’t a major derailment (no pun intended) of my day. After a quick stop to clean myself up, it was back on my feet and on the way to yet another huge, serene public park.

Munich, Bavarian though it is, seems to have a thing for outdoor leisure. Plenty of bikes (to my own peril, as I discovered), but also huge amounts of gravel trails and fields surrounded by forests and streams- 48.5 miles of them in the English Garden alone! Walking north from near the southern edge of the park, I saw plenty of people enjoying yet another beautiful day in central Europe. Running low on time, I turned back about halfway through the park, and caught a tram headed to the southernmost edge of the English Garden and possibly its most famous attraction: Eisbachwelle. This man-made river hosts a “continuous wave” built into the river’s design which is overtaken with surfers daily. It’s a truly unique spot, and one that attracts its fair share of onlookers as well as skilled surfers.

I continued to the Munich Stadtmuseum- a museum dedicated to the somewhat murky history of the city’s origins, its royal and musical history, and its more troubled past during the last century. With exhibits ranging from musical instruments to statues to royal clothing, the four floors of the museum provide a thorough look at Münchner history, and include some interactive pieces as well! After stopping for a quick lunch, I was lucky enough to meet up with Professor Michael Brenner, the Director of American University’s Center for Israel Studies (and whose class I’ll be taking in the Fall) who also teaches at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. Originally Bavarian himself, Professor Brenner and I discussed the entirety of my trip, and a little about Jewish Munich. He introduced me to the school’s museum of the White Rose Movement, a student anti-Nazi resistance founded at LMU that was one of the few resistance movements to explicitly denounce the targeted murder of Jews during the Nazi years.

Finished with my exploring, I headed back to Adi’s apartment. We spent 30+ minutes wandering his neighborhood searching for a barber shop that didn’t cost €40 for a much needed haircut. Having found one and solved the language barrier (sort of), Adi and I picked up a few drinks for the evening, and, when his girlfriend arrived, ordered some pizza to take out to the Isar River for a last-night dinner.

After a very early wake-up this morning, I’m posting this from Munich Airport. My flight will take me through Amsterdam Schipol with a daylong layover, so stay tuned for “10 Hours in Amsterdam” coming soon, as I’ll land in Tel Aviv at 2:35 AM local time tomorrow morning and will need something to do before the day truly begins! The past 15 days in Europe have been indescribable, though I’ve tried to do just that with each of my blog posts. I hope you’ve enjoyed this adventure, but rest assured, part two will be equally exciting to follow! Auf Wiedersehen from Flughafen München!

 

“Our worst fears have been realized tonight…They’re all gone.” – Jim McKay for ABC News Tonight, delivering the news that all 11 Israeli hostages had been murdered by members of the Palestinian Black September terrorist organization.