This Week

Teen Mission 2000

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Spiritual energy of the Western Wall unites us as a people.

Jerusalem

M

y perception of Israel before
I got here was a vision of a
forest in the north, desert in
the south and Jerusalem in the middle.
I thought of Jerusalem as a city with
several buildings and the Western Wall.
nf. However, as I arrived and stepped off

the plane and saw the bright Israeli
sun, I put my expectations aside.
Israel, I soon learned, was unlike
anything I could have ever predicted.
Jerusalem was more than several build-
ings and the Western Wall. It was an
eclectic mix of modern and ancient cul-
ture. In new Jerusalem, I saw reminders

of home: billboards, traffic
jams, and tall office and resi-
dential buildings. But when
we stepped into the Old City,
the nostalgic aroma of bibli-
cal times filled my body and
mind.
At first, it was just too

JARED
GOLDBERG
Special to the
Jewish News

much for me with all the his-
tory and archeological sites,
and the information and places
just went over my head. For
the first week and a half, I felt
no connection. This all
changed, however.
We previously had gone to
the Western Wall on a day
when it was not crowded. We
traveled there again on Friday

7/14
2000 Jared Goldberg,
16, ofWest Bloomfield is a Temple Beth El member. He is one 282 high school students on Detroit's third Teen Mission to Israeh co-sponsored by the Jewish

30 local synagogues. The mission. runs June 28 to July 31.