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So we headed off to Haifa and Tel Aviv for our final interviews. We had 2 sessons in Haifa and one interview in Tel Aviv. Haifa is beautiful. It's built on a hill overlooking the Mediterranian. The interviews went well, and again, just adding more to the hard decisions we need to make. After the interviews, we checked into our hotel and went for dinner in the German quater. Absolutely gorgeous area at the foot of the Bahai gardens. We ened up at a wine tasting party at one of the restaurants. It felt extremely strange as the crowd was a mix of Israeli's and Israeli Arabs. We couldn't tell who was who and who spoke hebrew or arabic. After being in such segregated areas that are striking different, it was amazing to be in a cultually mixed group. A jazz band played in the back ground as we celebrated the end of our interview tour (and a tour is sure felt like). It was a challenging and intense interview process, but we never felt so good, or had as much fun. Jerusalem - Ramallah - Bethlehem - Nablus - Haifa - Tel Aviv.
The next day, on our way
home, we stopped for one last interview in Tel Aviv on the beach for an applicant that couldn't make it to Haifa. We reflected on the 'tour' and the contrast from all of the areas we had been as well as the contrast in the applicants we interviewed. We had youth from Kibutz, from refugee camps, from Mediterranean cities, and from the hills of the interior. Some of these youth live with the fighting directly in thier back yard (from the young man who lives in a Kibutz and daily has rockets land in his town and from the youth that live in a city that has snipers all around thier hills) and some live in constant fear that at any moment a bomb can go off as they sit on a bus or drink coffee in a shop (we drove past the nightclub in Tel Aviv where 24 young people were killed as they innocently danced a couple of years ago). One thing they all have in common is they live in fear. No one should have to live like this.
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