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.
Interesting discussion - to be continued I hope. Hope, too, that you had a nice visit with the relatives.
ReplyDeleteYou missed Stan's first SAGE/CBST brunch - on Medicare. It went well.
hugs,
s
An interesting point about human rights groups possibly making the occupation more palatable. It reminds me of when I was a teenager in high school in Brighton Beach, and my classmates, many of whom were the children of Russian revolutionaries, fought about whether the Trotskyites or the Leninists were the true "vanguard of the proletariat." The Communist Party (Leninist controlled) said that the Trotskyites were cruel and immoral because they were against the formation of labor unions and the legislation of a minimum wage. Bettering the conditions of the workers would make them less likely to revolt, so the Trotskyites thought, so for their own good, conditions under capitalism should be kept as awful as possible. However, the Communist Party in the U.S. and Western Europe wanted to be known as a force that was fighting for progressive changes which would benefit the working class. Thus each group accused the other of betraying the cause of worldwide revolution. It feels to me like the flow of history repeats over and over in the same ways. Only the particulars, or rather, the particular labels of history's protagonists change.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link to information about the B'hai faith. I had heard of the group before, but had known nothing about them.
It sounds like this trip has been a real educational journey and an eye (and brain)opener!