Filed under: Visiting Israel
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This is a collection of our family photos and other resources from our travels in Israel on Sunday, December 24, 2006.
Jerusalem and Hadassah 122406
In the morning, we packed to leave Jerusalem and had another filling breakfast before going on the bus to Hadassah. On the way Rafi took us to a hill overlooking Bethlehem, separated by walls to stop snipers and the security wall/fence. Hadassah Hospital had been built on the edge of Jerusalem and the city was growing to meet it now. We were met by a tour guide from Colchester, CT and the hospital’s head of development who gave us a tour of the special precautions in the emergency and the Chagel windows.
http://www.md.huji.ac.il/chagall/chagall.html
While waiting to use the sherutim, the tour guide introduced us to a young woman who had been nearly killed in a terrorist attack in downtown Jerusalem last year. She had been saved by doctors using heroic and expense measures to stop her bleeding. We also were taken to the children’s hospital being expanded by Mayor Bloomberg in honor of his mother and were entertained by the hospital clowns. Time to buy souvenirs in the gift house.
Driving down the hills on the west side of the Hadassah mountain, we saw terraced farms. Yehudah found the road to Tel Aviv and we stopped at a dinner that featured Elvis memorabilia, two statues to the king, and his music. Then onto the Yitzhak Rabin Highway north, passing high walls separating two peoples. We stopped at a Coffee Express for sandwiches and lunch and then followed the road towards Bet Alpha, snaking through hills with Arab communities. Rafi told us that last August these roads were closed because stones were being thrown at passing cars and there had been some military actions. In late afternoon, we entered the Jezreel valley and Rafi discussed the Biblical sites. We stopped at Beth Alpha to visit the mosaic floors after watching a short film on the commissioning of the floor at Beth Shean by the farmers in the region in about 550 CE. For an astrological interpretation of the floor, see
http://www.stariq.com/Main/Articles/P0002607.HTM
For another historical account, see
http://www.hum.huji.ac.il/CJA/Index_pres/Beit-Alpha-Mosaic-general.htm
The short film included humorous sections on the concerns of the synagogue board, the negotiations for the commission, and the artist’s discussion of the folk-art, cartoonish nature of the floor.
A short bus ride later we entered Beth Shean - http://www.bibleplaces.com/bethshean.htm
(Also known as Scythopolis – the city of the Scyths – according to Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians
Also, since ancient times non-Scyths have used the name “Scythian” more broadly to refer to various peoples seen as similar or identical to the Scythians, or who lived anywhere in a vast area covering including present-day Ukraine, Russia and Central Asia — known until medieval times as Scythia. Interesting connection – probably another way the Romans tried to remove any presence of the Jews in the land and interesting that 1500 years later, Eastern European Jews would be living in part of the land that was ancient Scythia.
The park is dramatically designed with visitors entering through the admissions gate to a view of a city of columns in the valley below. We spent time singing in the amphitheater, taking photos of the public baths and toilets, date trees, columns fallen during an earthquake 1000 years ago. Michael Palmer reminded me that he and I sang our own version of ”Down by the Riverside” -
http://www.jccathisnewmonth.org/5768/Tevet/tevetson1.asp
to test the acoustics from the stage of the amphitheater. A whisper from the stage fills the stone seats raising as a wall.
On the road we entered the modern extension of Beth Shean, passing the ancient water systems and the race track. We continued to Tiberias, arriving after dark for a walk along the lake.
Several of us were fascinated by a thorny bark tree in the center of town, by the Ariel bakery. I think it was a version of the Hercule’s club tree – Hercules’ Club
(Zanthoxylum clava-herculis) http://www.zombiejuice.com/weedsworth/plants/rutaceae/Zanthoxylum_clava-herculis.html
Kibbutz Ha’on Holliday Village is across the lake from Tiberias. It features an ostrich zoo and a gift shop that sells eggs. We arrived after dark and settled into bungalows and prepared for a buffet dinner. The rooms had showers with no walls and a squeeze-gee for controlling the water.
After dinner, we had a group meeting to discuss different versions of Israeli flag and how that might reflect our experiences on this visit. I choose two flags - one of a puzzle and one with a blurry, tense image. I made a point of describing my unease in Israel – focusing on our visit with the woman we met at the hospital who had survived a terrorist attack, the walls along the highway, the gun blasts in Jerusalem.
I had trouble sleeping so I invited Danny for a beer in the lonely bar. There were some Birthright kids around but generally it was a very quiet lake-side resort.
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