Filed under: Visiting Israel
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Here are our family photos from Thursday, December 21, 2006:
Dead Sea to Camel Riding at Mamshit – powerpoint files of Oranim photos
In the morning we travelled east from Jerusalem to the Jordan River and the Dead Sea, driving 3 miles south of Jericho. We passed Quamran and the caves where the Dead Sea scrolls were found and talked about the decline in water in the Dead Sea. After passing Ein Gedi, we arrive at Masada. We took the cable cars up to the plateau and Rafi spoke of the history of the fall of Masada in 70 CE. Steve read part of the speech by Elazar ben Ya’ir, the leader of the group. I mentioned to Rafi that the history is not clear. He said that historians had found the speech.
Here’s a recent revisionist interpretation of the Masada story -
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/portrait/masada.htmlHere’s reference to Hindus in Elazar’s speech -“A most interesting reference is found in Flavius
Josephus. When he is describing the fall of Masada, he
has Elazar say – after arguing for the martyrdom and
getting nowhere – ‘Consider the Hindus who don’t know
God from Sinai. They have no fear of death because of
their great faith and they know the soul to be
eternal. If they can be so fearless in the face of
death, should not we be? When they go to their death
they are cheerful and even take notes and presents
from the living to their ancestors in Heaven.’ This
argument won the day.http://www.jcpa.org/cjc/cjc-katz-f05.htm
The group climbed down into a cistern where water would collect in the rainy season. The walls were covered with graffiti, including “Kfar Silver forever”. There was a bar mitzvah celebration in a tented enclosure and we walked from one end of the plateau to the other, overlooking Herod’s summer palace. The day was bright but cool – a good day to be at Masada; we spoke of what it would have been like in August.
We returned to the center and to a gift shop with Ahava products – beauty aids that make use of the mud from the Dead Sea. Then onto the Dead Sea at Ein Bokek -
http://www.einbokek.com/deadsea.htm and the Tsell Harim Hotel for a dip in the Dead Sea, an outdoor pool, and a heated indoor pool. Lots of group shots and floating on the dead sea, playing with the mud that we got when we checked in. We changed in large room; unfortunately, our son was locked in one of the rooms for 10 minutes. After our floating, we partook of a buffet lunch that featured some soups and snitzel.
After lunch we drove to Mamshit for Camel Riding and Bedouin Style Hospitality. I was beginning to feel like a tourist in Brave New World. The camel riding was a once in a lifetime experience for me – been there, done that. The Bedouin’s story was narrated by an Israeli, we had tea and coffee. There were tents for Birthright-Taglit groups to sleep over and then take a walk in the desert in the early morning up Masada’s snake trail.
As we travelled passed Dimona, Rafi connected Masada with Dimona – the site of a nuclear plant that might have nuclear weapons. Never again being the theme. We also talked about the Bedouin and their adjustment to Israeli life. I suggested that there might be land set aside for Bedouin to travel up and down the desert – realizing later that I had taken the idea of a caribou strip in the Pacific Northwest as the model. I felt like an ugly American when I thought of tourism and the Bedouin.
In the growing dark, we travelled around the West Bank to return to Jerusalem. We were dropped off a Ben Yehudah and the Schwartzes and our family went looking for a Chinese restaurant - following the custom on Chinese food during the season. We did find a Chinese restaurant but it was not kosher and instead went to a vegetarian restaurant with Japanese flavor called Gong. Back to hotel for candle lighting and rest.
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