The total group consisted of forty Jewish Americans aged 18-26, three counselors, an Israeli tour guide, one or sometimes two armed guards, and nine Israeli soldiers—four young women in air force intelligence and four men from combat units. Their names were Ada, Hela, Anna, Neta, Yogev, Omer, Shay, Adi, and one I can't remember.

I spoke to that one only once for a brief time following an exercise the soldiers had us perform, basically the first ten minutes of basic training. Painful. I kept slipping out of "at attention" in some small but thankfully hard-to-notice way. But I knew I'd slipped, I told the soldier afterwards. He assured me it was normal to do this at first. Then we played cards, and the soldiers spoke in Hebrew mostly. I taught them to play Bullshit, but I beat them too easily for them to be interested. Then I went to bed.

"Bed" is not really the appropriate word for where I went next, actually. But how would it sound to say "I went to four inches of foam upon which I was to spend the next three hours trying to sleep"? We stayed that night in Bedouin tents. The last activity ended around midnight, and the scheduled wakeup time was at 4AM. I was one of the first to go to sleep, and I woke up regularly all night long. But it was worth it. In the morning, we took a bus ride and hiked up to Masada.

This was Day 7. Maybe because Masada was so beautiful, maybe because I was so tired, maybe because the site's story is so wild—I don't know why, but—it stands out. "Masada," I recently told an Arab/Indian friend, the first person to call me when I got back to LA, "is said to be the site of a mass suicide...First, all the men killed their families. Then, ten of those men were chosen to kill all the others. Then, one of those men was chosen to kill the remaining nine before killing himself. And we know this from the account of some women and children who fled to a cave and lived." Without missing a beat, my Arab friend applauded, "Freaking Jews, man!" I think this story impressed him more than anything else, except perhaps that I hooked up with a girl.

She was quite beautiful and she really liked me. The rest is private. I will say this though. It was sickening to see the proportion of beautiful women to not-beautiful women in Israel. On Day 1, they had us walk through Sheinkin street where there were supposed to be "hip" stores. Well, on account of the fact that I don't give a shit, I walked straight past all the stores until I finally reached some place unique, a violin/jewelry store with an immaculate garden in front. Commerce is commerce, but this place was cool. I sat and waited, listening to Vivaldi, watching the people go by. When the owner got there, I found we had little to say to eachother. Except we watched the women passing 'til he told me, "Man, if there's one reason to live here, there she goes." He spent five minutes extolling the virtues of Israeli women, how beautiful and intelligent they were, how little patience they had for bullshit, and on and on until I was late getting back to the group. (I would later find out that the girls on the trip felt the same way about Israeli men!)

People were also surprisingly friendly everywhere I went. I received the worst service I've ever received in restaurants and gift stores, but I also received some of the best. A vendor I met in Tel Aviv spoke to me for ten minutes, and when I told her I didn't want to waste her time, that I wasn't going to buy anything, she remarked smiling, "Nice to meet you, and...Welcome home." She was one of five kind strangers who said this kind of thing to me.

Even the flight attendants felt more like friends than flight attendants usually do. I told one of them how friendly I thought they were, and she was surprised. "We are not known for being friendly. Smart yes, but friendly? No. We are often taken to be rude." Oh, but I found her uncommonly warm for a flight attendant and I had to tell her I felt so. "Our enemies," she told me, "never call us friendly, but always smart. " It was a response I couldn't argue with, but it bothered me. It made me feel, even before I landed, that there was a sense of "us against the world," and not liking those odds I wasn't sure I wanted to be part of that "us."

I didn't feel so strong a divide throughout the trip though, probably in part because except for the Bedouin tents we never went near any Arab areas. Or if we did, we were on the tour bus. The sense of "us against..." was only obvious when we passed tanks and guns—which was often, but not overwhelmingly so. I couldn't find any counselors or soldiers willing to take me to the Muslim (or even Armenian) quarter of Jerusalem. We had only a few chances to be around non-Jews, one of which was particularly telling.

It was Shabbos and the schedule looked something like this:

* Sleep late.
* Eat.
* Walk.
* Eat.

Since all other activities were verboten, it was our only "free" day (Day 5) and it stood in harsh contrast with the rest of our trip, during which activities or traveling was almost crammed in so that the only free time was at night when if you were smart you'd be sleeping to prep for the next day. But I digress. It was Shabbos, and I'd gotten "item 1 - sleep late" out of the way. It was time for "item 2 - eat" and I threw on the same clothes I'd changed into late the night before. I wore socks without shoes and my shirt was inside-out, but I figured it was just the hotel, so who cares?

Well, when I got downstairs, a bald hotel employee in a suit had a different opinion. "Is this your house?" he asked me. "Where are your shoes?" "They're in my room," I said meekly but not guiltily, "Is that a problem?" "Would you go to a meal like that where your from?" he asked me indignantly. "Yes, I would go anywhere in a hotel in my socks actually." "Well," he said as though I was just too dirty to understand, "this is very much a problem for us." I asked his name, and offered him my hand to shake. He told me, shook my hand, and I looked at him as though he was wrong to try to shame me. And then I left only to return in a few minutes in shoes. This man, for whatever it is worth, was not Jewish.

I sat down to my meal and was soon joined by Omer. "Good morning, prophet!" he said. My beard and hair had earned me this name amongst the Israelis on the bus. "Good morning," I said, and we chatted each other up a bit. I am, of course, incapable of smalltalk and the conversation quickly became substantive as I began asking about sabbath observance in the military. "We observe," he said, "but most soldiers are not religious. Very few go to services. And if we have to fight or something, we do." I was fairly satisfied, but I asked him if he felt it was restful. And he had a lot to say. "Most of the soldiers are like me. Yeah, we rest. The Shabbos is different. But we don't care. Look. Look at this place." He pointed at the hotel employee I'd just quibbled with and continued, "He doesn't rest on the shabbos, Why? Bible says you will rest, your maids will rest, your horse will rest, your ox will rest, everyone amongst you will rest. But this guy is Arab, so he works?" He shook his head. "That is why i don't care. If you go around Jerusalem, even here there are places open. And not just Arab-owned places, Jews too. We will go, if you want." He called me a prophet, but he sounded more like one himself. When he got up, I noticed he was barefoot.

Truth be told, the hotels were pretty damn decent. The food was delicious, the views were beautiful, and the locations were excellent. I could list the problems, but I won't because I was happy. Most of the trip was spent at the Lev Yerushalem, just off very famous Ben Yehuda street, but the first two nights we stayed at the Prima Tiberius. It overlooks the Sea of Galilea and the view from my enormous balcony was so breathtaking that as tired as I was I spent my first morning in Israel just staring out at the sunrise.

I had no idea how beautiful the "Promised Land" would actually be. It kept surprising me. The mountains, the rock, the water, the people—it's all quite lovely. By comparison, I got very little out of the religious sites. We visited the the wailing wall two or three times, and, I never wailed. To me, it just looked like a very old, impressively large-stoned, and sadly now useless wall. What struck me most was that there were birds living in it, and plants growing on it. What struck me was that this holy place wasn't otherwordly; it was real. I wanted to scale it, but I'd probably have been shot for trying.

By contrast, most of my tripmates felt pretty overwhelmed at the Kotel. Girls cried. Guys who didn't normally pray put on tefillin and recited the blessings. They got caught up in the dancing when we went there on Friday night (Day 4). They sang joyfully, as though they meant it. I just felt like the whole thing was a bit fanatical. I didn't really know these people. I should dance with them just because they're Jews? I did it a little, but I remained apprehensive. I'm more apt to have a spiritual experience out in nature, or just someplace where I can be alone.

I liked the hikes a lot. If I go back, it may be to hike the country. I hear it only takes a few weeks. It's only the size of New Jersey afterall!

Some food specifics. Best falafel I've had anywhere, and I've had some pretty damn good falafel around New York and LA. The shawarma was a bit disappointing. Maybe it was the places I ate in, but I've had better. I had Thai food that wasn't even remotely spicy—not copasetic. Making up for the general lack of spicy, I discovered that our tour guide, Yakov, carried around what he called "dynamite," a container of coarsely ground cayenne pepper. He had it around at every meal just in case, and he often took the time to direct me towards the spicy dishes.

Yakov was one of the people who made my trip excellent. He was a very knowledgeable modern orthodox guy who, despite religiosity, still had a damn good sense of humor. He would often give us "a tour of the sherutim"—literally "toilets," not restroom—prior to wherever we'd be touring next. He only squashed fun once. We were driving through the Valley of Tears, and two of the Americans were singing a rather vulgar army chant he just couldn't stand for. Somewhere around the forth time they sang, "Fucked her standing, fucked her lying" he got on the PA and told them it was more than slightly inappropriate for where we were touring.

They stopped immediately. They were alright. Most of the people on the trip were alright. College students, mostly. Some of them about to enter college. All meeting the very simple criteria: 1) Being Jewish, and 2) Having never taken a guided tour of Israel before. "Guided" was the operative word since several of them had been to, even lived in, Israel. No big deal, though. Everyone was really friendly, and now they're my Facebook friends.

Facebook has been sweet, because my camera wasn't working. All the same, everyone else had a camera and they've been posting pics like crazy. Why bother with a camera when someone else will? Besides, if my camera had been working, I'd have been taken out of the moment, always looking for something to shoot. I know. I've done it before. So it worked out well.

Some other notable moments are:

* Rafting down the Jordan River, which turns out to be more like a puddle. I rafted with a girl named Gayle. She also had some outdoor experience. We passed everyone.

* We visited Avraham Levintal's Kaballah Art Gallery. He used the word "awesome" about a thousand times. With absolutely no irony in his voice, he called the grandeur of creation "awesomely awesomely awe-some." I believe he was actually sober.

* I dipped in a mikveh for the first time ever. It was pretty awkward, and I wasn't feeling certain I was made any cleaner—but I did have a really good day after that!

* We visited Independence Hall. This was one of the more emotional moments for me. I didn't cry at all on the trip, but I was closest here. When we heard a recording of David Ben Gurion speaking on the day they declared Israel a nation, I was somewhat overwhelmed.

* We watched short movies and listened to a number of speakers. The speakers were mostly nice but without serious answers. Rabbi Berger disappointed me by obfuscating rather than responding to my question. Omer sat next to me and kept mumbling stuff like, "It is all Nietzsche, man." I was amused. The rabbi's conclusion to his momentous speech was, "What is ethical depends on what is true." I think I speak for everyone there when I say, Duh. 

Another speech came from a woman named Sarah who had been a hippie bouncing around from one philosophy to another for years until she discovered her own Judaism. She acted as though her mistakes gave her more credibility, but she sounded as though the Next New Thing could come along and take her out of Judaism. She was in front of us for forty minutes and didn't make me laugh once. I consider that abuse.

A political speech came from Michael Freeman who stressed the irrationality of prisoner exchanges, the effects of normalizing a military culture, and the fact that all anyone was really thinking about was whether Israel would win any medals in the Olympics. He had rather sarcastic British wit, and meeting him remains quite memorable. I think several people left the room he spoke in wondering if they shouldn't become Israeli citizens.

Our last speaker's name evades me. In fact, most of what he said is now beyond my memory—for a pleasant reason though. About ten minutes into his fast-talking joke-rich lecture, he slipped in the phrase, "Torah is Talmud. Talmud is Torah. Finkle. Einhorn." And I just about shit my pants. I spent the rest of the lecture rolling on the floor in the back of the room. Every time I thought I would stop laughing, I started again. Finkle. Einhorn. Oh, Jim Carrey, my childhood hero. The lesson in the speech was to give your neighbor the benefit of the doubt, and to understand never to speak badly about them but to find the positive instead. How the speaker got so many pop culture references into that, I can't recall. What I do recall is, "Einhorn is Finkle. Finkle is Einhorn. Einhorn is a man." I'm sure it's on Youtube.

* A serious misjudgment on my account occurred at the Dead Sea. The beach resort was a little ways from the beach. The tour guide had said that sandals were recommended because it is rocky. I thought that was the only reason, and believed he was saying they were recommended but not necessary. I figured I could make it down to the water barefoot. It didn't look so far. I started walking, and it was kinda hot. So I started running. I ran much of the way, then propped a towel beneath my feet when it got to be too much. Once my feet had cooled off, I ran some more. I made it about three fourths of the way like this before the burning was just searingly painful. Then I sat on the side of the road and waited. A truck driver tossed me the tops of some paint cans or something. They worked anyway—I started hobbling awkwardly—and I shuffled my way toward the water. I don't mind being the butt of an occasional joke, so I just tried to go with it. As strangers passed by me, I smiled and said, "Karma!" I was almost there when Yogev saw me and insisted upon carrying me down to the water. I thanked him and he carried me down there on his shoulders. Floating in the Dead Sea was OK, and he carried me back too—which was difficult because the salt made our skin slippery. So it was that I would casually tell people later that day, "I was legitimately saved by an Israeli soldier."

* We toured the Holocaust museum, and met a survivor. She was quite young during the holocaust and her story actually put people to sleep. I felt bad, because I was nodding off a bit myself. 

* We visited the the Israel Museum and saw some of the Dead Sea scrolls. 

* We rode camels and donkeys, respectively.

* We visited the Knesset, and the Chagall artwork really blew me away. The art in and around the parliamentary building was truly second to none. 

And that's about it. Birthright is a damn good deal. For the low-low price of FREE, I got ten days in Israel, thirty-five new Facebook friends, a bit more of an education into the region, some of the best food and sights I've ever seen, and some very valuable life lessons—including, but not limited to, the high value of footwear. If you know any Jews between eighteen and twenty-six who don't already live in Israel, this trip is strongly recommended.

:)