By Gabe Schneider

During the ride to Philadelphia from Boston, we watched a couple of movies which I feel parallel some great lessons and ideas we have learned and experienced this summer. The first is “Wet Hot American Summer”, a movie that relates to the American Dream by telling the story of a Jewish summer camp. The boundaries that some of the characters break are in the spirit of the beatniks. Life is about living, adventuring and leaving your apartment.

The other movie was “With Honors”. It portrays a brilliant Harvard student who gives up graduating with honors in order to learn valuable life lessons from a bum he happens to meet, and truly graduates life with honors. Etgar 36 has stressed the importance of not only succeeding in school but also truly making a difference in this world. By reaching out to others, one can truly graduate life with honors.

When we got to Philadelphia we walked a few blocks to South Street. It was nice to walk around and see some of the local atmosphere. The area was very diverse and alive.

We started the next day in the heart of Philadelphia. As a preface to the rest of the day we went to the Constitution Center to learn about our forefathers and about the document which began it all. First we saw a live presentation that explained the Revolutionary War, the debates over the ideas of the Constitution, and explained the significance of the first few words, ”We The People…”.

In the museum, we saw an original of the Magna Carta written in Latin. The rest of the museum was basically a timeline of American History and the role the Constitution has played in it.

After this museum we walked to the Liberty Bell. Although it was cracked, it is still a symbol of our freedom and justice.

We then went to one of the oldest synagogues in America and saw a monument to Israel’s Hollywood-like successful raid on Entebee in 1976 and how they freed the hostages.

After stopping by Benjamin Franklin’s house, we started to leave for Baltimore but made a quick detour to run up the famous Rocky steps.

Our first stop in Baltimore was with Neil Rubin, who is the editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times. He spoke with us about the freedom and responsibilities of the press and also about what it is like to be a member of the Jewish community reporting on the Jewish community.

He explained that he needs to fit his stories for the various communities within Judaism and the various dilemmas that can arise when covering the Jewish community. He gave us a few scenarios that illustrated the tension between reporting what is really happening in the community and people’s desire for the paper to just talk about the good things in the community. His talk was very interesting and inspiring.

For dinner we were set free to walk around the Inner Harbor. After dinner we drove Washington DC and to pass the time we watched a special episode of “West Wing” that talked about how America works and the issues facing it.