Ending week 2

On Friday morning the MBIers drove down to Haifa to explore one of Israel's most unique cities. Haifa, Israel's third largest city is built into the Carmel Mountain on the Northern part of the coast. Haifa is well known as being a coexistence city where Arabs and Jews have lived and worked together for years. To begin the siyur (tour) the chanichim gathered on a promenade above the Bahai Gardens. The Gardens are holy center for the Bahai religion. This is where people of the Bahai faith come to complete their pilgrimage. From this promenade you can see the gardens as well as the whole downtown area of Haifa.

Here the MBIers learned a bit about the history of Haifa and the demographics of the city. Then they ventured down into the Arab neighborhood of Wadi Nisnas. Because Haifa is on a mountain there are neighborhoods located in different natural formations. A wadi is a dried up river bed and this is evident when walking in this particular neighborhood. You have to descend into it and it is very narrow. The buildings are also small and close together. During the walk through the neighborhood the chanichim discussed the architecture of Wadi Nisnas as well as the layout of the city as a whole. Another interesting aspect of Wadi Nisnas is that every year local artists are asked to create murals and art installations to be featured in the neighborhood as part of a coexistence project. This is meant to bring beauty to the city as well as Arab and Jewish artists together. The trip to Haifa was the beginning of this week's theme where the chanichim will begin to examine democracy in Israel and the complexities of modern Israeli society.

After the tour of Haifa, the weekend began. Friends parted and either went off for free weekend or returned to the hostel in Shlomi for what I am sure was fun and relaxing two days.

On Sunday morning everyone was reunited at the beach for Yom Habonim Dror. This day is a relaxing, fun and exciting day where the chanichim have a chance to cool down in the water and meet their Habonim peers from around the world. The chanichim enjoyed some delicious food, beach volleyball, water games, and t-shirt swaps.