We started the day by travelling to Gordon beach in Tel Aviv, where we swam and played volleyball. At 10 AM, the Yom Hashoa, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, sirens went off to acknowledge the millions of Jews who died in the Holocaust. All of Israel just stopped, which was incredible.
Afterwards, our group went on an hour long drive to Caesaria, a port city built during the Roman Empire with many centuries of history. There was an amphitheater and a chariot racing track, along with the ruins of King Herod’s palace. There we had lunch.
We then travelled to Afula, a city where we visited multiple youth groups with kids our age in similar organizations to Hevreh. One of them brought Muslim and Jewish Israeli teens together to learn English and another supported LGBTQ+ youth. We also travelled to a Yom Hashoa event which hosted Holocaust survivors with teens from Afula to talk about their experiences and have discussions.