By Leslie Tobe

What a wonderful first day in Israel! We started by meeting our guide, Hadara, who proceeded to lead us through a wonderful tour of Tel Aviv. We strolled by various shops, most of which were closed due to Shabbat. We then walked down Rothschild Boulevard where we saw the building where David Ben Gurion signed Israel’s Declaration of Independence in 1948.



We were so excited that our former Shlicach Roie Gonen and his lovely wife Tom joined us for the tour.



We walked through the beautiful Neve Zedek neighborhood and stopped for gelato at Anita’s- a very interesting rags to riches story that has let to gelato stores around the world!



After a picnic lunch in the area of the old Tel Aviv train station, we walked to Jaffa and spent time learning its history.



The highlight of the day, however, was on the way to Jaffa. Our very own Steve Auslander showed off his 90s boy band singing skills by joining a street performer. Not only did he attract quite the crowd but I’m pretty sure the performer received more tips from Steve’s performance than he had all day.

Video here

At the conclusion of our tour of Jaffa, Hadara taught us the meaning of “Tel Aviv.” “Tel” means artificial mound created over centuries through the accumulation of successive layers of civilization built one over the other and symbolizing the ancient. “Aviv” means spring or new coming. See below for a picture of her demonstration of the meaning of “Tel” with Hannah!



We ended the official day with a phenomenal explanation of the very complicated Israeli political system by Prof. Reuven Y. Hazan, Chair in Israeli Democracy and Politics at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.



Looking forward to traveling north tomorrow!