I finished inking the travel diary I kept while I was in Israel this summer. It was on a ten day Taglit trip. The first thing I did was make it into a small booklet that I sent my very Jewish grandmother because yes of course I had to.
While drawing it, I changed the appearances of those I spoke to. The first page was started in South Station while I was miserable and sweating profusely, waiting for my bus to New York City. I decided then and there to turn it into a travel diary.
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| Hal was one of the tour guides. Also, as drawn here, everyone waded into the river in our clothes. |
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| Tzfat was probably my favorite city. It was certainly one of the coolest days there! |
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| The first panel is an Havdalah candle and a wine cup. You dip one into the other at the end of Shabbat. |
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| The T-shirt the above 4-square box was put on also has the names of everyone who went on the trip. |
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| It really was way too hot for Masada. |
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| Above, a hookah for cheroot. The guide references the stabbing at the Jerusalem gay pride parade in late July. The last panel is the bust of Yitzhak Rabin. |
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| I debated going back and adding a panel where I was actually in the act of swimming out to the big rock. Below, a couple panels about the questions our group asked regarding the Taglit/Birthright program. A lot of people like myself expressed the desire to try and stay politically objective regarding a very emotionally-charged trip. |
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| And here's the keychain! I'm still thinking a lot about the trip and what I saw. Ten days is not a long time but while I've unpacked physically, I don't think I have mentally, yet. The raw pages mean one thing to me now as I post them but I'm not sure what they'll mean later. Thank you for reading! |
