JLE Winter Program 2008-2009 begins December 28 & ends January 11
- An optional learning extension seminar is available

Summer and Winter in Israel

The Jewish Learning Exchange's Israel Experience offers university students from the United States, Canada, England, South Africa and Australia a 2-4 week fast-track program of discovering Israel. The multi-method experience offers:

• ENCOUNTERS...in the past have included meetings with past Presidents and government Ministers, Knesset Members and the Mayor of Jerusalem.
  
• LECTURES...on Israel and World Jewry; Love and Hate; Personal Goals; Family Relationships; Jewish Destiny.
  
• TEXTS... a taste of the classics: Torah, Talmud, Siddur.
  
• TOURS...Jerusalem as the Center of the World; On the Knife's Edge: Hiking and Swimming on the Golan Heights; Jews and Romans: Guerrilla Warfare in the Galilee; Masada: Preserving Jewish Independence; Israel's Struggle for Security: The Battlefields of '48, '67, '73; Life Among the Bedouins: Coffee, Camels and Caravans.

The Summer and Winter Program in Israel is based at the main campus of Ohr Somayach in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem the Eternal

• The Knesset
• Climb the Ramparts of the Old City Walls
  
• Explore the Jewish Quarter
  
• Tour the Four Sephardi Synagogues
  
• Discover Batei Machse - financed by Baron de Rothschild to house the influx of Eastern European refugees
  
• Investigate the Kabbalists' Alley
  
• Visit the Mount of Olives

In the Shadow of the Temple

• Experience the Western Wall - the Kotel Ham'arivi
  
• The Western Wall Tunnels
  
• Southern Temple Wall Excavations
  
• Ponder the Model of Herod's Jerusalem during the Second Temple period
  
• Tour of Mount Scopus - archeological site of a Roman camp during the siege of the Second Temple

1948 Siege of Jerusalem

• Bab El Wad - the pre 1948 Jerusalem / Tel Aviv road
  
• British police station at Latrun - site of one of fiercest battles in the fall of Jerusalem
  
• The Shaar HaGai Mountain Road
  
• Castel - former Crusader Fortress

In the Footsteps of the Fighters - 1967 War of Liberation of Jerusalem

• Nebi Samuel - Burial site of the prophet Samuel
  
• Gibon, Beit Cahnina, Shuafat - strategic locations conquered by the Harel Armored Brigade before the attack on Ammunition Hill
  
• The Museum and Trenches of Ammunition Hill
  
• Mount Scopus - site of Haddasah Hospital and Hebrew University
  
• Tour of the old demarcation between East and West Jerusalem

History of a Nation

• Yad Vashem - the National Holocaust Museum
  
• Tel Aviv
  
• The Diaspora Museum
  
• Bnei Brak
  
• Visit the graves of the Maccabeans at Modi'in
  
• Witness the rebirth of the city of Chashmonaim

The Judean Desert

• Wander through over the Flour Cave
  
• Experience the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve
  
• Climb to the top of Masada
  
• Float in the Dead Sea
  
• Sleep in the tents of a Simulated Bedouin Camp
  
• Ride the Mamshit Camel trek into the Negev Desert
  
• Hike the Snapir Trail leading to the top of the Great Crater - Ein Yokneam

Safed the Mystical City - Experience its Kabbalistic and Historical Signifigance

• Greet the "Shabbat Queen" in the orchards where L'cha Dodi was composed by Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz and sung by the Arizal and his students
  
• Explore the mysterious alleyways of Safed
  
• Tour Historical Safed throughout the ages, from its Biblical origins until the modern State of Israel
  
• Amuka - burial place of Yonason ben Uziel, where many come and pray for Divine assistance in meeting their spouse
  
• Meron - burial place of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, author of the Zohar
  
• Peki'in - site where Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai hid from the Romans for 12 years

Hiking in the Galil

• Scale the Arbel Mountains
  
• Discover the Ancient City of Tiberias
  
• Swim the Kineret
  
• Wadi Amad - the Trail of the Mystics, hike through the rapids

Footloose in the Golan

• The Majestic Snow-Capped Hermon Mountains
  
• View Kunetra - Syrian ghost city
  
• Hike the magnificent trails of Wadi Yehudia and Debora Falls
  
• Learn the secret behind the Golan's eucolyptus trees
  
• Wander in the Talmudic village of Katzrin
  
• Wine tasting at the internationally acclaimed Golan Wineries
  
• Climb Gamla, "the Masada of the North"
  
• Inner-tube down the Chisbon
  
• Chispin, a former Syrian army base
  
• Swim Wadi Daboria, Israel's second highest waterfall