Category: Middle East

As Plato once said, “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” What would Titanic be without “My Heart Will Go On,” Ghostbusters without “Who You Gonna Call,” or Singing in the Rain without… well, “Singing in the Rain”?

For me, this excursion to the Middle East was a bit of an impulse decision. Granted that I may not have given much thought to the variety of strange things I might end up doing on a “backpacktivism” trip in the Middle East, I don’t think that even my wildest imagination would have thought I’d end up doing any of these things…

This picture isn’t exactly the most eye-catching photo, and I doubt you really would look twice at it if I didn’t have a chance to explain the story behind it.

I listen. Waves hit the coast on my right. Music from the bustling city fills the air on my left.

Could we do it? Can humanity forget its past? What if we obliterated our histories?

What do you call 3 Americans, 5 Canadians, and a Chinese woman living in a two-story apartment in Jerusalem with their two moms?

It was madness. The kids splashed and jumped and yelled and laughed and threw water at each other and at us and ran out and slipped and wow… Pure chaos.

A woman in traditional ultra-Orthodox Jewish attire told Alex and I to pull up our sweaters and cover our necks. Little kids stared and pointed and ran away.

At what point can you justify what happens at the walls and at the checkpoints with the protection Israel is receiving?

At one point, I realized just how far the media had fooled me into not acknowledging there existed another side to the conflict.

We hope that the work we’re doing makes some sort of long term impact on their lives, but only time can tell how everything turns out.

Standing in a city where it is the surviving heart and collective pain of a people, the Holocaust came to life before our eyes again.

This was juxtaposition at its finest. The birds chirping in Ronnie’s gardens as she told us about the governments limits on water and electricity across the border.

In the morning we rode the light rail through all of Jerusalem, from east and west. Part of the activity included identifying the differences in every area or noting at what stops the changes happened. At one point we had a mishap with the tickets and the ticket checkers didn’t let us out in the east, telling us it wasn’t safe. I think we’re beginning to notice that the bigger picture is better painted with the small details.

The wonderful thing about this program is that we all seem to be in the same mentality – purposely putting ourselves in a place where most tourists are too afraid to see, willing and excited to help where we can, and anxious to learn about a culture that has already intrigued us and fascinated us on Day 1.