ots@ohrtorahstone.org.il

Eleventh and Twelfth grade students at Derech Avot High School in Efrat set out in October on experiential Jewish history lessons. As one group of students experienced an emotional trip to Holocaust-ravaged Poland, another group traveled the length and breadth of Israel, tracing the Jewish national revival.

The bus tour of Israel was a microcosm of Israeli society, as students from Gush Etzion were joined by two tour guides from the country’s north, one of whom lost a son in the Lebanon War. Three teachers also accompanied the group – one rabbi, one program director and one graduate student in philosophy – which was driven by an Israeli Arab, secured by a left-wing kibbutznik and attended by a medic from a development town in Israel’s south. “It sounds like the beginning of a good joke,” acknowledges principal Rabbi Shlomo Wilk, “but really it’s the story of this country, compressed into a 15-meter long vehicle.”

Students were exposed to testimony from Holocaust survivors and war heroes. They visited memorial sites for the fallen and museums dedicated to the courageous. As they made their way from bloodstained locations to modern Israeli tours-de-force, they discussed the price that revival has demanded of the Jewish people, both as a nation and as individuals.

“One group walked through the ashes of a lost world; the other through the miracle of our country,” says Wilk. “Today, not one student takes his Jewish identity for granted.”

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