12 | APRIL 6 • 2023 

I

t was surreal when I first stepped off the plane in Israel. 
I’d been anticipating the trip for months, since I first 
learned last year that leadership of the Detroit Jewish 
News Foundation would send me and my colleague Mike 
Smith, the Foundation’s archivist, to Israel as a part of the 
Motor City Mission. I couldn’t believe it was 
finally happening.
Many of the people I’ve worked with and met 
during the dozen years I’ve been editing the 
paper have told me about their visits to Israel. 
It will be life-changing, they said. I knew they 
were right. All travel is life-changing — new 
horizons never-before-seen, windows to new 
vistas, new food, new people, new ways of doing 
things. “It will transform you,” they said. “Bring 
Kleenex. Everyone who goes to Israel ends up crying.”
I nodded politely. I’m not a super-emotional person and 
being neither Jewish nor a practicing Christian (but with a 

Jackie 
Headapohl
Editorial 
Director

Impressions of the Holy Land 
from a first-timer to Israel.

Motor City 
Mission Memories

OUR COMMUNITY
ON THE COVER

JOHN HARDWICK/FEDERATION

Dancing the first 
night in Israel

