Moonlight Over the Jerusalem Burma Trail

Just some highlights of the last few days. I am fighting my battery and have no time to sort and think and solve the problems of Israel. Right now I can't even name them.

We had a wonderful few days thinking that we really wanted to go home right then. But things fell into place Sunday we spent the afternoon with Shuli, my second cousin on my mother's side. We ate at an Israeil chain, Aroma, in Kefar Saba and then she drove us around and made it clear how close the borders are to her home. She is very liberal and finds Kadima too conservative but I don't have a fix on her political attitude toward creating peace in Israel. She appreciates the Arabs as people but wants safety for herself and her family. She is not happy with Obama's stance on building in the settlements yet thinks the settlements are a barrier to a solution. The area around where she lives is very close to the Green line and she remembers at a small child in 1948 being afraid to sleep.

After our afternoon I did some email with the son of a friend of mine who lives near Kefar Sabaa and he has no faith in the current PA. I have not discussed any ideas about solutions with him yet but I think I will

On Monday we took the bus/buses into Telaviv to see the Museum of the Diaspora, a truly interesting experience. No pictures. We were just tourists or actually locals out for the day. We strongly recommend the museum restaurant, almost as good as the exhibits.

Tuesday, the last day was as full as the rest. Before our trip to the sea for a last look we walked out behind the village and saw a piece of the Burma Road. Notice that Bonnie is pointing to the trail to validate my words.






We then took off for Ashdod and ended up walking along a beautiful beach and then a market with loads of fresh produce and pastries and just too many wonderful things for the last day of the trip.

We drove by Yavne and waved at the memory of Ben Zakkai and headed east to Rehovot to a cemetery where my mother's father's parents are buried. I had been there in 1989 with Michael and as I remember or don't remember, the trip was an easy bus ride from Telaviv and then a long walk. Fortunately today we had the car because it was a long walk from the center of town and I don't think either place as moved since 89. We had to ask for directions and Allerga, native of Ashdod but living in Rehovot for 16 years got in our car and talked us through the drive to the cemetery. Pretty amazing. An aside, a very important aside, the grave on the left is for Tibe, the woman whose middle name

We passed through Ramla, the town we visited out first day in Israel and headed back to Newe Shalom to finish packing and get to the airport.

Everything is going smoothly including our desire to have a kebab from McDonalds. I suspect the kebab will not be appearing on Micky D's New York or Fort Wayne menu anytime soon.

The moon is almost full.



L'hitraot

Changing Eating Habits--Last Day in Israel

This is our last day in Israel. I will have another post while in the airport I am sure. Today we are driving around the area and seeing sites from the 1948 war. We are going to see pieces of the Burma Road that connected besieged Jerusalem with food and other resources during that time.

May also get to the sea again and see my great grandparents grave in Rehovot.

On the Way to Ben Gurion--Haifa and south

We spent a day and a half in Haifa visiting several Carmelite monasteries overlooking the hills and the Mediterranean Sea. From what we could figure, Haifa is a lovely town. I was surprised to find the cave in which Elijah hid.

Elijah's Cave is at the base of Cape Carmel in Haifa, below the lighthouse and Stella Maris Carmelite Monastery. An important shrine to many religions, the chapel includes the very cave in which the Hebrew prophet Elijah is believed to have lived and taught. Many important events in the life of the Prophet Elijah (9th century BC) are said to have happened in this revered cave: he lived and meditated here before defeating the pagan prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel; he hid here when fleeing the wrath of King Ahab and his wife, Jezebel. The cave is sacred to Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Druze, all of whom venerate the prophet Elijah. There was a mosque here until 1948. Tradition also has it that the Holy Family (Mary, Joseph and Jesus) found shelter in this cave for a night on their return from Egypt. (of course).

Israel is efficient, sites serving multiple religions. An efficient way to generate competition and conflict.

To complete the Elijah tour we traveled east of Haifa to another Carmelite monastery dedicated specifically to Elijah with a large statue of Elijah killing the priest of Baal with a sword of fire. Sorry, no pictures at this time.

I was particularly interested in this site because this story of Elijah and Ahab and Jezebel was in the haftorah I read for my bat mitzvah in 2005. It was like visiting an old friend.

I wanted to visit Beit Shearim, the burial place of Rabbi Judah HaNasi but the GPS got us turned around and we were not able to get there before the grounds closed.

In Haifa we also visited the Bahai Shrine and Gardens. Follow the link to get a glimpse of the spectacular gardens. Bahá'ís believe the crucial need facing humanity is to find a unifying vision of the nature and purpose of life and of the future of society. According to The Lonely Planet, Israeli citizens are forbidden to be Bahai. I have to check that out. It makes no sense to me and I can't find validation on the internet. Follow this link for a discussion of the Bahai belief.

After a false start by the GPS we arrived at En Hod. Very pleasant little artist town with many shops with things to buy and a clean bathroom. I found a wonderful gift for a friend who is very hard to buy for.

As it was getting dark we headed south after En Hod for Newe Shalom or Wahit el Saalom a small town between Telaviv and Jerusalem. It is a planned community with Israeli Palestinians and Jews living together. Kids go to school together.

It is interesting to me that there are so many places for reconciliation in Israel yet so little reconciliation. I read an article by Yagil Levy in Haaretz on January 11 that got me thinking. He referred to all the wonderful and effective human rights organizations such as Machson Watch, Soldiers Breaking Silence, and B’tselm , private organizations that actually act as oversight for the IDF, Israel Defense Forces, might actually be extending the occupation by making it "more convenient." How could that be, you ask? As oversight groups they keep the defense forces on its toes, and perhaps make the occupation more humane. Life readjusts and continues as does the occupation, noticed but maybe less and less as an inconvenience. Or more and more justifiable.

At some level this thinking is a little far-fetched but at another it resonates. None of us it totally free. We have rules and regulations and taxes, so why not an occupation? So the society creates these organizations that fight to make the injustices of the occupation less.

Is Yagil Levy suggesting that we stop monitoring human rights violations in order to demonstrate all the evil aspects of an occupation? I don't think so. Maybe he is saying that monitoring human rights is not the primary way to get this situation changed. The only way to get at the roots of this particular problem is to not just work for human rights but also work to end the occupation.

Personally I want things better for the everyday guy now, not when the politicos decide for him or her. But yet, I don’t want to make things so nice that the occupation becomes comfortable. Even as I write that sentence, it sounds stupid. Even a nice occupation is based on power differences. And no matter how beneficent the autocrat is, he/she is still an autocrat.

(Maybe I should write that in a letter to the editor of Haartz where I read the article in mention.)

Now, as I reread what I just wrote I realize I moved without preamble from reconciliation to the occupation. And they are not the same thing. There are issues between Arabs and Jews in this land the predate the occupation. In many ways the occupation acts as a shield covering up the other issues. At the same time, by using massive resources to maintain, it makes harder to face and solve other problems. And it remains as an underlying source of distress for Israeli Palestinian citizens, at least for those that see a relationship with those in the territories and see that they have benefits of movement and education and social services that those in the territories do not have.

Well, that's that. Fortunately I left out another discussion about the futility of demonstrating against injustices if the injustices do not get resolved and the demonstration becomes an end in itself. That might be another blog or maybe not.

This afternoon Bonnie and I are going to visit my 2nd cousin in Kfar Saba, a town about an hour north west of here. Shuli and I have developed a friendship over the years, I think our mothers were first cousins. But the genealogy does get confusing. Somewhere back in Belarus we share an ancestor in addition to the Chavitz Chaim.

L'hitraot.

Kibbutz Neve Ammin

We stayed at a kibbutz near Akko for 3 nights. It has an interesting history--is Christian, staffed mostly by volunteers, has a social action agenda, is kosher. Many liberal groups stay here including Encounter, a group the supports dialog between Israeli and Palestinian survivors of the ongoing conflict in the area. Also staying here this weekend is a group of Israeli and Palestinian teenagers who are gaining understanding of each other using art. Right now I can't remember the name of the group but Debbie Nathan from Boston area is the executive director.

Nes Ammim founded by a Dutch physician Dr. John Pilon who arrived in Israel in 1950 to work in the Scottish Hospital in Tiberius. He became aware that Christian-Jewish relations had deteriorated and that it was important to promote an improvement in relations.

Dr. Pilon found ideological support for his idea from Dr. Hans Bernath, a Swiss doctor who worked in Nazareth hospital, and Shlomo Bezek, a Dutch Jew from Kibbutz Ayelet Hashahar. Together they searched for financial means to establish a Christian village in Israel. In 1959 Dr. Pilon met with Protestant priest Arich David from Germany and in 1960 Nes Ammim Germany was founded. It was decided that its objective was to concentrate on dialogue between nations and religions and create a space in Israel to carry on this dialog. In December 1960 a proposal was written to the Israeli government that was accepted for the establishment of a kibbutz. In 1962 about 2800 square meters of land were transferred to Nes Ammim ownership. They support themselves through farming and running a guesthouse that has space compatible for large group meetings.

First Clue We Are Ready to be Home

Traveling North and East, Avoiding Lebanon and Syria

Today we set off for the Golan Heights. If we had planned this part of the trip a little better or at all, we would have stayed in the Galilee last night and driven around up there today without traversing back and forth across the state, but that was not the case. So using the map and not a GPS we traveled east and north, getting very close to the Lebanese border more than once. The views were beautiful and it was interesting to see how the terrain changed as we moved away from the sea and traveled north. We saw different kinds of agriculture as we as well as remains of Syrian bunkers as we moved east towards Syria. We did not know if the snow capped mountains in the distance were in Israel, Lebanon or Syria but they certainly marked a difference from the Negev and the Ramon Crater. We know we saw banana trees, oranges, maybe grapefruits, and many vineyards. We had two goals for today’s trip—see the Jordan River which we missed yesterday and go east without accidentally getting into Syria. We met both our goals. We got pictures of the river and did not set off an international crisis.

We traveled as far north and east as a town called Mas’ada, a Druse town up in the hills. While up there it felt like it could snow. We ate at a restaurant owned and run by a father and son team. The father was short and had a mustache and would not let us take his picture. The son was tall with a good command of both Arabic and Hebrew and he did well enough with the English. Food was good and relatively cheap and the service was courteous. We wanted to take pictures of something so that we could remember our visit but the town was so unremarkable we were at a loss. I did find a closed restaurant with an array of large cement figures such as men, chickens, and horses in the front so I did have something to snap.

The trip back was quick. Somehow, for the first time we missed rush hour traffic and arrived at Acre, out dinner destination in about one hour from pretty far north and east. We had no trouble getting into this town and made it to the waterfront where we climbed around the ruins and wall (and then read about them) before it got dark. We ate dinner at this upscale place called Uri Buri which came with a high recommendation from some friends who shall remain nameless. Well, the food was good, not the best meal I ever ate, but good. Bonnie liked hers more than I liked mine, too much pepper for me. But the service was awful, just awful, we asked for water twice, never got it,food came fast but then the wait staff disappeared. Well, we got out of there by getting up and asking for the check and then having to take the check up to the desk. For an expensive meal, it pissed me off. So to make up for it, we drove around the old part of Acre, of course after reading the guide book, I said turn right and Bonnie said no, and I said turn right and she finally turned right, right into the Old City. It was like it wasn’t there, it was a Harry Potter experience, nothing is there, and then you walk through a door to a whole universe of activity. The Old City is totally Arab and teeming. Here she was in a car, fortunately a small car riding around on narrow streets made for a horse and wagon, or a donkey and wagon. She continued around trying to get out and met up with a narrow, too narrow pathway but several local men more than willing to help us get out. They were kind and were laughing, knowing hardly any English, but surpassing our Arabic which includes, saalam, Inchal alla, and shogrin. They got us turned around and then she followed some other small car out of the maze and onto a street wide enough to avoid cats or people or knocking off the side view mirrors.

Tomorrow Haifa and hopeful to see a new baby relative. And maybe another trip north, up the sea coast to the Lebanese border. (I was there with Michael in 1989).
Just an aside, we have noticed a lot of military type aircraft flying overhead. Might have something to do with relations with Lebanon?

Continuing the Jesus Path from Tiberius to Capernaum

Tiberius had too much traffic coupled with construction and one way streets to be characterized as it is in the travel book as a sleepy little town. As is our wont, we had no reservations and realized that we were stuck with either the Tiberius Hostel or a $300/night hotel. We chose the hostel and were not unhappy. It’s location was central and accommodations were not bad. The cold shower was its only drawback. Meir, the administrator was helpful and the place was clean but shabby. We had a private room and bath so we were content enough. Neither of us felt that great that day so it really did not matter.

The day included figuring out how to get change to put into parking meters, exchanging our car for a smaller car that was more comfortable and had an AUX jack for the iPod. Let’s hear it for a Mazda 2. [Its small size became particularly useful this evening in Acre (AKKO)--story to follow]. We then treated ourselves to tea on the waterfront, amazed at how warm the day was considering how chilly it had been in Jerusalem and even Nazareth. The owner of the restaurant was from Miami, Florida and was happy to talk about the places I used to go with my father, like Home Depot on 163^rd St, North Miami Beach. I think she was a bit homesick.

The next day we both felt better and took off in search of dead rabbis. We found the tomb of Maimonides and and maybe that of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai and some other rabbis that were within walking distance of the hostel. As stated in the guide book everything was in Hebrew and it was hard to figure out who was buried where. One thing for sure though, it is considered a holy site by the Orthodox and they come here to pray, men on one side of divide and women on the other. If you are curious about how Maimonides got to Tiberius from Cairo where he died, and even if you are not, the story goes that before he died he told his people to put him on a camel and bury him where the camel expired. The camel took him to Tiberius and was buried. Unfortunately we have no information about the fate of the camel.

Outside of town we found the grave of Rabbi Akiva buried on a high hill overlooking the city. A beautiful view and no Romans running up to get him.

After our visit to these Jewish holy sites we made our way to Christian sites. Just like in the United States, the Catholics really know how to pick land with beautiful views. The views in conjunction with a bright, sunny, warm day reinforced the spiritual feeling of the places we visited: Mount of Beatitudes, Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, Church of the Primacy of St. Peter, Capernaum with the remains of a fisherman’s house (could have been Peter’s) and a synagogue from the 3^rd Century built on top of a first century synagogue (Jesus could have preached there). And a Greek Orthodox monastery. While walking through Capernaum we hooked up with an English speaking group and got the story. The guide was very good and humorous. He kept saying that no one could validate that these places actually were the places mentioned in the Christian Bible because there were no signs left saying “Jesus slept here.” We chatted with the guide as we walked towards the parking lot. He asked if we were Jewish and when I said yes he wanted to know if we were Messianic (Jews for Jesus) Jews. He assumed as did everyone that if you visited these sites you were Christian of sorts. He asked us where we were going and we told him we were headed west to Acre but did not know where we were going to stay that night. He gave us the name of a kibbutz with a guesthouse. And that where we ended up.