Friday, or Yom Shishi, in Jerusalem is a day bridging the work week and sabbath. Children go to school in the morning, and some people work in the morning and some don’t. For many it is a big food shopping day. Students took a literature class in the morning with Dr. Lefkovitz and discussed stories and poems by Amos Oz, Ghassan Kanafani, and Tal Nitzan, and in the afternoon learned about Jewish traditions of prayer and ritual from Dr. Lenny Gordon. In between, they visited the famous Mehane Yehuda Market at its weekly peak.

Students spent the evening as guest’s at a local family’s Shabbat dinner. They caught a glimpse of the city’s weekly rituals on their walk home.