Masa Israel Journey Blog

Published : January 31, 2013

We were standing on a hill, looking down at the Valley of Elah, and my Rabbi started telling us the story of the battle between David and Goliath as if we were suppose to relate to it somehow.

Then he pointed down and said “The valley down there, that’s where David and Goliath fought.”

All of a sudden I realized the uniqueness of Israel.

Where else in the world can you come, pull out a bible, and stand in the place where this exact event happened thousands of years later?

It was at this point that I started to realize how special Israel was to me, and to the rest of the Jewish nation. People study history, some people even enjoy digging up history.

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Masa Israel Participant Max Gottlieb: Being In Israel Brought Me Back To Music

Published : January 30, 2013

Max Gottlieb is an aspiring singer-guitarist-songwriter from Philadelphia. In eighth grade he started playing music, and realised that he wanted to do it for the rest of his life. When it came time to come to Israel on a Masa program, Max thought he would be taking a break from his guitar – but that’s not what happened…

So, what made you decide to come to Israel?

In my last year of school, I was totally set on going straight to university and studying music. I went through the entire audition process, and practiced so hard that I got tendonitis in my wrist. I knew I wasn’t ready for music at university, and I didn’t know what to do. But then I heard about Aardvark.

I was curious, and I decided to give it a go. When I first arrived I was just excited to be in a...