Leah Gella Tol-win f living in
From 2 1/2 years of brio s tears to
g
erusalem, one memory
J Leah Gella's eyes: "I miss this so much.
The only thing that stands out in my
mind in Israel, being there, living
there, loving there, davening there, is
there's no better place to be proud to
no question
be a Jew. Because there's
And
about who we are as a people.
uestion
then of course, there's no q
about who you are as a person."

Terri (Rosen) Trepeck, Donna Traub, Nancy Singer, Michelle Cohen
and Sandy Rockind near the Mount of Olives, overlooking the Old
City of

Marc Kogan :
"In Israel we can find a solid
proof of our Torah and Jewish
roots at the Kotel, the remnant of
the Temple, and Masada, and at
Maarat haMachpelah. Israel was
not just a tourist or fun place to
visit. Every Jew can recognize this
if they allow themselve s
to."
A large part of Marc's
teshuvah,
or return to Judaism, took place in
Israel. "Standing at the Kotel and
physically seeing
one of the retain-
ing walls of our Temple made a
lasting impression of the impor-
tance of our Torah and our her-
itage," he says.

Above: Jon Berlin, tubing down
the Jordan River.

Left: Lisa Freiman (with a
friend) loves Shabbat in Israel.

Lisa Freiman:
"Last summer I staffed a USY Israel
pilgrimage trip; I had gone on that trip
when I was in high school. My favorite .
thg to think about is Shabbat in Israel
in
spec ial i n
We always made Shabbat really m ake it
our group. But not only did we
special, in Israel its just this different
feel-
e xperience
ing that I don't think you can
anywhere else.
"One thing that I remember, that never

ha ens
night din r,
er stand to
when we would go to the flow d guy
buy our flowers, the flower staff else
would say `Shabbat shalom.' Where
y say that?
can you go and haves omebodhe air is dif-
The atmosphere is different, t
ferent, it's calm and peaceful and serene
and you can just tell its Shabbat.
Even
bserve it, e verybo dy if
everybody doesn't o
hereas here I
feels it and understands it, w
don't think that's the case."

Jon Berlin:. Being at the
Wall on Friday night, when
the Sabbath came in, I did-
n't expect to feel as touched
by it as I did. I was thinking
about my family. It was spe
cial — you cant be in Israel
without being there on
Friday night.

Shopping at the Naot shoe factory: Jon Berlin, Nancy Singer, Terri
(Rosen) Trepeck and Michelle Cohen.

Michelle Cohen:

Everybody talks
about, they have this feeling
in
Israel that it so incredible to be just
around Jewish people, and I never
really filt that, because I couldn't
tell who was Israeli versus who was
an Arab I also knew there were a
lot of church group s
there. But there
was one time that If that .-- we
were at the opening ceremonie s
for
the Maccabiah Games, and that
was a pretty powerful
ence.
Everybody around you was Jewish
and looking down on the fiek you
knew each and every athlete was a
Jew.

Once, it was Friday afternoon
and we were in the Oldand
there were some people Israeli danc-
ing on the street.We joined
them,
and it was this big group eople
dancing in the middle ofthentreet.
I don't think there was anywhere
you could go in the United States
where that would happen.

5/1
1998

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