First thing on Tuesday morning, we headed to the Mount of the Beatitudes. While the grounds were among the smallest we visited, the impact the Church of the Beatitudes on the students was among the largest. Student Natalie Schiferl writes:
A highlight of our trip every year is the time we get to spend with Justice Aharon Barak and his wife Judge Elika Barak. Justice Barak is the former President of the Israeli Supreme Court, hailed as the father of Israel’s constitutional revolution and even cited by Justice Elena Kagan as one of her judicial heroes. Judge Barak was the former deputy chief of the Labor Court. It is a truly special evening.
Student Dejan Adzic recounts:
One of the most valuable and interesting experiences of the Israel 2015 trip was a group dinner at the home of former Justice Barak and his wife. The Barak’s were terrific hosts and their hospitality was remarkable and far exceeded my expectations. In addition to the great food, I was really surprised by how pleasant and approachable Justice Barak really is. He went above and beyond in his attempts to answer everybody’s questions and to give each student an opportunity to engage him in a conversation. He spoke tirelessly for nearly two hours with forty students asking thought provoking questions about Israel’s judicial system, the Constitution, labor and immigration issues, as well as the unavoidable security concerns and the two state solution. Justice Barak even found time to speak to the guests about the fruits in his garden, letting students take mandarins as edible souvenirs from the memorable dinner.
One of the most interesting topics of discussion was Justice Barak’s discussion on the U.S. Constitution and the originalist interpretation of the document. Justice Barak criticized the originalist approach when applied to a rigid constitutional framework that makes amendments difficult to accomplish. He believes that an originalist approach coupled with a rigid constitutional framework hinders the concept of constitutionalism. Another issue that is prevalent in Israel, but overshadowed by more pressing security concerns, are immigration and employment law issues that Israel faces. Israel has approximately 50,000 illegal immigrants working within its borders. These immigrants could easily be nationalized because most of them have been living in Israel for many years and their nationalization would benefit the country and eliminate the immigration problem. However, largely due to more pressing security concerns and other political issues in the Middle East, this employment and immigration problems are usually not at the focal point of Israeli politics. As Justice Barak noted, “It’s a tough neighborhood.”
One of the ways we learned about Israeli society was to spend a few nights at a kibbutz. A kibbutz is a collective community, traditionally based in agriculture, that was the way many Israelis used to live. Even though the kibbutz life was outside the comfort zones of some students initially, hanging out in the evenings together brought lots of laughs, memories, and a great development of our own class community.
Alexa Callahan shares one of her more humorous moments.
A kibbutz is an Israeli agricultural community where members live collectively amongst each other. In Hebrew, Kibbutz means “gathering” and “clustering.” We stayed at Kibbutz Hukuk near Tiberius our third and fourth nights in Israel. Upon arrival, the Kibbutz reminded me of summer camp. We stayed three to a room and each group had their own individual quarters, which included three twin beds, one pillow each (Israelis must not use a lot of pillows, as there was a shortage of them throughout the whole trip), and a small bathroom that included a sink, toilet, and shower. If you still cannot picture this Kibbutz, here is another analogy: Have you seen “Lost”? It is like the Dharma Initiative village, which made staying in the Kibbutz even better.