C

he will remember his first time at the
Kotel.
Bari Goldman, 16, felt her strongest
connection to Judaism was while vis-
iting the Wall. Aside from being awed
by its history, she described feeling a
bond with Jewish strangers praying
with her there.
"I now understand why Judaism is
so important and why people fight for
their homeland," she said. "I can't de-
scribe in words how beautiful every
place in Israel is. Every place means
something, and different places are
important to different religions."
Bari said her experiences on the
mission led her not to take anything
for granted. "I'm not so ignorant of the
hardship of Israeli life," she said. "I
feel like my mission is to help keep Ju-
daism alive. Before, I didn't think it
was important to marry someone Jew-
ish. Now I do, and I also want to cel-
ebrate Shabbat."

"Sometimes,
it's hard to figure out
how or why we've
changed."

DETRO IT J EWIS H NEWS

—Jocelyn Frank

54

At first, it took Bari a few days to
adjust to the everyday sight of Israelis
carrying guns on the streets. What
worries her is that one day a majori-
ty of Israel's people may be Arab in-
stead of Jewish.
What surprised Stephen Goutman,
with his new yarmulke, was that some
places in Israel looked like any other
city. Still, most of the country had a
different feeling. Some of the sounds
Stephen heard were uniquely Israeli,
he said. Others were universal.
"You don't expect to hear Hebrew
anywhere besides [synagogue] ser-
vices," he said. "Then you go to Israel
and that's all you hear. You also hear
the birds chirping, people yelling or
crying, and Israelis have their hands
surgically stuck to their horns."
Not everything Stephen saw
pleased him. Before he went, he
thought of Jerusalem as a "magical,
enchanted city." Then, he saw trash
in the streets and listened to a barrage
of honking horns.
"You get so much more of a connec-
tion being in Israel than just learning
about it in Hebrew school," he said. "I
don't know if I can do anything differ-
ent than I usually do to preserve the

