Yom HaAtzmaut

Rachel Rudbergs blog 

What an experience, going from yom ha zikaron straight into yom haatzmaut in Yerushalayem . This is just one slope on the roller coaster of emotions on this trip. 

We welcomed yom hatsmaut in near the windmill with hallel, singing and dancing. They had drummers playing along with other musical instruments for Rabbi  Tannenbaum to dance the lightbulb. It was A lot of fun! Watching rabbi and the other boys that went with us dancing and having the time of their life made me want to join them, but the girls were sadly not dancing. After, we went to ben yehuda street. It was absolutly crazy! Thousands and thousands of people must have been there last night! Shaving cream was being sprayed everywhere, on everything! I have never seen a bigger bottle of shaving cream in my life! And kids would empty it within minutes! I was glad that I wanted to shop, just so I could get out of the crowd. As excited as I was to get there, 2 hours was more than enough time, I think we were all ready to get out of the craziness. When we got back to our room, we saw fire works outside our windows.

Today, we marched from Safra square to the Kotel in a sea of blue and white and israeli flags. At Safra square, we danced and sang to Jewish music with everyone on the march of the living. They had drummers, dancers and singers. Walking with thousands of Jewish teens, staff members, and holocaust survivors made me proud to be a Jew. The march from Aushwitz to Birkenau also made me proud to be a Jew, however, it was more like proud to be part of the Jewish nation. In Poland, we were in the midst of seeing all of the deaths of our fellow Jews, but in Israel, we are finishing seeing all of the growth of the Jewish nation and we are seeing how we still survived after the natzis tried to exterminate us. When we got to the Kotel, we sang and danced some more, like every Jewish party, and then we heard from rabbi tannenbound. He screamed each word of the Shema and everyone recited after: Shema Yisroel adoshem elokanu adoshem echad. Of corse we were the loudest because we were the proudest for him to have received that honor, and because we learned so much with him about the holocaust on this trip. 

This evening, we went to the final event as a whole march of the living. It was at Latrun, a museum for tanks. I Loved the location as tanks were necessary to keep Israel, especially after the holocaust as people needed a place to go. After dinner, we watched a concert. 

Happy 65 birthday Israel!!!

Rachel Rudberg