CBI YOUTH CHOIR ISRAEL TRIP

Dear Camp Friends,

On Thursday we spent part of the day in Haifa.  Haifa is a beautiful city in Israel.  It is one of the main ports where boats come in and out.  The choir from Beth Israel did a concert at a Synagogue named Or Hadash.  That night I had the chance to meet a new student who will be starting our school in September.  His name is Noam and his mom is Michal.  They live in Haifa but are moving to San Diego.

Soon we will be coming home from our amazing trip to Israel. I’m looking forward to seeing all of you and hearing about the fun you had at Camp Beth Israel!

Tammy

I came to Israel for the first time and I came for the Bat Mitzvah of Becca Myers; I am her Great-Grandmother. I had a great experience and learned a lot. The choir is wonderful. I want to thank everyone because they have been very helpful and nice to me.

The final and best concert of our tour took place in Haifa at Or Hadash Synagogue. We arrived after dinner and were greeted by the rabbi. He warmly welcomed us to his congregation and thanked us for coming. He is very excited about the possibility of forming a “sister” congregation relationship with Beth Israel. While our choir and band finished setting up, the rabbi took many of the parents on a tour of the temple’s basement bomb shelter.

The concert took place in the Or Hadash sanctuary, which doubles as their activity room. After an additional welcoming speech in both Hebrew and English by the rabbi and by Cantor Bernstein, the kids sang through their entire repertoire for an enthusiastic crowd.

Following the concert, the Rabbi presented all choir members with t-shirts and ball caps from his congregation, and the kids sang an encore with Cantor Bernstein. We ended the concert with a moving rendition of Hatikvah. After the concert we all had a chance to mingle with many members of Or Hadash, some of whom will be traveling to America in the Fall.

Our choir truly acted as good-will ambassadors from San Diego and left beautiful memories in Haifa.

This morning (Friday, 11 July) we left Haifa for a short drive to what used to be the bustling port of Caesarea. This city on the Mediterranean Sea was originally built by King Herod around 62 BCE. He built it based on a vision he had while sleeping. The port quickly became the major entry point for all trade and traffic coming into the Roman kingdom.

Completing his vision, Herod’s architects and engineers built a sprawling typically Roman city. Besides the deep-water port (which his workers dredged and expanded), he built a lengthy aqueduct, Roman bath houses, fancy dwellings, a “hippodrome” for sporting events, and a beautiful amphitheater for plays and musical performances.

Thanks to significant funding from the Baron Rothschild, much of the old metropolis has been excavated and restored. There is now a Visitor’s Center, an interactive display where we viewed a brief history of the area and computerized simulation of what the area probably looked like; there are restaurants, shops, and nice beaches too. Because the weather today was very hot and humid, a couple members of our group decided to wade in the Mediterranean to cool off!

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Traditionally, Jews have visited the gravesites of their families and spiritual leaders. In one Israeli cemetery, visitors pay tribute to two women whose words gave strength to the nation and the Jewish people.

While the rest of our group took a boat ride on Lake Kinneret July 8, we made a side trip down the lake shore to Kibbutz Kinneret.

The poet Rachel and the songwriter Naomi Shemer were not religious, but they touched the lives of people throughout Israel and the Jewish world. Rachel was one of the early pioneers who came to Palestine from Russia, but was trapped in Europe when World War I broke out. She returned to Israel too ill to farm the land she loved so much. She expressed her love of Israel through her poetry and is one of Israel’s most beloved poets. Naomi Shemer grew up at Rachel’s home, Kibbutz Kinneret, and is best remembered for her song “Jerusalem of Gold.” She wrote hundreds of other songs, expressing the hopes and beauty of modern Israel.

The graves of Rachel and Shemer are located near each other in the kibbutz cemetery at the south edge of Lake Kinneret. When we visited their graves on Wednesday, the cemetery was deserted and the atmosphere was peaceful. We found Rachel’s grave first. A niche built into the tomb holds a book of her poetry. We read aloud, “To My Country” aloud in Hebrew and in English and placed small stones on her grave. After placing our stones on Shemer’s grave we read, “The Eucalyptus Grove” about a real grove of eucalyptus trees on the edge of the Jordan.

As one might expect, there’s been a lot of singing this past week.  In the old city of Jerusalem, at the Southern Wall, at the b’not mitzvah, at Havdalah, and, of course, on the bus.  Also, the choir has given a number of wonderful short performances, including a lively set at the Ethiopian absorption center in Sefat and a few impromptu songs (in unusual keys…) on the dock in Tiberius.  But today we experienced what I see as the musical climax of the trip: two concerts, one at the Meir Shfeyah Youth Village in the Carmel Mountains, and another at Congregation Or Hadash in the beautiful Mediterranean city of Haifa. Both places were inspirational, and both concerts were superb.  I’ll leave the details to another blogger.

You may not realize how unusual the CBI Youth and Teen Choir is.  A lot of congregations don’t even have a youth choir. Of the ones that do have a choir, CBI is one of the very few that mix teens and young children in the same group.  Given that there are young children in the choir, it’s hard for me to believe that there are any others that perform such challenging and diverse music. Under Cantor Bernstein’s guidance, eight-year-old children from San Diego learn to sing in Hebrew, Ladino, Yiddish and English.  They learn Sefardi music, classical music, the latest songs in the Reform movement and old Shabbat standards.  Some of the older kids learn traditional cantorial melodies (nusach) that glide seamlessly into modern prayer settings.  It is a truly remarkable group.

Then, there’s the band. Suffice it to say, I love the band. (Does that sound impartial?)

Anyway, it was a sweet day. The choir and band did CBI proud.  It was also an especially sweet day for me.  In the concerts, in addition to several other songs, we performed four pieces that I wrote: Ahavat Olam, Anim Z’mirot, They Light the Way, and With Every Breath. To play and hear these songs, with this choir, and this band, in this country. It’s a feeling I can’t begin to describe.

Over a year and a half ago, some choir kids and parents were sitting around in the Cantor’s office chatting. In the course of our conversation, Cantor Arlene said “I would really love to take these kids to Israel to sing”. We all loved the idea. Fortunately, one of those present was Heidi Gantwerk - that special type of person that makes things happen. While many folks worked hard on planning and organizing the trip, Heidi truly carried the water. Thank you Heidi!

Now that the trip is more than half behind us, I must say that it is better than I ever imagined. What I find striking is that the best part came with me. The magic of hearing our kids sing, and singing with them here is mystical beyond description. The scheduled performance for the Ethiopian Refugee Children was awe-inspiring. But the thing I like the best of all are the impromptu concerts.

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Shalom to All, Our trip thus far has been remarkable:  emotional, educational, highly spiritual and full of special events and surprises. There are so many things that you have been reading about on our blog from your fellow congregants.  I’d like to add one of my impressions.

Perhaps one of our most poignant moments came after climbing the snake path or taking the tram up to Massada.  This extraordinary solitary mountain with steep cliffs rises more than 400 meters above the Judean desert and overlooks the Dead Sea.  One can only imagine the isolation felt by the Jews who thought that they were the last Jewish people living on earth. There atop this lonely mount thrived a vibrant Jewish community.  One can see the ruins of the habitation of more than 900 souls. Among the ruins stands the remnant of a synagogue.

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Today, we needed to say goodbye to Jerusalem as we went down into the Jordan Valley.  We bypassed Jericho and soon turned north.  We traveled parallel to both the river and the Israeli-Jordanian border.  As we traveled, the landscape changed from arrid brown hills with occasional clumps of brown rock to flat fields of date and banana palms.  We soon were gaining altitude and passing long covered green houses, but we didn’t have to guess what was growing because we saw the evidence at many roadside produce stands.  Our tour guide told us that the Jordan valley crops are the first to ripen in Israel, a financial asset to the Valley’s farmers.  As we drove higher into the hills of Safed, the land changed again, with pine forests making the hillsides green. However, nearly all the trees we have seen on this trip are coated with dust. Israel is suffering from a drought even more severe than ours at home. In fact, the Kinneret is so low due to lack of rain that Israeli media reported today that the water level has fallen past the lake’s “red line,” forcing emergency water conservation measures. The lake, feed by the Jordan River, is Israel’s main water source.

Some quick notes on our day today. We got up a little bit later and everyone appreciated the extra sleep (although it turns out we wished we might have gotten up a bit earlier to have more time in Safed, but I’ll get to that later.)  We were sad to say goodbye to Jerusalem and the lovely Mt. Zion Hotel. We could have spent another week in Jerusalem and still not have seen as much as we waned. Someone called this a “taste of Israel” and that seems about right. We will have to plan a trip back for a full course some day.

We got on the bus for the three-hour ride to Safed, and on the way the children rehearsed, which was amazing to listen to. The combination of the breathtaking scenery and the beautiful voices coming from all over the bus was really special. Safed is beautiful, but our time there was far too short. We did have an encounter with the “Happy Chasidim”, disciples of Reb Nachman of Breslav and they were, true to their name, happy and dancing and brought great joy to our group.

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