Masa Israel Journey Blog

Published : May 14, 2012

By Sarah Padway, Career Israel

The Pesach Holiday served as the beginning to a number of holidays in Israel. On the evening of April 18, we participated in a Holocaust Remembrance Seder for Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Members of our program, along with a few other Masa programs read poems, sang, and shared stories in memory of those who were killed in the Holocaust and the courageous gentiles (non-Jews) who risked their lives to save members of their respective communities.

At 10 the next morning, there was a siren throughout Israel marking a moment of remembrance of those who perished in the Holocaust. Nina, Julie and I decided to take a walk down the street next to the beach in Tel Aviv during the time of the siren.

During the siren everything, and I mean...

Sundays at daycare

Published : May 10, 2012

By Tyler Fishbone, Tikkun Olam in Tel Aviv-Jaffa

Every Sunday, as part of my volunteering with Tikkun Olam in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, I spend 3-5 hours at a daycare facility for migrant workers.

Tel Aviv plays host to a majority of the almost 300,000 migrant workers and refugees in Israel. These people have a tough time getting jobs because many of them do not have legal status. The jobs they do end up getting don't pay a lot, and thus they have to work long hours in order to stay afloat, especially if they have children.

As any parent knows, there is a time when you have to decide whether or not one of the two of you is going to take off work to be with the new child, or if you are going to send your baby to daycare. My parents took care of me for months upon months, and then sent...