Siyur in Jerusalem!

My friends and I decided to take a day trip back to Jerusalem during our free afternoon. We spent time at the shuk, ate dinner at my friend's grandmother's house and walked around the beautiful old city at night. It happened to be Earth day so in the Old City was a beautiful exhibit with painted globes all about saving the environment.

We stayed with our friends from yearcourse in Jerusalem and the next day met up with our Zionism class.
This class was talking about the battles that were fought in Jerusalem and why Jerusalem was so important to the Jews during the war of Independence. First, we went to the Castel and learned about the battle that took place there. One of the most chilling moments was when our teacher told us that we were standing on the spot where the Haganah militia became the IDF. Pretty cool huh? We climbed up the mountain and saw all the trenches and tunnels that have been there since 1948. From the top, there was a beautiful view of Jerusalem and all of the surrounding villages.

After this, we went to a kibbutz called Kiryat Anavim. This made me really really happy because this is the kibbutz that my grandparents lived in when they first made Aliyah from Europe. I had never been there before so I was really excited to go. We didn't really make it into the kibbutz, just the cemetery but I definitely want my grandparents to take me there and give me a tour some time. The cemetery there is for military soldiers that had fallen in the independence war.  The average age was around 18 and buried there were Holocaust survivors who fell, and Jews from Yemen, Poland, Hungary etc. We walked around and read the graves and then discussed the stories. I was probably most affected by the Holocaust survivors who were lucky enough to escape death from the Nazis only to be killed when they are fighting for the freedom of their people. And they never got to see Israel the way I am so lucky to see it now. I wrote down some names to remember for next year during Yom Hazikaron.