The Route to the Holly Land (Yaron Fishelson - Hillel at Stanford)

Jet-leg  Insomnia

Planning, marketing, recruiting, interviewing, hand picking, preparing, FLYING!

The past few months of Birthright preparation flew by so quickly and my new job as the Israel Fellow at Hillel at Stanford took an exciting new turn. Along with the Birthright veteran Philip (the Executive directer of Hillel at Purdue university) we flew today with a group of amazing Jewish students to Israel.

Birthright Orientation at Hillel at Stanford

A lot of thought and preparation were made for this trip both from our side as well as from the side of the trip provides: the Young Judaea  organization.

We all met today (December 16th) at JFK airport in NY and took our first flight to Rome.
After 7 hours of flight from the US and 2 and a half hours of lay over, things got a bit weird with Leo, out new lion friend..

And then, 40 students from Stanford, Purdue and VCU (+2 tired but content staff members and 1 fluffy lion) landed in the Holly Land (AKA the state of Israel).
It was around 4pm and the beautiful sunset presented itself as the perfect scenery for the beginning of this exciting voyage.
We were all greeted by Orr, our lovely tour guide, and the representatives from Young Judaea who led us to our bus, gave us a final debriefing and Introduced us to Avner, our experienced bus driver.

Ben-Gurion Airport debriefing

The next stop  was considered by some to be the most important part of the day - Food!
We managed to squeeze all of our luggage into the bus and started heading north...
After about 90 minutes we arrived to Afula and ate our first Israeli Falafel meal at Falafel Golani

   

Night was coming quickly and everybody climbed back to the bus for our last ride of the day to Pke'in where our youth hostel is located.
The hour is now 3:10 am (Israel time) and everybody is probably fast asleep.
The next day is about to start in less than 4 hours and this amazing adventure will begin here in the northern parts of Israel.
I've lived in Israel most of my life but this is the first time that I get to show it to this kind of group.
This is the first time that I am going to see it through the eyes of young bright Jewish students who get to experience their historical homeland for the first time.

This is the first time I get to share this Birthright with my new found family.

Can't wait to start tomorrow...

Yaron Fishelson (Hillel at Stanford)