First Day of Congress

Written by: Hannah Sopher, Noa Cardin, and Alex Cohn

Today was the first day of congress. Congress joins together not only all eight North American Diller communities, but also their Israeli partnerships. There are 16 groups and about 400 teens that come together for five days. Teens learn and discuss a wide variety of topics, ranging from Judaism to leadership. 

As buses of Israeli partnerships arrived, we ran out to greet our friends with open arms. We were happy to see our matches after missing them for two days. During the welcome ceremony, all the cohorts were dancing and singing and reuniting with their partnerships.

After the ceremony ended we divided into 13 tribes, now including the Israelis, and had ice-breaker and discussions. We discussed Avraham Infeld's 5 legs that support Judaism: Hebrew language, Israel (state and land), memory, family, and covenant or Brit. Today we had two discussions regarding family and the covenant in each respective session. Since the Israelis joined our groups, we experienced twice as many opinions that enlightened us to both the similarities and differences between North American and Israeli cultures. After a relatively early Night Circle, the White Tent opened for everybody to socialize and further the bonds between the Israeli and North American teens.