Afterwards, we took a walk to a major street in town, Agron Street, where we tried to observe and explore using our senses. While walking down the main street, I took a moment to study the American Consulate, because the emblem surprised me, as containing an eagle with a Jewish star above it. Unfortunately, I posed a threat to their security, and I was interrogated by their officials, Arab and Russian. They even checked my passport. It was an uncomfortable moment. However, once our exercises concluded, I found out that the new director of our program, a fantastic guy named Dov, had the same issue! It was worse for him, though, because he had no passport. Just like for me, they asked him about the details of our program, but then they tried other forms of identification. They asked him for his business card. There are no Kivunim cards. They asked for the number of his office. Kivunim has no phones. They asked for his position, and he replied, "I'm the director." They copied his American license.
My walk on Agron was relaxing and educational, and also brought me up to speed on the wildly ambitious building projects currently underway in Jerusalem. Among them is a Waldorf Astoria Hotel, which is using the facade of a very old and Turkish building, because of its attention to detail. Across the street there is currently a Muslim cemetery, but, rather ironically, some of that space will soon be converted into a Museum of Tolerance. Don't ask me how that passed. Finally, the new Mamilla mall, as well as local hotels are the product of an architect named Moshe Safdi. You can see some of the things I noticed here.
It was a great day, and I still don't believe I'm here. Perhaps you will when you see this:
Kivunim Vision Statement
KIVUNIM: New Directions, a year-long program for college students, seeks to forge a lifelong relationship with Israel and the Jewish People through travel across the world - gaining understanding of other cultures, religions and worldviews. Our travels build Jewish identity within the development of a profound sense of “world-consciousness” both as Jews and as citizens of the world. Based in Jerusalem, we encounter Israel openly: appreciating its grand and historic achievements together with its unfulfilled goals and aspirations. We encourage a perception on the part of our students that there is work yet to be done and that they have a role to play in the fulfillment of the Zionist promise. We introduce students to the world of Arab-Jewish co-existence, perhaps the greatest challenge to the State of Israel and the Jewish People in our time.
KIVUNIM: New Directions provides ongoing opportunities for service to others with the goal of developing an abiding sense of social responsibility to those in various forms of need who surround us wherever we live .
KIVUNIM: New Directions believes that by educating young Diaspora Jews (and eventually Israelis, Jews and Arabs alike) in this way, we will give voice to a Zionism for the 21st century that can be embraced by all freedom-loving, democracy-building people throughout the world. We believe that this education will make our students strong, confident, and hopeful advocates for a Middle East of cooperation, mutual acceptance and peace. We expect our students to return to their college campuses and their future lives with the capacity for and interest in building dialogue in place of confrontation and to become living representations of the words of the founder of the Zionist movement, Theodor Herzl, “If you will it, it is not a dream.”
KIVUNIM: New Directions uses its travels, its academic course of study, its social responsibility/coexistence programming and its spiritual and Jewish life experience to give form and content to the Jewish person for the future. KIVUNIM seeks, through its travel program, to enable students to interpret the past and understand the present in order to build and insure the future. For if there is a true goal to Zionism for the 21st century, for the national liberation movement of the Jewish people in the decades to come, it must be to improve the world’s tolerance, mutual respect, commitment to human rights and human dignity, in a just and peaceful world: to give life to the words of the Hebrew Prophets in modern times.
KIVUNIM: New Directions believes that Jewish Education must take place within a context of lofty goals and aspirations filled with optimism, tempered by reality and encouraged by the understanding that words have power and that betterment of the world is the central goal of the Jewish people and its religious and national tradition.
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