By Daniel Munch / Special to the BJV

Hello, my name is Daniel Munch. I am a junior at Lenox Memorial High School. I live with my mom, dad, and sister, and I have a brother in college. The temple I attend is Hevreh of Southern Berkshire, where I am a madrich for the Sunday religious school and a participating member of the confirmation class.

This past summer I participated in the truly formative NFTY L’Dor L’Dor program in Israel. Thanks to the generosity of the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires, I had the opportunity to participate. I’d now like to share my wonderful experience with the community.

L’Dor V’Dor was the furthest I've traveled from home, but the destination made it well worth it. This trip gave me the opportunity to experience and connect with the country of Israel in a very in-depth way, from the barren swathes of the Negev through to the vivid hills of Haifa, the archaic streets of Jerusalem’s Old City to the refreshing skyline of modern Tel Aviv.

A huge plus of the trip was that I wasn’t alone, but traveling with sixty of my closest friends, all Jewish teens coming from every part of the United States. I had attended URJ Crane Lake Camp – also thanks to the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires –  with the majority of my fellow travelers. With my compatriots (and the many Israelis we befriended along the way), I was afforded the chance to really do a deep dive into my religion, the history of my people, our collective cultural heritage, and Zionism.

We met diverse people who all reside in Israel – a Hasidic man, a Druze family, Israeli Arabs, a Palestinian, and Bedouins, as well as secular and Reform Jewish Israelis. They all had somewhat different perspectives on religion, Israel, and everything in between, all of which helped me put myself in someone else’s shoes.

Probably the most unique experience I had in Israel was camping and hiking in the Negev’s Eilat Mountains. The astonishing heat and bareness of that desert, unchanged since the days the Israelites traversed it, was something incredible.

The desert was beautiful, but the highlight of my trip was my chavayah. ‘Chavayah,’ which means experience in Hebrew was a 4-day chosen adventure that split our group into smaller sections. I chose “Yam L’ Yam”, which consisted of hiking on the shores of the Kinneret and then most of the way to the Mediterranean Sea. In the Kinneret, the importance of Israel as a religious entity became immediately clear, as there were many Christian Americans at the kibbutz where we stayed. While we walked through the valleys of lush Northern Israel, we threaded through many Arab villages and their distinctive mosques, with minarets reaching up at the sky. On the trail, we passed through pastures with nervous cattle, chatted with European tourists, and cooked our meals using fresh water from nearby creeks.

We awoke before dawn every morning in an attempt to outpace the midday heat, stopping at noon for a few hours to wait out the sun in some shady spot. In the evenings, we played Hacky Sac with our security guard Yan-Eve, stargazed, and tried to avoid the scorpions scuttling about. Those four days were exhausting and physically taxing, but I found the experience invigorating. At one point we were handed a map and a compass and told to navigate alone to a point multiple kilometers away. This forced us to work together and use our own initiative to reach our destination successfully.

We biked the final miles down the hills to the sandy coast north of Nahariya. We swam in our fourth sea of the trip (Red Sea, Dead Sea, Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean Sea) and made our way to the final leg of the trip, which we traveled with other teens, Israelis from a town north of Tel Aviv. I was impressed by how similar we seemed, even watching the same shows on Netflix. We enjoyed having them with us as we explored their home country, affording us an inside look and yet another perspective. Probably the most humbling part of the trip was the realization that our Israeli friends, who are really no different than us, will all have to join the Israeli military next year.

Talking with Israeli friends about anything from politics, music, sports, or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was always fascinating to me and saying goodbye to them was a sad day. Throughout the trip I learned so much, in both an educational way learning about Judaism’s history and our culture. But I also learned on a more universal level about people and how they interact with each other. I came to realize that behind linguistic, cultural or religious barriers, most people are fundamentally the same. I made friends from two nations, experienced so much and refined my identity as an American Reform Jew.

I am incredibly thankful that I had the opportunity to have this experience and it is one that I won’t soon forget.

Thank you, Jewish Federation of the Berkshires and everyone whose contributions make experiences like this possible for young Jews in Berkshire County.

By Daniel Munch / Special to the BJV

Hello, my name is Daniel Munch. I am a junior at Lenox Memorial High School. I live with my mom, dad, and sister, and I have a brother in college. The temple I attend is Hevreh of Southern Berkshire, where I am a madrich for the Sunday religious school and a participating member of the confirmation class.

This past summer I participated in the truly formative NFTY L’Dor L’Dor program in Israel. Thanks to the generosity of the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires, I had the opportunity to participate. I’d now like to share my wonderful experience with the community.

L’Dor V’Dor was the furthest I've traveled from home, but the destination made it well worth it. This trip gave me the opportunity to experience and connect with the country of Israel in a very in-depth way, from the barren swathes of the Negev through to the vivid hills of Haifa, the archaic streets of Jerusalem’s Old City to the refreshing skyline of modern Tel Aviv.

A huge plus of the trip was that I wasn’t alone, but traveling with sixty of my closest friends, all Jewish teens coming from every part of the United States. I had attended URJ Crane Lake Camp – also thanks to the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires –  with the majority of my fellow travelers. With my compatriots (and the many Israelis we befriended along the way), I was afforded the chance to really do a deep dive into my religion, the history of my people, our collective cultural heritage, and Zionism.

We met diverse people who all reside in Israel – a Hasidic man, a Druze family, Israeli Arabs, a Palestinian, and Bedouins, as well as secular and Reform Jewish Israelis. They all had somewhat different perspectives on religion, Israel, and everything in between, all of which helped me put myself in someone else’s shoes.

Probably the most unique experience I had in Israel was camping and hiking in the Negev’s Eilat Mountains. The astonishing heat and bareness of that desert, unchanged since the days the Israelites traversed it, was something incredible.

The desert was beautiful, but the highlight of my trip was my chavayah. ‘Chavayah,’ which means experience in Hebrew was a 4-day chosen adventure that split our group into smaller sections. I chose “Yam L’ Yam”, which consisted of hiking on the shores of the Kinneret and then most of the way to the Mediterranean Sea. In the Kinneret, the importance of Israel as a religious entity became immediately clear, as there were many Christian Americans at the kibbutz where we stayed. While we walked through the valleys of lush Northern Israel, we threaded through many Arab villages and their distinctive mosques, with minarets reaching up at the sky. On the trail, we passed through pastures with nervous cattle, chatted with European tourists, and cooked our meals using fresh water from nearby creeks.

We awoke before dawn every morning in an attempt to outpace the midday heat, stopping at noon for a few hours to wait out the sun in some shady spot. In the evenings, we played Hacky Sac with our security guard Yan-Eve, stargazed, and tried to avoid the scorpions scuttling about. Those four days were exhausting and physically taxing, but I found the experience invigorating. At one point we were handed a map and a compass and told to navigate alone to a point multiple kilometers away. This forced us to work together and use our own initiative to reach our destination successfully.

We biked the final miles down the hills to the sandy coast north of Nahariya. We swam in our fourth sea of the trip (Red Sea, Dead Sea, Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean Sea) and made our way to the final leg of the trip, which we traveled with other teens, Israelis from a town north of Tel Aviv. I was impressed by how similar we seemed, even watching the same shows on Netflix. We enjoyed having them with us as we explored their home country, affording us an inside look and yet another perspective. Probably the most humbling part of the trip was the realization that our Israeli friends, who are really no different than us, will all have to join the Israeli military next year.

Talking with Israeli friends about anything from politics, music, sports, or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was always fascinating to me and saying goodbye to them was a sad day. Throughout the trip I learned so much, in both an educational way learning about Judaism’s history and our culture. But I also learned on a more universal level about people and how they interact with each other. I came to realize that behind linguistic, cultural or religious barriers, most people are fundamentally the same. I made friends from two nations, experienced so much and refined my identity as an American Reform Jew.

I am incredibly thankful that I had the opportunity to have this experience and it is one that I won’t soon forget.

Thank you, Jewish Federation of the Berkshires and everyone whose contributions make experiences like this possible for young Jews in Berkshire County.