., he first thing Ida Gout-
man noticed about her
17-year-old son Stephen
was the colorful woven
yarmulke clipped to his
head.
"I wanted to see what
it felt like to walk
around wearing a yarmulke in a place
where it wasn't out of the ordinary,"
Stephen said.
Upon his return from Israel,
Stephen, a West Bloomfield High
School student, didn't know if he
would continue wearing it. It was one
of the many things he would
have to think about after
spending 41/2 weeks hearing,
feeling, tasting and experi-
encing Israel.
It will take him and the oth-
er 237 teens who traveled on
Detroit's Israel Teen Mission
some time to grasp everything
they experienced. "What hap-
pened to me in Israel was im-
portant," said Shana Shevitz
of West Bloomfield.
"I felt like I was in a play
with the scenery of Israel as
the backdrop. But, at the same time,
it was real. A lot had to do with my
Jewish identity. I now have this pic-
ture in my head of Israel, one that I'll
carry with me always. You know, a lot
of people cried when we were at Ben-
Gurion Airport. I didn't, because I
know I'll go back."
'e all know that we've changed,"

said Jocelyn Frank, also of West
Bloomfield. "Sometimes, it's hard to
figure out how or why we've changed.
We found out about ourselves and we
learned a lot. Some of it, we can't make
sense of. Over time, though, we'll un-
derstand it."
Erin Herold, a staff member on the
Teen Mission, watched as the teens
were transformed by Israel.
"A lot of them found out about
themselves as individUals and Jews,"
said Ms. Herold, a West Bloomfield
resident and teacher at Hillel Day
School. "I think our best program was

at Yad Vashem (Israel's Holocaust
memorial and museum). There, the
teens really gained a sense of what
happened during the Holocaust and
felt the importance of preserving our
heritage."
Tami Tarnow of Southfield said the
trip taught her to love and appreciate
prayer. She said she enjoyed the ser-

vices conducted on Masada at sunrise
and praying at the Kotel (the western
wall of the Temple in Jerusalem). She
also liked planting trees.
"It was fun to be giving hope, and
giving back to the earth," she said
about the tree planting. "I have bought
(JNF) trees in Israel, but this one I
planted with my own hands."
J.R. Mankoff, 15, of West Bloom-
field, got off the plane with some ex-
tra luggage. In addition to the
souvenirs and gifts he purchased, he
was carrying a plaster cast wrapped
around his arm. He had a mountain
biking accident a week and a
half before he came home.
J.R. was so awestruck by
his travels that he had a hard
time articulating his feelings
about Israel. Did the experi-
ence change him? "I'll have
to wait to settle back into my
life here to see if there is a dif
ference," he said.
Ben Turbow, of West
Bloomfield, celebrated his
16th birthday in Israel. He
had plans to get his license
the day after he returned.
"The landscape was spectacular,"
Ben said. "You cannot describe Israel.
it's someplace you have to see for your-
self It's a place that closes for Shab-
bat, and everyone wishes you a 'Good
Shabbos.' "
Years from now, when Ben cannot
remember the names of everyone on
his bus or all the places they visited,

that the trip ways
it was "miraculous" when #,liey got a letter
from their son or daughter.
The "little" niiracles of this mission, how-
ever, came in some of the comments they
read in letters or heard in overseas phone
conversations with their children. Perhaps
the biggest miracle was the person these par-
ents met at the airport, some 41/2 weeks af .
ter they dropped their children off.
The scene reminded some veterans of Is-
ra.eli travel at Ben-G-urion Airport, where
friends and relatives and sometimes
strangers gather tO:see who is getting off El
Al flights from America. When the El Al jet
landed at Detroit Metropolitan Airport on
July 25, there was applause, tears — lots of
tears --- and a stirring feeling. Parents,
grandparents and friends anxiously crowd-
ed the windows of the International Tenni-
nal, waiting for the jet to land. Once it did,
they moved, en masse, to the area outside of
customs, awaiting the first sight of their
teens.
Karen Cohen of West Bloomfield stood

