The last day of community week finally came. Looking back
on the week, it felt like a huge blur of time that went by fast, but it also
felt like it had been going on forever. We started the day with a ma'agal boker where we made posters
showing what we think would help make the world a better place. We then went on
to Angels Forest where we did a scavenger hunt and had to exercise our
navigation skills. We went to a greenhouse as well, and then drove to the
kibbutz where we reflected on community week and had the closing ceremony. 
When all the families of the Israelis were there, I could
see the Americans interacting with their host families like they were their
very own families. It was such an amazing, beautiful thing to see how close and
comfortable my fellow Americans and their Israeli families had become with each
other in just one week. On a more personal level, I feel like the luckiest girl
in the world because I got the perfect family for me. I was put in such
amazing, caring, lovely, warm, laughter-filled, and extremely welcoming home.
As nerve-wracking as it is to be hosted by a family in which you only know one
person, they made me feel as if I was right at home, and I got to know everyone
else in the family very well also. As strong as my feeling of belonging in
Israel was before this trip, now I know I have a real (not just a feeling of)
family in Israel who I can always count on being there. As cliché as this all
is, from the bottom of my heart, I can honestly call the Raviv family my own
family, and Reut's siblings my own siblings. Overall, getting to see and hear
that my fellow Chicagoans also felt this real feeling of having a family in
Israel, made the closing ceremony of community week so much more special than I
could have ever imagined. It was an amazing end to the best week of my life.
~Eden Berke
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