...to the West Bank

A paintbrush, a rake, a pair of paint-splattered work gloves. And the desire to make a corner of the world a little more beautiful.

All tools in hand, a group of students from various schools in Baltimore walked along Melchet Street in Haifa. It was the first day of volunteer work for the Baltimore Student Service Mission to Israel.

Twelve students from Johns Hopkins and Goucher College, along with a Hillel fellow, Beth Gordon, spent two weeks in Israel over this winter break, from Jan. 4 to 19.

All members of the group had been to Israel before and felt a certain level of connection to the country. The trip was designed to strengthen this connection and help students gain a deeper understanding of the issues facing Israeli society.

The group traveled around Israel, volunteering, touring, and interacting with Israelis from all segments of the population, each offering a new perspective.

After arriving in Israel, the students stayed for two nights in Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot - the Ghetto Fighters' Kibbutz - in the northern Galilee region.

Havka Raban, one of the founders of the Kibbutz and a Holocaust survivor, spoke to the group about the importance of preserving historical memory for the next generation.

The Kibbutz is named in honor of the fighters who died in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Besides running Yad Layeled, a museum which honors the one and a half million children who died in the Holocaust, the Kibbutz also sponsors a Holocaust education and dialogue program for Arab and Jewish teenagers through its Center for Humanistic Education.

One of the former participants of the program led the group on a tour through her Arab village, Kfar Yassif, where some Arab students spoke about their experiences as minorities in Israel.

In Haifa, the group volunteered for three days on Melchet Street, cleaning yards and painting walls. A television station arrived in the midst of the work and interviewed some of the participants, airing the footage on the local news station.

Yona Yahav, the mayor of Haifa, spoke to the group about the challenges facing his modern city as it struggles to attract a younger population while also accommodating new immigrants, many of them from the former Soviet Union.

On the last day in Haifa, the American students were invited to a dinner hosted by the Arab-Jewish Association in Haifa University. The after-dinner discussion focused on some of the conflicts between the two groups, both on the Haifa University's campus and in their home communities.

While in Ashkelon, the group met with students who had immigrated to Israel by themselves, without their families. Many had made the decision to leave in order to keep their Judaism alive, as the Jewish communities around them were becoming more assimilated and gradually disappearing.

Students also visited an Absorption Center for refugees from Ethiopia, talking to some of the students and teachers there about their experiences and struggles to adjust to a new land.

The Service Mission was also the first official group to visit Baltimore's new sister-city, Ashkelon.

Following a summer visit to Baltimore by Roni Mehatzri, the mayor of Ashkelon, Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley flew in to formalize the relationship between the two cities. The group was present at the Jan. 13 signing of the Sister-City Agreement.

Mayor O'Malley said that he hoped the Agreement would lead to a strong partnership between the two cities, with both sides supporting and learning from each other.

While most of the schools in Israel are segregated between Arabs and Jews, on the final day, the group was able to visit an integrated elementary school in Jerusalem, one of three in the country.

The school, Yad Byad, which in Hebrew means "hand in hand," has a bilingual education program with two teachers in every classroom. From a young age, the students learn in both Hebrew and Arabic, and the school has days off for Muslim, Christian and Jewish holidays.

Back on Melchet Street in Haifa, a small mark of the group's visit to Israel remains. In a beach scene mural of the setting sun, inscribed in four languages - English, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew - is just one word: peace.