On our first full day in Israel, the individuals in the group I was traveling with were asked to open our minds and accept that our assumptions about this country do not constitute the whole truth. We were asked this by the chief executive officer of a Haifa community center with a mission to bring peoples of diverse cultures and backgrounds together to foster better understanding and acceptance.

His words proved prescient. Our firsthand experiences soon showed us a country that defies its stereotypes.

I was in Israel in March with a group of 20 traveling on a mission trip sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Eastern Connecticut. We represented a diversity of religious, cultural and professional backgrounds. We departed the United States with our individual beliefs about Israel that were, no doubt, shaped at least in part by ubiquitous news headlines of violence and bloodshed in the country. Less than two weeks before we left southeastern Connecticut, for example, we read that a young man from West Hartford was killed in a terrorist attack near Jericho, a Palestinian city in the West Bank.

This trip turned many of our assumptions on their heads, however, and brought us to a deeper, broader understanding of this ancient, complex and fascinating country. No longer would we see Israel in a single dimension or through a simplistic lens.

Our experience in Haifa was just the beginning. We started that day with a discussion of multi-cultural and religious understanding at the Ahmadiyya Shaykh Mahmud Mosque. And after visiting the Beit-Ha’Gefen community center, we walked through the narrow, curving streets of the diverse Christian, Arab and Jewish neighborhood of Wadi Nisnas.

On other days, we learned about the many grassroots programs across northern Israel that strive to bring diverse types of communities together to build stronger relationships and foster understanding. We visited sites with deep religious meaning to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Among these were Jerusalem’s Western Wall, which is the last remaining wall of an ancient Jewish Temple; and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that is believed to be built over the place where Jesus was crucified and buried. We participated in a shabbat dinner in Jerusalem and walked in the footsteps of Jesus on the shores of the Sea of Galilee and at Capernaum.

At Ginnosar we learned about the role of the kibbutz in Israel’s history. We glimpsed other parts of the history of this much-fought-over land in the city of Akko in the north, where christian crusaders fought Ottoman Turks after 1095; at the Roman ruins at Bet She’an National Park in the Jordan Valley, and on the majestic ancient fortification at Masada in the Judean desert not far from the Dead Sea. Those of us who extended our visit into the neighboring country of Jordan also admired stark, but stunning mountainous landscapes where lone shepherds tending their flocks of sheep or goats seemed to step directly out of the Bible.

We learned we would not likely read headlines in the U.S. press about the school programs in the Jezreel Valley that bring Jewish and Arab youth together. Nor would we likely read news stories about the regular multicultural discussions at Beit-Ha’Gafen or the Ahmadiyya Shaykh Mahmud Mosque. Just as unlikely would be news reports about the hospitality we were offered at a Palestinian restaurant in Bethlehem or an Armenian restaurant in the old city of Jerusalem. The amazing array of Israeli inventions and technological innovations we saw at the Shimon Peres Center for Peace and Innovation in Tel Aviv also are not globally touted.

It’s not that the violent outbreaks and religious and cultural tensions we do read about aren’t prevalent in Israel. Indeed, we were saddened to learn about several more violent incidents that occurred in Israel just after we left.

Still, the upheaval doesn’t represent the whole truth about the country. Our lived experiences on this trip provided us with a deeper appreciation of the tumultuous history that has shaped current events and the realization that the vast majority of those who call Israel and its environs home have a deep desire to live in peace and harmony with the diversity of all their neighbors.

Near the end of our trip, en route to Tel Aviv, we stopped at Neot Kedumim Park, a 625-acre site that recreates the biblical landscape. While there, we planted trees. Some of the trees were planted in remembrance of friends and loved ones no longer living, but who would have accompanied us to Israel. The living memorials will serve not only as tokens of love to our lost family members and friends, but also as symbols of the pieces of ourselves we all left in Israel, as well as the recognition that the selves who went home were forever changed by the experience of Israel.

Gail Braccidiferro MacDonald is a professor in residence of journalism at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, where she teaches courses in news writing, community news reporting and journalism ethics. She is a resident of New London.