Last night I had my last
dinner out. I went with Emanuela to Container in Jaffo, a great restaurant on the
port. We ate fish outdoors, overlooking the tugboats. The one right in front of us was named the “Mazal Tov” (and thank you for that, I thought). Becoming friends with Emanuela has been terrific; she has so much energy and is so much fun to be with. She gave me a few Hamsas as goodbye gifts. I was really touched.
One more sleep and I fly home. I still have half my clothes out of the suitcase "just in case I want to
wear them."
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| Sunset in Jaffo, Tugboat named the Mazal Tov |
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| With Emanuela |
Right now I have
a quick catch up post to do. Until Rafi
arrived, I was blogging pretty much every night. When he got here, I
had something better to do with my evenings so I missed blogging for a couple of weeks – and
never really got caught up. I need to do this now, before I return home when I
will cease my blogging-for-fun (my work blog will start -- but
I doubt it will be as much fun).
While Rafi was
here, one very interesting excursion we did was our trip north, to the Galilee. We left on a Friday
morning, April 26, after renting a car - with GPS of course. The GPS wasn't
charged and the cable was a bit loose so, without a map, I was afraid it would
cut off mid-way and we’d end up in the wrong place. So I decided to also try out Waze. Waze is a free, community-based traffic
& navigation app I had downloaded to my Blackberry. Everyone here is crazy
about as it includes crowdsourcing to also offer traffic conditions in real
time and modifies suggested routes accordingly.
Because I did not rent a car here, I hadn't used Waze before so it
took me a while to clue in that the second voice and set of
directions I was hearing was not coming from the car GPS but from my
Blackberry. This would have been fine if both systems had been giving us precisely the
same set of directions, which they were not. Let's just say that we
took the slow and scenic route out of Tel Aviv.
Our first stop was Caesarea. Located mid-way between Tel Aviv and Haifa
(45 km), on the Israeli coastal plain,
Caesarea is the site of Roman, Byzantine and Crusader archeological ruins,
turned into a national park. To me, the most interesting aspect of it is that
they try to use the site for more than destination tourism, so they stage
concerts and plays in the amphitheater as well.
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| Overlooking
the bay in Cesarea |
For example, early in May (and I only found out about
it afterwards, by reading the papers) there was a Shlomo Artzi (a famous local
singer) concert in Caesarea which Gilad Shalit attended.
Shalit was invited to sing Artzi's song “Melech Ha’olam” (King of the world),
which was the singer's signature song for the release of the Israeli soldier
during his five years in Hamas captivity. I cannot imagine there was a
dry eye for miles around. Here is a link to the Concert for
Gilad Shalit, and here is a link to a home-made video
of the actual event. Very moving, if you know about Gilad Shalit's 5-year ordeal.
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| The (empty) amphitheater |
The town was built by Herod the Great about 25-13 BCE. We stopped
there just long enough to have coffee and take in the gorgeous seaside
archeological sites. Principal ruins include a theatre dating back from Herod's
time, a roman racehorse track and the amphitheater which is where they stage
plays and concerts.
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| Leaving the amphitheater |
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"We
are all Tourists" but at least I did not have to wear a funny red hat
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While it is a beautiful setting and the ruins are very well preserved,
it is a very touristy place, so by the time we left the tour buses were
arriving and it was getting crowded.
From Cesarea we drove to Akko. I had been there before, for a short couple of hours, and now wanted to enjoy the place with Rafi and at a more leisurely pace. So what did we do? We immediately went to their highly acclaimed restaurant Uri Buri.
The restaurant is set in an old Turkish house facing the open sea, with small,
informal rooms decorated with Arabic touches. We were told repeatedly by locals,
including Emanuela who knows everyone (and asked that we send regards to Uri) that its
owner/chef Uri Yirmias is the secret sauce behind this place. The waitress encouraged us to order half-portions
so we could sample the menu. What? Half
portions!? Rafi went for the major tasting menu where one can order additional
half-portions of what you liked best. It
was all delicious and “well worth the detour,” to paraphrase the Michelin Guide.
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| At Uri Buri |
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| Sampling the multi-course menu at Uri Buri |
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| Groupie-shot: Rafi with Uri |
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| Outside the restaurant, facing the sea |
After such a lunch, we had to walk around Akko's old town. The most interesting part was, of course, the Shuk.
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| Bread-making in real time (for sure not the 'no-knead' recipe) |
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| Fresh fish anyone? |
From Akko we drove farther north to Nahariya, a resort town of around 30,000, founded by German
Jews in 1934. In the 1940s, Nahariya was a landing spot for
illegal
immigrant ships, smuggling refugees from Europe to Palestine behind the British' backs.
Due to its
geographic location, down the coast from Israel's border with
Lebanon, Nahariya has been a frequent target of cross-border terrorist attacks
by today's Palestinians, especially mortar attacks and Katyusha rocket fire during the 1970s.
The incident that is imprinted in
everyone’s mind of course, is the 1979 Nahariya attack, where four Palestine Liberation Front terrorists
used a small, 55 horsepower boat to travel from Tyre,
Lebanon to Israel, resulting in the cruel and horrible deaths of Israelis:
Upon landing on the beach, the terrorists found two separate police officers
and killed them. The group then entered an apartment building, broke into the apartment
of the Haran family, took 31 year-old Danny Haran hostage along with his four
year-old daughter. The mother, Smadar, was able to hide in a crawl space with
her two year-old daughter, and a neighbor. Tragically, Smadar accidentally
suffocated her daughter to death while attempting to quiet her whimpering,
which would have revealed their hiding place. The group’s leader, Kuntar, took
Danny and his daughter down to the beach where he shot Danny at close range in
the back, in front of his daughter, then proceeded to kill the girl by smashing
her skull against the rocks with the butt of his rifle.
Kuntar and another member of the group were captured -- and were
later set free in prisoner swap deals between Israel and Lebanese militant
organizations. In an
interview in 2008, Kuntar stated
that: "There is a disease in this region called 'the state of
Israel,' which we refer to as 'the plundering entity.' If we do
not put an end to this disease, it will follow us, even if we flee to the end
of the world. So it's better to get rid of it."
In a subsequent interview, Kuntar stated that "and God willing, I will get
the chance to kill more Israelis."
Something to think about next time we read about Palestinian prisoner swaps.
Today, the city is a
popular place for UN peacekeeping troops from Lebanon to go for R&R. Since Emanuela grew up there, I had heard lots of stories from her of how down-market
it had gone (all true). Rafi and I walked down the beach promenade and had a coke. The landscape is beautiful and it has wide, sandy beaches, but I did not feel like taking pictures.
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| Nahariya Beach at sunset (picture stolen from the web) |
Form Nahariya we drove to one of the the highlights of the trip experience, Rakefet, where Ruth, one of the nicest people I have met here, had invited us
to join her family for Friday night dinner and to spend the night before driving
to Tiberias the next day.
If you have not heard of Rakefet, not to worry, neither had I. Rakefet is a very small community in the Galil, part of the Misgav
Regional Council.
This next part is a bit confusing, but very interesting and quite different than the way we organize ourselves at home:
This region is noted for the way that Jewish and non-Jewish
communities live side-by-side. The Misgav Regional Council, home to 22,000 people,
comprises 35 small towns. These are mostly “community settlements” but also several Kibbutzim and Moshavim. The population of 29 of these 35 is
primarily Jewish, and 6 are Bedouin. In addition, the region has a number of Arab towns (not part of the regional council) that are
considered separate local councils. Neither
is the city of Karmiel, which
lies in the heart of the Misgav region but does not belong to the regional
council. (The population of Karmiel alone is more than twice that of the entire
Misgav Regional Council.)
Rakefet, where Ruth and her family live, is a community
settlement. This is a type of town in
Israel. While in an ordinary town anyone may buy property, in a community
settlement the town's residents, who are organized in a cooperative, can veto
a sale of a house or a business to an undesirable buyer. This way, residents of a community settlement
who may have a particular shared ideology, religious perspective, or desired
lifestyle they wish to perpetuate can do so by accepting only like-minded
individuals. (For example, a religiously-oriented community settlement that wishes its members do not use cars inside the community on Shabbat. Residents can drive on Shabbat, but they must leave their cars outside the community gate.)
In a North American context, it sounds a
lot like a gated community, but with a cooperative philosophy which is very prevalent in Israel's history, and is making a come back after last summer's protests.
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| Beautiful view of the Galil - while lost in Rakefet |
Ruth had given us excellent, very detailed instructions on how to
reach her home in Rakefet (Exhibit A: “After
about 200 meters turn right. Count road bumps – after the third road bump turn right at
the first opportunity, and right again at the “T”).
Rakefet, home to about 800 people in beautiful single-detached homes with lovely and well-kept gardens, has only recently applied to get streets names. With her instructions -- and the GPS -- we did fine until we actually reached Rakefet. After a few attempts at finding her house, we had to surrender and
phone her to come get us from the main gate.
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| Rafi with Ruth and her husband Yaakov outside their home |
I do not want to reveal any private conversations or family details, but I can only say that staying in Ruth and Yaakov's home felt precisely like what I had expected staying in an
Israeli family's home would be like. None of the Tel Aviv or Jerusalem types of nonsense that sometimes feels to me to be so non-Israeli and shallow and at odds with what the State of Israel is/should be all about.
We got to meet a few of Ruth and Yaakov's grown children, all of them very good looking, interesting, self-assured and willing to give of themselves so generously for the betterment of the country. Their family is wonderful and I am so grateful that we got to spend time with them, talk to them, and see for ourselves what keeps the country together. (And besides, the food was fabulous too!)
The next morning, after a hearty breakfast we drove to Tiberias, with first a stop in Nazareth.
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| The Basilica of Annunciation (stolen from the web) |
As we were on our way to Tiberias, we drove around and only made a few stops. We arrived in Tiberias just in time for lunch.
Tiberias is located on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee (AKA,
Lake Kinneret). It has been
venerated in Judaism since the middle of the 2nd century CE, and since the 16th
century it has been considered one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities (along
with Jerusalem, Hebron and Safed). In the 2nd-10th centuries, Tiberias
was the largest Jewish city in the Galilee and the political and religious hub
of the Jews of Palestine. According to Christian tradition of course, Jesus performed
several miracles in the Tiberias district, making it an important pilgrimage
site for Christians. And if that wasn’t enough,
for a few thousand years Tiberias has been known for its hot springs, believed to
cure skin and other ailments.
Tiberias attracts a lot of tourists, both international and local; Christian, Jewish and Muslim. In the evenings, it is interesting to see the throngs of people promenading by the lake, a veritable melting pot.
To me, the geographic area reminds me an awful lot of the Okanagan Valley in BC, with the lake (it really isn't a "sea"...), the surrounding mountain range, the arid landscape and the local wineries. (I can certify there are great wineries in the Galil!)
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| Scott's Hotel, Tiberias |
In Tiberias we stayed at the famous Scott’s Hotel, on the lake. It
has beautiful buildings which were originally Tiberias’ only hospital
established in 1885 by a Scottish Protestant doctor. It is still
owned by the Church of Scotland which holds services at nearby St Andrew's.
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| View of the pool and Lake Kinnereth from one of the hotel buildings |
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| The pool boy |
Tiberias is pretty tourist-y so we spent a lot of time at the hotel pool (unfortunately, they are very 'Scottish' and close the pool at 5 pm, while it is still quite hot. Oh well). In the evening, we walked around the town and had drinks by the lake.
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| Yes, very romantic... |
The next day we drove to the ancient city of Safed (also spelled Zefat, Tsfat, Zfat,
Safad, Safes, Safet, Tzfat, etc.; take your pick). On our last trip, we only got there late in the evening one day and really did not have much of a chance to explore, so we made up for it this time. What a fascinating town!
Safed is a rather small town (small population of about 27,000), 900 meters above sea level in the mountains of the
Upper Galilee. It commands magnificent views east to the Golan, north to the
Hermon and Lebanon, west to Mt. Meron and the Amud Valley, and south to
Tiberias and the Kinneret.
For a long time Safed has been a
well-kept secret, even to most Israelis. According to the great mystics of
the past, Safed is to play an important role in the final redemption. It
is believed that the Messiah will come from Safed on his way to Jerusalem. We were paying attention.
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| Exploring the old town |
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| What can I say... |
According to legend, Safed is where
Shem and Ever, son and grandson of Noah, established their yeshiva where Jacob studied.
(OK, other sources say the town was founded in 70AD). The city flourished in
the 16th century, when many famous Jewish religious scholars and mystics moved
to Safed following the Spanish Expulsion, fleeing from the horrors of the
Inquisition. Safed then became the spiritual center of the Jewish world, where
Kabbalah (but not
Madonna’s version of Jewish
mysticism) reached the peak of its influence. Kabbalists, such as Rabbi Yitzhak
Luria and Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz (author of Lecha Dodi) and
Rabbi Yosef Karo (author of the Shulchan Aruch) just to name a few, made the
city famous. It was here that the first printing press in the Middle East was
set up, publishing in 1578 the first Hebrew book to be printed in Israel. At
that time the town was also a thriving trade center. However, Safed has also suffered
terribly due to earthquakes, plagues, and Arab attacks. In modern times,
the liberation of Safed was one of the most dramatic episodes in the 1948 War
of Independence.
We focused of course on the old part of town
which consists of narrow cobblestone alleys revealing artists' galleries, medieval
synagogues, private homes and small guest houses.
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| Researching the sites |
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| What can I say... |
Rafi and I
climbed up the Citadel (Metsuda) at the top of the city with
ruins dating back to the time of the Crusaders
and the Mamluks. We also visited a lot of art galleries.
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| Citadel - and the view from there |
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| Lots of art galleries |
Much
of life in the Jewish areas of Safed revolved around the synagogue and there
are many synagogues, both ancient and modern. One of the most
impressive places we visited was the Abuhav
Synagogue, with not one but three Holy Arks.
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| This way in. |
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| School children at the Abuhav synagogue |
For lunch, there were a number of interesting choices. Rafi went with the "Yemenite pizza" guy who, when asked what he calls the dish, said: "You call it pizza; I call it yummy."
Here is the sequence of events, in coming to the decision of where to eat:
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| Am Yisrael Chai! |
The next day we did spent most of the day at the pool and in the afternoon (after they closed the pool early) we went to Rosh Pina for dinner. Rosh-Pina, with 2,400
inhabitants, is a leafy town whose main source of
income is upscale tourism: a place of trendy cafés, restaurants and
guesthouses they call" Zimmers" (Tel Avivians love to escape here).
Since we did not have a tour guide, I did the only logical thing to do: I texted Emanuela in Tel Aviv, asking for a recommendation on where to eat. Of course she knew. She gave us the name of a great place (and asked to send regards to the chef) and, with the GPS, we enjoyed a nice relaxing dinner in this ideal location. Sorry, cannot recall the name of the place.
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| At this Rosh Pina restaurant, they give you puzzles to solve while you wait. Hard puzzles to solve (or not) |
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| Another nice place in Rosh Pina |
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| Nap time |
And so we ended the get-away to the Galil, heading back to Tel Aviv via the beutiful Jezreel
Valley, considered the "bread basket" of Israel.
It is a large fertile plain and inland valley south of the Lower Galilee
region in Israel
and West Bank
in Palestinian Territories. The Samarian
highlands and Mount Gilboa border the valley from the south
and the northern outskirts of the West Bank cities of Jenin and Tulkarm
have spread into the southern part of the valley. To the west is the Mount Carmel
range, and to the east is the Jordan Valley. About two
million years ago, the valley perhaps once acted as the channel by which the Dead
Sea connected to the Mediterranean.
It was a great trip... and since I am writing this post about 4 weeks after the fact, I realize how much I have forgotten, and how sweet are the memories of what I remember.
As I wrap my three month stay in this incredible country, I realize I will come back to this blog to relive the memories very, very often.
