OUR COMMUNITY ON THE COVER
Motor City Mission Memories Impressions of the Holy Land from a first-timer to Israel.
I JOHN HARDWICK/FEDERATION
Dancing the first night in Israel
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| APRIL 6 • 2023
t was surreal when I first stepped off the plane in Israel. I’d been anticipating the trip for months, since I first learned last year that leadership of the Detroit Jewish News Foundation would send me and my colleague Mike Smith, the Foundation’s archivist, to Israel as a part of the Motor City Mission. I couldn’t believe it was finally happening. Many of the people I’ve worked with and met during the dozen years I’ve been editing the paper have told me about their visits to Israel. It will be life-changing, they said. I knew they were right. All travel is life-changing — new Jackie Headapohl horizons never-before-seen, windows to new Editorial vistas, new food, new people, new ways of doing Director things. “It will transform you,” they said. “Bring Kleenex. Everyone who goes to Israel ends up crying.” I nodded politely. I’m not a super-emotional person and being neither Jewish nor a practicing Christian (but with a