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Hadassah's Summer Mission to Israel
Led by Stephanie Z. Bonder
July 3 - 14, 2017

Tour Rates & Dates:

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Tour Overview:

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5 nights Prima Kings, Jerusalem, Israel
2 nights Kibbutz Hagoshrim Guesthouse, Upper Galilee, Israel
2 nights plus late check out Crowne Plaza, Tel Aviv, Israel
All touring and sightseeing per an agreed upon itinerary in a deluxe
air-conditioned vehicle with an English speaking guide
Breakfast daily
Welcome dinner in a restaurant in Machane Yehuda Marketplace
Shabbat dinner including wine in a private room in Jerusalem
Lunch & swimming at a Dead Sea Resort
2 Kibbutz dinners
Farewell dinner
Transfers included if arriving/departing with the main group
Entrance fees as per itinerary
Porterage

NOT INCLUDED - These prices do not include:

Roundtrip airfare departure taxes and fuel surcharges
(available soon)
Any border taxes or visas
Tips to guides, driver, and dining room waiters
($20.00 per person, per day-pre-collected)
Any items of a personal nature
Travel Insurance
(Highly recommended)
Tower of David Sound and Light show

Tour Itinerary:

Day 1, Monday July 3 2017: DEPARTURE

• We depart on our afternoon flight and travel overnight to Israel.

Day 2, Tuesday July 4, 2017: ARRIVAL IN JERUSALEM

• Early morning arrival at Ben Gurion Airport, with assistance by an Ayelet representative - Welcome Home!
• Upon arrival in Jerusalem, we drive to the Mt of Olives to recite a special “Sh'hekiyanu!” Blessing overlooking the City of Gold. Visit Henrietta Szold's grave.
• Visit the Hadassah Hospital campus atop Mt. Scopus. We'll visit Henrietta's office and celebrate the 50 years since the reunification of Jerusalem, and the subsequent rebuilding of the hospital on Mt Scopus.
• Tour the Western Wall Tunnels and enjoy some time at the Kotel to experience the special atmosphere.
• Check into our hotel.
• Participate in a tasting tour of the Machane Yehuda market. After the market's shops close for the day, it comes alive once again. We enjoy the unique murals painted on the shutters of the market shops and see how the market changes as it becomes the newest hub for Jerusalem's night life.
• Enjoy a Welcome dinner and orientation at a restaurant in the market.

O/N Jerusalem 
Day 3, Wednesday July 5, 2017: HADASSAH AND CITY TOUR

• Breakfast at our hotel.
• This morning, we meet with Gil Hoffman, chief political correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, for an in-depth and entertaining look at Israeli current events
• Visit to Ein Kerem Hadassah Hospital, where we tour the Mother and Child Pavilion. We tour the recently completed Sarah Wetsman tower, featuring the most modern hospital facilities in the region, and also visit the synagogue, home to the famed Chagall windows.
• Lunch (on own).
• We enter the Old City where we explore the Bazaar/Shuk, the Christian Quarter, the Via Dolorosa and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
• Tour the Jewish quarter and walk along the Cardo with time to shop at Hurva Square.
• Visit the Ir David Excavations just outside the Old City walls, where we wander through the carefully preserved archeological excavations dating back to the time of King David.
• Continue to Ein Tzurim, a live archaeological site where we have the opportunity to participate in a hands-on excavation. Join us in uncovering the glorious past of the Temple Mount. Sift through rubble that originated in ancient buildings from the Temple Period and learn about findings from the archaeologists.
• Free evening and dinner on own.

O/N Jerusalem

Day 4, Thursday 6, July 2017: MEMORIALIZING THE PAST, CREATING THE FUTURE

• Breakfast at our hotel.
• We visit the Yad Vashem complex, the Jewish National Memorial to the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Hhere we explore some of the newly found materials relating to places, people and events connected to the Holocaust, including:
     o The Avenue of the Righteous
     o The new Historical Museum
     o The Children's Memorial
End the visit at Yad Vashem with a group Memorial service at the Valley of the Lost Communities.
• Visit Mt Herzl, where we visit the gravesites of Theodore Herzl, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, and Shimon Peres. We view the military cemetery and hear from our guide some of the heroic stories of those buried here.
• Explore the bunkers at Ammunition Hill, the official museum symbolizing the liberation and reunification of Jerusalem. Its new multimedia film helps visitors better understand the events and battles of 1967.
• Jerusalem Startup Hub - Visit the new Center for Entrepreneurial Innovation in Jerusalem. Located in the heart of the city, the Hub opened its doors in March 2013. JSH aims to be the center of start-up development in Jerusalem, a hub for break-through technological ideas from all over the world.
• Free evening and dinner on own.

O/N Jerusalem

Day 5, Friday 7, July 2017: BEER SHEVA AND THE GAZA BORDER, WELCOME SHABBAT

• Breakfast at our hotel.
• Visit a joint JNF/Hadassah project, building a park in the southern desert region. We'll plant a tree here, helping to make it even more beautiful and connecting us physically to this important project.
• Drive south to the Eshkol region, bordering Gaza. We visit the Regional Center for a security briefing at the Command Center.
• Continue to a secure school on the border and the protected playground for a moving visit with faculty.
• We visit to exquisite blacksmith Yaron Bob. Struck by the terror of shell attacks, Yaron decided to transform something horrible into something beautiful - and so began “Rockets into Roses”.
• Enjoy a picnic lunch at the “Salad Trail” in the Eshkol region on the border with Gaza. See how Israeli innovation is literally making the desert bloom - with crops grown out of some of the most inhospitable sands imaginable.
• Return to Jerusale, where we welcome Shabbat at the Western Wall with the people of Jerusalem.
• Shabbat dinner in a private room at our hotel with Hadassah friends.

O/N Jerusalem

Day 6, Saturday 8, July 2017: SHABBAT SHALOM!

• Breakfast at our hotel.
• Free morning for Shabbat services or just to relax.
• This afternoon, we enjoy a guided walking tour through the historical and charming neighborhood of Yemin Moshe, the first modern neighborhood built outside the Old City's walls.
• Continue to Neviim street (street of the prophets), where we follow the story of these historically protected buildings, so closely entwined with Hadassah's history in Jerusalem.
• Havdalah with Barbara “BG” Goldstein on the rooftop of our hotel, overlooking the
Old City.
• Free evening in Jerusalem - enjoy a stroll along Ben Yehuda Street, Emek Refaim Street or visit the Mamilla pedestrian walk, filled with shops and restaurants.
OR
Optional: Attend the Tower of David Night Spectacular Sound and Light Show (at extra cost)

O/N Jerusalem

Day 7, Sunday 9, July 2017: MASADA & THE DESERT

• Breakfast at our hotel.
• Check out of our hotel.
• We depart Jerusalem and drive toward the Dead Sea Basin.
• Ascend to the Masada summit by cable car. Here we view the remains of King Herod's palace and fortifications, and hear the story of the Jewish Zealots' last stand against the approaching Roman armies.
• We enjoy an unsinkable swim in the salty waters of the Dead Sea, with a chance to visit the spa's mud baths. Lunch at the hotel.
• Explore Ein Gedi, where we take a short hike to the hidden waterfalls in this desert oasis.
• Drive along the Jordan Valley to our Kibbutz in the north.
• Dinner at our kibbutz.

O/N in the Galilee

Day 8, Monday 10, July 2017: THE GOLAN HEIGHTS

• Breakfast at our kibbutz.
• Jeep tour up to the Golan Heights. Atop the Golan, we take in an amazing view. Here at Mitzpe Gadot, we see the memorial to those soldiers who lost their lives capturing this crucial spot from Syrian forces in 1967.
• Take in the views stretching far into Syria from atop Har Bental.
• We enjoy a chocolate workshop with one of Israel's top chocolatiers at Ein Zivan's Dekarina Chocolate Factory.
• We next cross the Galilee to visit the mystical city of Safed. Here we visit the ancient synagogues and have time to stroll along the shops of the Artists' Quarter. We participate in a Kabalah workshop and study
• We visit a nearby Winery for a delicious wine tasting before returning to our Kibbutz .
• Dinner at our kibbutz, followed by a meeting with Kibbutz members and youth.

O/N in the Galilee

Day 9, Tuesday July 11, 2017: TO TEL AVIV

• Breakfast at our kibbutz.
• We take an insightful drive along the Lebanese border, stopping at Kibbutz Malkia, a strategic overlook, where we will meet with the IDF unit on the border, as well as kibbutz security personnel to learn about the steps they take to protect this small frontier community.
• This morning, we'll tour the Hula Valley Nature Preserve, where millions of migrating birds come to rest and eat each year. Enjoy a surrey or golf cart ride through the heart of this beautiful and bucolic scene.
• Visit Hadassah's Meir Shfeya youth village, where we meet and volunteer with the kids and staff.
• Visit Zichron Yaakov, stroll the streets, browse the shops and visit the Nili Museum amid this European style village's charming shops and cafes.
• Visit a Druze village and enjoy the wonderful home hospitality, as we learn about this unique minority.

O/N in Tel Aviv 

Day 10, Wednesday, July 12, 2017: STARTUP NATION

• Breakfast at our hotel.
• This morning, we meet with young entrepreneur Rony Rozen to discuss her story, as well as Hi-Tech innovation in this Start-Up nation.
• The Story of Tel Aviv, guided walk through Neve Zedek and what was Ahuzat Bayit, exploring the origins of the city of Tel Aviv, its people and places.
• Continue to Tel Aviv's White City, one of the largest concentrations of Bauhaus architecture in the world.
• We visit the library in the city center - the Space for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. The Library provides a shared-working space and hub facilities for teams dedicated to developing internet startups and technology companies.
• Visit one of the leading Israeli fashion designer studios - Reuma. Learn about the way they started a business from nothing in Tel Aviv and now have acheived worldwide recognition.
• OPTIONAL (additional cost): Evening at the Nalaga'at Center, a meeting place for deaf, blind and deaf-blind and the wider public, that through an artistic and cultural experience engage in a dialogue. Dinner at the Blackout Restaurant, which invites you to an exceptional culinary experience that will trigger your senses; followed by a performance of “Not by Bread Alone.”

O/N Tel Aviv

Day 11, Thursday, July 13, 2017: TEL AVIV FROM A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

• Breakfast at our hotel
• We begin our day at the Palmach Museum, where we “join up” with the brave paramilitary unit from Israel's pre-statehood days.
• Uncover the secrets of the Ayalon Institute, where an underground ammunition factory played a pivotal role in Israel's fight for Independence at the end of the British Mandate.
• Visit Old Jaffa, where we stroll the winding streets and explore the artist galleries. Enjoy Lunch in the area (on own), and visit one of the largest open-air flea and art markets in Israel.
• Enjoy the balance of the afternoon at leisure.
• We gather for our Farewell dinner at a local restaurant, as we recount all we have experienced together.
• Depart for the airport for our flight back to the United States.
 
Day 12, Friday, July 14, 2017: ARRIVE HOME

• We land back home in the USA.



The Memories Last Forever!


*Itinerary subject to change