Chaluztim Ba’aretz – Bus 2

By Rabbi Rich Kirschen, Director Now that the NFTY in Israel journey is about to end, another journey is soon beginning. Once your teens have rested and have had a chance to catch up with the family and friends they missed over the summer, it will be well worth your...

By Anna Levy, Bus 2 Participant For the last few years of my life, I’ve been anticipating my Israel trip. Seeing older campers come back from their trip and rave about how wonderful it was just made me more excited. When this year finally came, looking forward to...

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By Jordan Schmidt, Bus 8 Participant Throughout our time in Israel, our entire bus has bonded, reinforced old friendships, and made new friendships that will last a lifetime. This week, we welcomed seven new members to our group: native Israelis. Something that I...

By Hannah Mink, Bus 9 Participant I wasn’t totally sure what to expect before meeting the Israelis. I was worried that it would make our whole group dynamic awkward, and considering that we started the summer not knowing each other I was even more worried. But as soon...

By Rebecca Wycoff, Bus 8 Participant For four days, a couple of my friends and I spent time on an IDF army base. The chavaya (or ‘choose your own experience’) that we chose was Gadna, an army experience designed for Israeli high schoolers. Gadna allows you get a sneak...

By Paige Wright, Maddy Cherry, Maya Greenstein and Kaleigh Silverstein, Bus 6 Participants This past Friday we had the amazing opportunity for eight Israeli teens to join our group for the next week. At first we were nervous about them joining us on our trip, but our...

By Evan Bazel, Bus 6 Participant I feel Judaism in America is a concept and practice plagued with superficialities and grey areas. Speaking from experience in both the Conservative and Reform sects, I can declare with the utmost confidence that the religion itself, an...