After four days spent exploring the history and horrors of theHolocaust in Poland and Germany, the last leg of our Compassion to Actionmission in Israel feels like a breath of fresh air.

Our busy schedule included a briefing with Canadian Ambassador to IsraelDeborah Lyons, a visit to see the building - in- progress of the SimonWiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance and Human Dignity (scheduled to open latenext year), and a trip to the very heart of the Jewish people: the Western Wallin the Old City of Jerusalem. We were indeed fortunate to have a chance torecharge our minds, bodies and spirits as we spent Shabbat in this most holy ofcities.

We also paid our respects to modern Israeli heroes when wevisited the memorial to Theodore Herzl, the father of the modern State ofIsrael, and travelled as well to the memorial to 73 Israeli soldiers killed in1997 in the country's worst air disaster. My cousin was one of the officerskilled, and this opportunity to say a silent prayer for him, with the supportof the delegation on our mission, was a very emotional experience.

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Yesterday we enjoyed an in-depth briefing with Chief InspectorMicky Rosenfeld, Foreign Press Spokesman for the Israel Police,  andvisited both Yad Vashem and an Israeli Air Force base. After an overnight stay at a kibbutz in the Galilee, we were off to Metullathis morning for an update on the security situation in Northern Israel withformer IDF Colonel Kobi Marom, followed by a jeep ride in the Golan Heights.This afternoon we are looking forward to a visit to the ancientcity of Safed, the center of Jewish mysticism in the Middle Ages, and then offto Herzilya for the evening.

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