January 19 - Diaspora Museum and Holon Musuem & week's speakers

Narrative to follow

Wednesday, January 20 began our second rainy cold day of volunteer work and after lunch the weather cleared and we went to the Holon Chidrens Museum for Dialogue in the Dark where people can experience what blind and visual inparied people do. 
The museum is in total darkness and with the help of a blind or visually impaired guide you have to negotiate your way through many day to day places that are modeled in the museum including buying food in a cafeteria. As in the CAARI tradition two people had memorial / remembrance of departed (Yahrzeit) and we prayed Mincha together which is the afternoon service on the lawn before entering the museum.
We returned to the hotel for our evening speaker Uri Yaffe from the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality

January 18 - Orientation & Train the Tutor

Narrative to follow.

Sunday - January 17 - Visit to Tulip Winery

Sunday - January 17 - Visit to Circassian Heritage Center

Visit to Circassian Heritage Center.
Narrative to follow.  Enjoy the pictures!

Part 3 - Gan Garu by Burt

We ended the day at Gan Garoo, a park with animals and vegetation from Australia. The park name comes from the Hebrew name for garden “gan” and the last two syllables of kangaroo. Gan Garoo is located at Kibbutz Nir David in the Jezreel Valley not far from Bet She’an. At the park, there are kangaroos, koalas, Australian emus, parrots, bats, emus, Australian sheep, and koalas.

We were provided with an excellent guide who showed us around the park and provided us with information about the Australian animals there. Our tour started with a visit to an area in which several Wombats hung from the ceiling. In an aviary, we fed the parrots there who would sit on one’s head or shoulder while feeding. 

Touching and feeding the kangaroos is allowed in designated areas and several kangaroos came up to be fed by hand and be petted by members of the CAARI group. 

Our final stop in Gan Garoo was at a Koala area where we saw an 18-year old female Koala named Mindy, happily ensconced in a small Eucalyptus tree.

We left Gan Garoo and returned to our hotel in Tiberias for our first Shabbat dinner and an Oneg Shabbat that followed dinner. At 4:00 PM, 

CAARI gathered to light  Shabbat candles and sing  Shalom Alechim.  Dinner was followed by a meaningful Oneg Shabbat led by Gloria!  A great first week of CAARI.

Shabbat Shalom,

Burt and the CAARI group