Our next day we went to Beit Hatusefoth –the Museum of the Diaspora. I had visited here previously and found it fascinating, so we did a shorter but thorough tour of the building. The museum lays out the ideas and reasons that have kept the Jewish people together all these centuries. It was illuminating.
From there we proceeded to the Palmach museum, an unforgettable experience. The Palmach Museum honors those members of the Haganah who underwent extensive military training to defend the Jews of Palestine before 1948 and to fight in the War of Independence. It has a “you are there” approach – you go through each step of belonging to the Palmach with its members, through training, bringing illegal immigrants to Palestine between 1945-48, and then fighting for Israel. It was truly moving.
Part of the Tel Aviv experience is lunch at a sidewalk café. As it was the week before Purim, we enjoyed the parade of pre-Purim costumes worn by young and old. Another essential experience in Tel Aviv is admiring the beautiful handmade crafts and local artwork at the Tuesday Crafts Fair.
From Tel Aviv we traveled to Haifa, where I met a friend for dinner at a wonderful local restaurant and to be ready for our northern adventures the next morning.
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