It has been an incredible week here in Israel! We started our day with a short drive through Haifa from our accommodations with a view of the beautiful Mediterranean Sea in the city. We then drove through the German Colony and up Mount Carmel and walked around the outside of the Baha’i Gardens.

We continued our day in the picturesque Ramat Hanadiv Gardens in Zichron Ya’ackov— a moshava established with the financial help of Baron Edmond Rothschild in the early 1880s during the First Aliyah. Ramat Hanadiv is a beautiful outdoor garden with dozens of varieties of trees, plants, and flowers. It is also the burial place of Baron Edmond de Rothschild and his wife. Rothschild funded the building of the city and other communities throughout the land of Israel nearly seven decades before the founding of the State of Israel in 1948!

After lunch and free time in the city, we visited the Atlit Detention Camp outside Haifa where we learned about the challenges faced by Jews fleeing post-Holocasut Europe when they arrived on the shores of Israel during the British Mandate Era. We finished our day with surfing lessons and a delicious dinner on the Haifa coast!

Tonight we ate a delicious dinner of shawarma, falafel, chicken schnitzel, pita, hummus, salads, and popsicles right off the Haifa beach. Everyone loved the food and being able to see the sunset on the beach after a fun few hours of surfing lessons!

The weather was VERY hot today but was perfect by the evening when we went to the beach!

More updates soon!