Our overnight-and-then-some flight landed at Ben Gurion on Friday morning. After all the usual airport/customs/money-changing/etc stuff, we took a quick drive through Tel Aviv and Yaffo. Yaffo is an old city based around a port; when immigrants started flooding it in the early 20th century, a group of families bought nearby land from an Arab who was (we're told) astonished to get money for sand dunes. They then leveled it, divided it into equal lots (for each family), and cultivated it. In the 20s and 30s it transitioned from an agricultural town to a merchant-class town. Now, it's a modern city (second-biggest in Israel) and a center of business in several areas. Yaffo merged into Tel Aviv in the 60s.
From there we went to Rechovot and specifically the Ayalon Institute. There's a fascinating story there (and this is why we went). In the 30s, lots of young people were coming out of camps and youth movements (as teenagers) and they wanted to go live on kibbutzim (collective, socialist farms). Making that work isn't intuitively obvious, so someone set up a "training kibbutz" on a hill outside of Rechovot. The idea was that people would live on that kibbutz (with mentoring) for a couple years and then go out into the wilds themselves.
Then, in the 40s, it became obvious to people including David ben Gurion and the Hagganah, that winning Israel's independence from Britain was going to require some fighting. Britain had tight controls on the import of weapons and forbade training people to shoot. Some leaders in the Hagganah went to this kibbutz, enlisted their aid, and built a bullet factory 25 feet underground. The story of how they did this, practically under the noses of the British, was interesting to hear. (Bullets, it turned out, were more significant than guns after a point.) We saw the factory, including a few of the machines that still worked.
What's the biggest problem with something like that? Noise. So they put it under the laundry. Why was the washing machine so important? It made noise to mask the factory noise. But the kibbutz didn't generate enough laundry to run it all day, so they opened a laundry shop in Rechovot. Didn't they draw a noticable amount of power for the factory? Well, it would have been noticable if they hadn't bypassed the meter. There was a sarcastic certificate on the wall thanking the British power company for their contributions to the independence effort. :-)
Onward to Jerusalem. We went to the western wall for the Shabbat evening service. We went to the southern end, at the Robinson arch, instead of joining the presumably-huge crowd at the Kotel plaza. We attempted to light channukiyot, but it was too windy to keep them lit. Then we prayed the evening service.
Shabbat morning we went to Hebrew Union College. In the afternoon we took a walk around a nearby neighborhood (Yemin Moshe), which was the first neighborhood built outside the walls (and safety) of the old city. Moshe Montifiore, a wealthy Briton, was the instigator, and the neighborhood was eventually named after him. Today's neighborhood is beautiful and well-maintained.
Sunday morning we visited Yad L'Kashish, a crafts shop set up specifically to give older people jobs, responsibility, skills, and dignity. I've never heard of anything like it in the US. Yad K'Kashish gives people real jobs, not handouts. They have assigned roles and assigned work areas. People have to apply for those jobs, and there's a waiting list. There are now, I think, 15 different types of hand-craft work going on there. This definitely is not "give the poor old guy something to do"; these people are talented.
Next we went into the old city and to the western wall -- this time to the kotel, the main plaza. We had some time for private reflection, and I went down into the women's side. (The mechitzah, the separation between the men's and women's section, is excessive, and I noticed several women standing on chairs looking into the men's section.) I ignored the mechitzah and focused on the wall. Near the center there were a few soldiers praying quietly and intensely. I of course don't know what they were praying, but it struck me that most of us don't have call to pray for our lives like they probably do. The pictures I took (respectfully) probably don't convey their mood very well, but I tried.
As I walked back from the women's section into the main plaza, an older black-hatter -- long white beard, peyot, serious appearance -- looked at me and said "welcome home". I wonder if first-time-ness shows in people's faces, to the experienced eye.
Next we went into the "tunnels" under the wall, and then to a museum focused on the history and construction of the second temple. (The western wall isn't actually part of the temple itself; it's a retaining wall built by Herod the Great when he decided to expand the temple with courtyards.)
We then went back to where we'd prayed Friday night, and walked around to what remains of the southern wall. We could see the Al-Asqa mosque above. While we were there we heard the Muslim call to prayer; I was a little surprised that the imam has been replaced by a cassette recording. Nobody wants to shlep all the way up there five times a day, apparently.
The temple was built on the highest local point, and Jerusalem's neighborhoods occupy adjacent hilltops (and the spaces in between them). From the steps at the southern wall you can see quite a bit of Jerusalem.
Next we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the traditional burial place of Jesus. We were there on Christmas eve, so there were a lot of worshippers there (no masses in progress while we were there).
Inside the church is somewhat cavernous and dark. They have four of the stations of the cross. There is a circular stone staircase just inside the door; when you come out on the second floor you're facing the first of their stations, Jesus being nailed to the cross. This is depicted in a huge painting, in front of which is a table (altar?) with candles and flowers. (Altars with candles and flowers will turn out to be a theme.) Next is a painting of Jesus on the cross, with a shrine showing Mary. The last (on this level) is a smaller shrine that people had to crawl into; there were actual worshippers there and I didn't want to interfere, so I never got a good look at what was inside. (If you can translate the inscription, please leave a comment with the photo.)
The final station is downstairs, showing the body being prepared for burial.
After the church we made a short visit to Cardo Street in the Jewish quarter. Cardo Street is under another street (so roofed but not fully enclosed), and there were maybe 15 shops selling mostly high-end silver/gold Judaica. (I expected more shops; later we found another batch exploring on our own.) I was specifically looking for Armenean pottery (which is gorgeous), but, it turns out, there's an Aremenean quarter you have to go to for that. Oops.
We left Jerusalem via the "Jerusalem corridor", and our guide gave us some history. Jerusalem, he said, is built on the "ring" theme, with neighborhoods on hilltops surrounding the main city. This wasn't true in 1948, when the Arabs laid seige to the city and prevented supplies (like food) from coming in. They controlled the hilltops, so this was easy; the Palmach (freedom fighters), in turn, built an alternate forest route and saved the city.
Trees: Israel used to be forested, and that was systematically destroyed first by the Romans and later by the Turks. There are still some natural forests in the north, but almost every other tree here was planted by the JNF in the last century.
Our first stop was Caesarea, a Roman city built by Herod the Great (common refrain: "...who was a nasty man"). Not much of the original city remains, but enough did to allow for a reconstruction. So most of what we saw was a modern redaction of Roman architecture. (All of the actual original bits were fenced off.)
We went first to the ampitheatre, which is a marvel of engineering. The accoustics are amazing; there were several tour groups there, and we heard clearly the leader of the group standing on the stage but mostly not the others. We were halfway up (which was ground level on the entry side); I have no trouble believing that I could have easily heard performances there without benefit of electronics.
The other thing that was nifty about the construction was that it faces the Mediterrnean sea. Why is that important? Because the breezes from the sea are refreshing to people sitting there under the hot sun. This was December and we were warm; imagine what it would be like in July. The beach here is sandy, not rocky; that and the aforementioned breezes contributed to the erosion of the original structures. I guess score -1 for the Roman engineers for not building for posterity. :-)
Next was the chariot-racing track, which I think was later used for gladiator fights and maybe other sports. Our guide didn't know the distance once around. There is an iron statue showing a chariot and horse at one end; I don't know its origin.
By the way, important people got reserved seats. Here's the one reserved for Pontius Pilate:
On the same site was a Crusader-era gatehouse, the first line of defense for the city they built there. It sits on the highest hill (of course). We walked through it as our guide pointed out all the tools available to the defenders -- moat, arrow slits, murder holes, the porticullus, the several turns you have to take to get in (and how they're designed so your shield is no help against the archers), and so on. Pretty standard castle defenses, but it was neat to see it in stone and not just in pictures.
After a drive through Haifa and a short stop at the Leo Baeck school, we went to the remains of Tzippori, a town built by the Romans (about 2000 years ago, like Caesarea). During the rebellion c.66-70 CE, the residents of Tzippori surrendered to the Romans instead of fighting, so more of their town survived. The place is in ruins now, but the main streets and outlines of buildings survive, and some incredible moasic floors.
These were probably homes and public buildings of Jews who were imitating what they saw in their Roman neighbors' houses; there is no shortage of depictions of gods and mythical creatures.
A particularly-striking section is called "the Mona Lisa of the Galilee"; her expression is similarly cryptic.
From there we headed to K'far Giladi, a kibbutz and our destination for the night. Kibbutzim are no longer mere farms; the Israelis found that agriculture+socialism didn't work, and these days they all have some other source of income. This one has a hotel, and a pretty nice one. It's sprawling and open to the great outdoors in places, but it's not rustic when it comes to amenities (except for very limited internet access). This seems like a nice place to get away for a weekend, if one lived close enough to have this as a weekend destination.
Tuesday we woke to heavy rain, which prevented our drive through the Golan Heights. After a visit to the Na'ot factory (another kibbutz), which seemed to be everyone's rainy-day destination, we headed to Ts'fat.
Ts'fat, like Jerusalem, is up in the mountains, about 3000 feet above sea level. It was cold, rainy, and foggy when we were there (so I have almost no outdoor pictures). The road up is narrow and the streets there are very narrow; our bus driver got several well-deserved rounds of applause. (Personally, I think one car deserved to get squished for parking where it did...) The town was founded in the 1500s by Jews who'd been expelled from Spain and Portugal, and it's where Jewish mysticism really developed.
Cars don't fit in the inner city, and even if they did the many flights of stairs would be a problem. The streets are all stone (which can be slick in the rain) and the gutter (about a foot and a half wide) runs down the center. There are many steps; when we came out at the end we walked up three or four flights to get to a road big enough for our bus.
Our first stop was the Abohav synagogue, which was built in the 1500s and rebuilt to the original design after a 19th-century earthquake. It's beautiful and full of symbolism. Because it's Sefardi the bimah is in the center of the room, and elevated by seven steps. (Or maybe it was eight; both numbers are significant in different ways. All numbers in this place are significant.) There was a lot of blue, in the synagogue and generally in Ts'fat; the color is considered mystically significant, the color of heaven.
The domed ceiling is beautifully painted, and the walls are covered with paintings and sometimes decorative plaster. There are three arks on the southern wall; two hold torah scrolls and the third serves as a genizah, a place to put holy texts that can no longer be used. (Yes, southern wall; Ts'fat is north of Jerusalem.)
This is the text of a prayer that is said by the congregation while the leader is saying something else. I'm not sure why it, in particular, rates being framed and hung up on the outside of the bimah, but it's pretty.
After that we had some time to shop in the artists' quarter. Wow, the people who told me that small merchants here are pushy were right! If you pause to look at something in a window, they pounce and try to pull you into the shop. Everything there is haggling, and they're pretty aggressive. Their opening gambit is several times what an experienced shopper ends up paying. I didn't get the opportunity to observe a pro.
My rabbi had mentioned a candle shop he always visits, and I decided to find it; I knew it was nearby so this couldn't be that hard, right? After wandering around a little I decided to ask someone for directions, and I had my first real Hebrew failure. I figured I know directions, numbers, "street"; I should be able to do this, right? But I don't know "steps" and some other words she used, and after I asked her to say it more slowly and I still didn't get it, she asked me (in English) if I speak English. Oh well. I didn't mean to be a burden. I'm told that people appreciate it when Americans at least try to operate in the local languages -- makes us seem less arrogant. On the other hand, it's probably a hassle for them.
From Ts'fat we headed to Carmi'el, which is Pittsburgh's sister city. (I'm not sure who hands out sister cities or how.) Our first stop was the children's village, which is essentially foster care but on a community rather than just an individual basis. They create families, with half a dozen (or more) foster kids and a set of parents and their own kids. We visited briefly with a family of eleven kids -- three their own and eight foster. The village has a supplementary school, library, some sports areas, a couple internet-connected computers, and maybe some other stuff. The families have small houses, considering. The kids all have chores in their families, partly because it would be crazy for the parents otherwise and partly to teach them life skills. When kids turn 16 they move into the "teenager houses", without parents, so they can learn to live on their own in a supportive environment. The village is an interesting concept, and apparently they do fairly well at producing well-adjusted kids. (I didn't hear any actual statistics.)
After a visit to an absorption center for new immigrants, we had dinner in the Misgav, a group of villages in the suburbs of Carmi'el, and then went back to K'far Giladi for the night.
We left K'far Giladi and drove south. (Standing in K'far Giladi you can see Lebanon on three sides; south is about the only direction to go.) We drove past the Kineret (Sea of Galilee). Kinor means "harp" in biblical Hebrew, and it's named that because it's shaped kind of like a harp. In modern Hebrew, though, "kinor" means "violin"; I'm not sure why other than that ben Yehudah said so when he revived the language.
Water is really important in Israel, and the Kineret is an essential part of that. The Jordan river flows into and out of it, and it acts as a reservoir. The level is monitored and if it gets too low, pumping is restricted. The Jordan forms not far north of it from three other rivers.
Um, did I say "river"? Yes, that's what the Jordan is called, but what we saw looked like a creek. It wasn't always in sight as we drove down through the west bank, but I never saw anything I couldn't jump across with a running start. Talk about having illusions shattered -- I had just assumed that the Jordan was wide.
We continued on to Beit She'an, the site of an ancient Roman city named Scytapolis. They only discovered this in the last few decades, and it's huge. Our guide estimated that they've only excavated about a quarter of it. This site is particularly interesting because it was destroyed by an earthquake, not conquered, so you get a moment frozen in time.
We saw an ampitheatre (real and not a reconstruction this time), many toppled columns with varied capitals, the main market street, and a public steam bath. This was neat; I'm glad it wasn't raining while we were there.
One effect of a dig that's in progress (though funding has been frozen here for a while) is that you dig out stuff that you don't know the final location of. Here's part of their collection of spare parts:
It began raining after we left Beit She'an, and the rain followed us to Jerusalem and turned into snow. Jerusalem doesn't get snow that often, and they apparently don't know how to deal with it. Fortunately, I wasn't one of the people stranded when buses stopped running and cabs got hard to find.
The next day (Thursday) we celebrated two members of our group becoming bar mitzvah, and after a luncheon we were on our own to explore for the rest of the day. A group of us went to the old city and started with the Tower of David museum. The museum is not one that's full of artifacts; rather, it tells the story of Jerusalem's history with a bunch of exhibits and films. We started with a short animated movie giving an overview from the town of Shalem on the hillside up to the founding of the state. The film was well-done; I wouldn't object to seeing it again. It was narrated in Hebrew with English subtitles, by the way -- those speaking only Arabic are on their own, I guess. (All of the exhibit signs were trilingual.)
The exhibits themselves were interesting but not very detailed -- definitely closer to "slice of life" than an academic treatment. The language didn't suggest that it was pitched for kids, though; I think they probably set out to put together an accessible introductory presentation and succeeded.
The people I was with wanted to go back to one of the shops on Cardo in the Jewish quarter. Finding it -- Cardo, I mean, not the shop -- was a bit of a challenge; we missed the small, dark street that started two-thirds of the way down a staircase. The old city is like that. We had a map, though, so when we realized we had only walked 20 feet and had somehow passed it, it was easy to fix. Earlier, when we were trying to figure out if we were headed in the right direction, I was able to eavesdrop on a tour being conducted in Hebrew and glean the answer.
Friday we went to Yad Vashem (the holocaust memorial/museum). The architecture of the museum is interesting in one way: when you come out at the end, you walk onto a balcony overseeing both older and newer parts of Jerusalem. After learning about an attempt to wipe out the Jewish people, you come out and see a growing Jewish city right there. Nice.
This message was reinforced for for me when, later in the day, some of us went into the shuk in the old city. Friday noon in the marketplace as people are rushing to get last-minute supplies for Shabbat dinner is something. After Yad Vashem that drove home the message that not only did the Shoah fail to wipe out Jews (the people), but it also failed to wipe out Judaism. People are people, but a religion and a culture are bigger than any individual.
Friday night we went to services at Har El, the oldest Reform synagogue in Israel. Shabbat morning we were free to go wherever we wanted, and I visited Shira Chadisha, an egalitarian Orthodox congregation, which was fascinating. I spent some of the afternoon walking around the neighborhood, and had dinner Saturday night with friends.
We left Jerusalem the next morning and headed south. The transition from city to desert is sudden; there's no intermediate green. It's also a rapid descent; we dropped about 2500 feet in about 10 minutes of driving. (And continued to drop; Jerusalem is 3000 feet above sea level, and if I recall correctly, the shore of the dead sea is 1200 feet below.)
The desert is not devoid of green; Israeli farmers figured out how to do irrigation (drip irrigation, more specifically) a while back. They taught the Palestinians who taught the Jordanians, so there is green on both sides of the Jordan river in places where it wouldn't occur naturally.
After a stop at the Ahava factory (on, you guessed it, another kibbutz), where they make skin-care products from the minerals in the Dead Sea, we went on to Ein Gedi nature preserve. It's very pretty, especially the waterfalls.
We were told that the ibex and one type of bird are not at all afraid of humans, but I was disappointed to only glimpse one ibex in the distance and none of the birds (or the third critter we were told about, the hydrax).
Next up was Masada (Metzadeh, which means fortress, in Hebrew). I had always envisioned Masada as a small fort on the top of a hill -- yes, I knew there were 1000 people up there, but that doesn't necessarily imply much space when it comes to military fortifications. What I didn't know was that Herod the Great (yes, same guy with all the other big building projects) built himself a fortress, a couple of palaces, and assorted other support structures up there, just in case he ever needed it. It's not known whether he ever visited.
So it was already all up there (along with stores of food and cisterns for collecting water) when, toward the end of the Jewish revolt against Rome, the last remnant holed up there. After a couple of years this was too much of an embarrassment for the Romans, so they sent something like 10,000 men to remove the rebels from the mountain. (This is all according to Josephus, who wasn't there.)
The structures up there are part original and part reconstruction. Most walls have a black line across them; below the line is original and above is what was added to give a better idea of what the place looked like.
We spent a few hours at a hotel/spa on the dead sea. Most people floated (you don't really swim) in the dead sea; I don't wear that little clothing out in public, so I didn't; only when it was too late did I realize that I could have just brought shorts and a t-shirt. Next time. I had planned to spend the time just walking around outside and taking in the scenery. It was bright and sunny when we were at Masada, but raining by the time we finished lunch and ventured out to the sea. Oh well. If it had to rain, better there than at Masada.
Eilat is a warm, sunny, built-up, commercial city on the shore of the Red Sea. Of course every hotel wants waterfront property. We're on the water but not technically on the sea; they call the small set of canals they've built the "lagoon". I took this picture from my hotel balcony:
I walked along part of the main drag. The stores are as apt to have English signs as Hebrew ones. There are upscale stores next to Burger King and SuuperPharma. There is a small amusement park with four or five rides. There are flowers in bloom, and there are sidewalk vendors. The lagoon is full of boats; I imagine some are for hire.
In the afternoon we went to Kibbutz Lotan, which is affiliated with the Reform movement. They do a lot of environmental work; they work to find new ways to be green and teach that more broadly. They are completely off the power grid, and they've developed and started to deploy composting toilets. They don't do a lot of their own recycling, but they hit the "reduce" and "reuse" phases pretty hard and collect the rest to ship out to recycling plants. While their original homes were pre-fab housing (like on most kibbutzim), they're doing a lot of their own building now with mud/brick they build themselves. This isn't just for walls, either; we sat on benches and at tables made this way and walked through a plyaground that was, fundamentally, mud. (I asked. The traditional sealant is linseed oil, which is expensive and has to be imported, defeating the purpose. For outdoor use they are currently collecting the used vegetable oil from restaurants. It takes about three days to stop smelling like french fries, and then you have no idea if you're not told.)
The next day we went to the aquarium in Eilat. One of the key exhibits is the underwater observatory; they've bult a sizable complex under water so instead of putting the fish in tanks, you effectively put the people in the tank. It was pretty nifty. I had mixed results photographically. (I experimented with both regular and "night" settings on the camera, of course disabling the flash for all of it.)
There were also conventional tanks, and open pools with turtles, sharks, and other critters.
In the afternoon we began our long series of flights to get home: puddle-jumper from Eilat, 777 from Ben Gurion to Newark, and then something small to get home.
People have asked me if I felt unsafe in Israel. No, I didn't. While security is an everyday matter there, it didn't seem to take over; it was part of the background, not something that people got worked up over. Most restaurants had shomrim (guards) who sat outside and sized you up on the way in; when going into larger establishments (including grocery stores) I sometimes had to offer a bag for search. Once I walked through a metal detector. It was all routine, normal. I didn't see as many soldiers as I expected, and I saw even fewer who were obviously armed. We drove through the west bank -- quiet.
Things are much closer together than I had thought. Living in the US, I'm not used to thinking of places as that small and tight. I heard a saying there: in the US 200 years is a long time; in Israel 200 miles is a long distance. So true. (I talked about distance; here's time: we were told that if you use the word "old" and aren't talking about milennia, people will laugh at you.)
Being somewhat immersed in the Hebrew language was interesting. I understood more of what I heard than I'd expected and less than I'd hoped. Speaking (as opposed to listening) was hard; I'm still too slow. It was rarely necessary; almost everyone we interacted with spoke (and assumed) English. But I took the practice opportunities when I found them.