A key component of Hillel Academy’s curriculum is to create within each student a lifelong bond to the state of Israel, its culture and its people, according to the school’s mission statement. With this in mind, the school has annually been sending its eighth grade class to Israel for nearly 35 years.
“Going [to Israel] every year is part of the education,” said Sigi (Sigalit) Turgeman, an eighth grade teacher, who with her husband, school principal Rabbi Yoel Turgeman, is one of two Israel emissaries that the school hosts. “It’s the spirit of this school to know how important every Jew is everywhere,” she explained.
The excitement of the three students who went for the first two weeks in May — Natanel Levy, Rivky Stallman and Leeyat Slyper, all 14 years old — echoed her sentiments.
“All year we learned about it, and now we actually saw it … like where David and Goliath fought,” Stallman said. Slyper was most taken by the fact that the group “actually saw places from the Talmud.” And Levy described his experience as “really special,” adding that he “didn’t feel scared.”
Fears over the general unrest in the Middle East resulting from the recent war in Iraq and the 31-month intifada in Israel kept two of the five students in the eighth grade class home.
But speaking for the three who did go, Turgeman said, “We felt very confident and went everywhere we wanted …Ben Yehuda Street, north, south, we didn’t hesitate.”
The group visited cities such as Jerusalem (the old city and the new); Kiryat Gat, east of Ashkelon; and Tel Aviv, as well as several kibbutzim. For a few nights the foursome stayed at the home of Turgeman’s parents in Kiryat Gat, but for a greater part of the trip they settled in youth hostels, which Stallman described as “bare bones” but with “really good breakfasts.”
Among the group’s favorites were seeing the Western Wall, walking through the Flour Caves in the Judean Desert and tubing in the Jordan River.
Adding a personal touch to the trip was the fact that each student has been corresponding over the course of the school year with a pen pal from the sixth grade class of Noam Teveriah School in Tiberias as part of Milwaukee’s Partnership 2000 program.
“It’s part of the curriculum. We are always in touch with each other,” said Turgeman. When the students visited Tiberias they were happily welcomed by their pen pal friends, with whom they spent a day.
Although the itinerary for this year’s trip was similar to that of years past, there were a few new sights to see. An attraction in Latrun known as “Mini Israel” delighted the students.
“It shows all the special places in Israel … with little figures that actually move,” explained a cheerful Stallman. The group was also able to go “behind the green line,” as Turgeman put it, to see some beautiful caves and streams just west of Efrat.
For the three students, this memorable time in Israel won’t be their last. Levy will attend high school there, and Stallman and Slyper said they would love to return anytime.
All in all the three and their chaperone overcame what the teens described as a “boring” 12-hour plane ride, a few mild fears and a “crazy” tour guide to have one of the most wonderful experiences of their lives.
According to Turgeman, one of the trip’s goals was to fortify the idea that “Israel is in the mind … all the time.” With that in mind, the travelers agreed that the trip was an enormous success.
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