Yeshivas Kayitz Yerushalyim completed their first year of operation with resounding success.
Headed by Rabbi Yosef Avtzon and Rabbi Shmuel Schneerson, the program combined a good learning environment and farbrengens with incredible trips and travels across Eretz Yisroel.
The trips were focused on having the bochurim experience the best, while interacting with the people and the history of Eretz Yisroel. These trips included rappelling down 90 foot cliffs while experiencing the breathtaking vistas in Mitzpe Rimon. An in-depth tour of the Israeli Armored Corps Tank Museum in Latrun, complete with the unique opportunity to play laser-tag at the museum. Jeeping, exploring caves and spending time on Eretz Yisroel’s unique separate beaches were all just regular tours at Yeshivas Kayitz Yerushalyim.
These trips with complimented by guided tours, exploring the history of the land, such as a tour of the old city of Yerushalayim, going through the gates of Har Habayis, the history of Kosel and the city, learning and seeing the different communities living in close proximity to the Yeshivas Kayitz and much more. It also included an inspirational Shabbos in Chevron, Davening at Meoras Hamachpela, and visiting the city’s historic Jewish and Chabad sites in the city.
This was no regular encounter with Chevron. This was an incredible and awe inspiring Shabbos in Chevron, where the bochurim of YKY had the Hachnosas Orchim building in Chevron to themselves. From the security briefings to the seder niggunim with Rabbi Danny Cohen, including many an uplifting stories, the bochurim left the shabbos with inspiration from a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Tisha Be’Av was another unique experience with the bochurim spending time at the Kosel and on a unique walking tour that takes a security escort to places that are otherwise inaccessible to Jewish people.
As part of the accountability for the learning done in YKY, there were tests on the learned material.
While many camps enjoy a banquet at their completion, Yeshivas Kayitz Yerushalyim had the unique opportunity to culminate the trip with a ma’ariv at the Kosel and a banquet taking place on a rooftop in the old city, overlooking the Kosel. This in many ways summed the unique opportunity that the bochurim had to spend a summer of growth in learning and davening in such close proximity to the site of the Beis Hamikdash.