Israel Photos!

Thanks out to Steve for giving me a whole bunch of his pictures to include in the blog!  (and to Shlomo the photographer for some of the bat mitzvah pictures as well).  Scroll down as I'm adding photos to some older blogs...

After the service at the Western Wall

The four Bnai Mitzvah posing in Yafo

Giving Rebecca her parent's blessing..

All the proud bnai mitzvah parents (and grandparents)

The four bnai mitzvah during the service..

Kfar Blum to Tel Aviv

The last day of our group tour.  We packed up, moved out of the room, enjoyed breakfast and then started the long drive to Tel Aviv.

We stopped first in Tzfat, where we toured a few synagogues, did some shopping, and ate lunch. We encountered a rather tyrannical, fascist, demogogic, (what else can I say) individual in one of the synagogues who first protested that 7 and 8 year old girls had ONLY their shoulders covered and not their elbows when they entered the synagogue he was working.  Then, he was quite obnoxious about getting us to give tzedakah money.  Then, and worst of all, when we were all standing OUTSIDE the synagogue, in a nearby courtyard, singing L'cha Dodi, which was written at that synagogue, he came outside and YELLED at us for disrespecting a holy place.  Our offense: having women sing alongside men.  If only I would have told them, "that actually wasn't just a woman singing, that was our rabbi."  Alas, better not to go there...

We did a little shopping, got some communal gifts for Rabbi Stacy and Irene, our educator, to thank them for all they have done for the group, and then headed back to the bus.

We stopped next in Caesaria and sat on the beach while the girls (and most of the group) took a nice ocean swim.  This was the place where Hannah Senesh wrote Eili Eili (Our God, we pray that these things never end, the sand and the sea, the rush of the waters, the flash of the heavens, the prayers of man.).  We didn't have any storms in the heavens but the rest of it was vivid and inspiring.

We headed into Tel Aviv and enjoyed our last meal (NOT last supper) together in the Yemenite section of Tel Aviv.  The restaurant was GREAT even as the surroundings were the worst I've seen in Tel Aviv (or Israel).  We took advantage of the rule that Havdalah can be delayed until as late as Tuesday in order to make our havdalah tonight, to separate the holiness of our time in Israel from the mundane...dare I say it....of San Rafael and Marin.  It was as meaningful as it was for us....as it was curious for the Israeli passerbys wondering who are these people, why are they praying havdalah with men and women together, and WHY are they doing it on Sunday night?  Reformim!

We said goodbye to our group, hired a taxi to move us and our 235, 435 pieces of luggage (OK, only 4 large suitcases and 7 hand things; but it felt like more) to the Crown Plaza Hotel in Tel Aviv.  We made a bunch of phone calls to friends and relatives as we set up the next two days before we head back to Jerusalem for Marci's Wexner week.

Lailah tov!

Rebecca delivering her d'var..

Shayna and Emma at the Kfar Blum pool..

Shayna and Rebecca swimming at Caesaria..

Kibbutz Kfar Blum

Shabbat shalom!  

We're at Kibbutz Kfar Blum guesthouse in the Upper Galilee.  It turned out to be a great shabbat experience; the guesthouse welcomes Israeli Orthodox; Israeli secular; and tourists from around the world; each observing (or not observing) shabbat in their own way.

For our group, we started with a grand buffet breakfast and then headed over for shabbat morning t'filah, in our bathing suits!  Rabbi Stacy led the service and Rebecca delivered the d'var she wrote for her (third) bat mitzvah ceremony.  

After t'filah, we all boarded the (shabbat) bus for the ride to the Jordan River and our rafting/kayak adventure.  We picked a six person (OK, 1 man, 5 girl/women) boat with Ellen and Sophie Levin.  We donned life jackets, a few oars, climbed into the raft and we were LAUNCHED into the river.

Alex, a member of our group from the former Soviet Union, remarked that the Jordan river was just like the Russian River.  We told him that ANY river he was on....was the RUSSIAN river.  :)

There was one rapid....err slow....on the river.  We all stayed in the boat (unlike our last trip here 2 years ago).  We also learned that they pump water into the river to keep the boats floating...and when we arrived way late in the day two years ago, they decided NOT to turn the water back on for us...leaving us to have to drag the boats as much as float them.

We walked back to our rooms after the river expedition, showered, lunched, and then hopped on the (shabbat) bus for a 75 minute drive to Rosh Hanikra, the Israeli/Lebanese border right at the Mediterranean Sea.  It has a cable car that goes down to grottos.  In high school, we welcomed an Israeli exchange student to our home in L.A., Eran Naveh.  We've kept in touch over the decades and he drove up to visit, ever briefly, at Rosh Hanikra.  I also got to gaze, from afar, at my kibbutz, Hanita, located very near.  

We spent an hour or so touring the grottos and then returned to Kfar Blum in time for a walking tour of the ...kibbutz...  We learned that the children are no longer raised together, everyone gets a different salary, most all meals are eaten in private homes rather than the dining hall, even the cherished communal laundry is gone as most people now how their own machines.  Our guide, a third generation kibbutznik, isn't actually a kibbutznik since she merely rents her house from the kibbutz, works in town, and therefore, keeps all her salary.  We asked the difference between a kibbutz and a moshav (which is a collective farm with individual ownership).  She said the kibbutz is almost now a moshav.

Having had a few hours break from the bus, we hopped back on again and drove to Rosh Pinnah.  (I forgot what "Pinnah" meant in English and learned it was "corner."  Then I remembered the Purim song, "Ha'kovah sheli shalosh PINOTE..." and it all made sense.

Since the trip ends tomorrow, we came back and spent the late night packing...

Tel Aviv to Kibbutz Kfar Blum

Today was another big travel day.  We, thankfully, were able to sleep until 8 am, then get ourselves checked out of the hotel and on the bus.  First stop, Caesaria, where we toured the amphitheater, the ruins, walked along the seashore that inspired Hannah Senesh to write Eili, Eili.

From Caesaria, we continued North to a Druze village on Mt. Carmel where we learned about the Druzim and then feasted on a Druze lunch (best Hummous so far!).

We continued North again; this time to the Golan Heights where we hopped in jeeps and rode over the old Syrian positions, learned about the 1967 war, and about the possibility of returning the Golan for peace with Syria.

From there, to Kibbutz Kfar Blum and its guest house for Erev Shabbat and some time for the adults in the group to reflect on the experience (only 2 days left of the synagogue trip) while the kids entertained themselves with lots of games.

Shabbat shalom.

The girls at a dinner..

A Druze lunch with Emma, the newest Dollinger

On a jeep with Gene and Emma in the Golan Heights..

Tel Aviv

The debate this morning: is Tel Aviv in a heat wave?  Answer: No, it's just Tel Aviv in the summer.

We headed out for a family scavenger hunt in the first neighborhood of Tel Aviv (now 100 years old).  After about 4.2 minutes of sweating, our group (Dollingers and Jaffes) decided to duck into a restaurant for some cool liquid refreshment.  Game Over.

Until...we asked a simple-minded question of our server: Where is Independence Hall?  She looked perplexed, not known WHERE the Hall was located NOR EVEN WHAT IT WAS.  We explained to her, "It's the place where Ben Gurion declared independence."  She'd had no clue and went to ask the other guys working there the same question.  They had no idea.  Incredulous, I walked over to the bar and quizzed these young Israelis on how it was that they could be raised in the Israeli educational system and NOT know where it was, nor even that it existed.  They shrugged.  With Noah Jaffe on the video camera, we forged back into the heat, stopping random Israelis to ask them where we could find Independence Hall.  If they didn't know, we asked them what it was.  If they didn't know that, we taught them and asked why they didn't know.  Most of the older Israelis knew exactly what it was; few of the younger Israelis did.  Oy.

In true (or semi-true) Borat style, we took ourselves RIGHT IN FRONT on Independence Hall and started asking Israelis right there if they'd heard of it :)    (They had though they couldn't recall the last time they went in).

We toured the Hall and it was quite impactful for those in our group, especially as the assembled group of tourists began to sing Hatkivah spontaneously when the original 1948 recording of the Israel orchestra was played.  Noah is making a movie of the interviews if you're interested...

We spent the afternoon in the cool air conditioning of the hotel, catching up on email, blog, and sleep.  Yeah.

In the evening, we head to Yafo, where we spent some time in the Shook, eating some baked goods from Abulafia (sp?), and then headed to "The Old Man and the Sea" for an immense dinner.

Two years ago, we attended a concert by Mayumana with David Broza.  This time, it was just Mayumana.  For an hour and a half, we experienced the Israeli version of Stomp (but with music and singing as well as dance).  It was spectacular....and the curtain call had the 10 cast members, drums in hand, just walking off the stage, out of the auditorium, encouraging the audience to follow them outside, where they continued the concert for another 15 minutes in the parking lot.

Lailah tov.

Sde Boker, Beer Sheva, Tel Aviv

A wise tour leader canceled this morning's hike at the Ramon Crater, given the feedback from a bunch of exhausted, overheated hikers from yesterday.  Instead, we stood on the edge of the crater, learned its geologic history, took some pictures, and got back on the bus!

We went next to the gravesite of David Ben Gurion and heard some of his story.  Then, on to Beer Sheva, which has grown quite a bit since I last visited in 1986.  We were invited to a pre-school/kindergarten for Jewish and Arab children, part of a program called "hand in hand" meant to create primary social relationships between Jews and Arabs by creating a bilingual curriculum.  The kids went to play with the Israeli children while the adults heard from the leadership about the project and its mission.  

From there, we went to the Ayalon Institute outside Tel Aviv, to learn about a group of young people who created and operated a clandestine ammunition factory in a basement of a kibbutz between 1945 and 1948. When we finished, Marci and the girls went with the group to the hotel while I stayed behind to conduct two more interviews, this time with the Rosenfelds.  Melodie and Sherman came out of Berkeley in the 1960s.  I was introduced by Irene Resnikoff, our synagogue educator who is along on the trip.  Little did either of us know that I actually studied Sherman's student days at Berkeley and I reported on it in my counterculture chapter for California Jews.  It is always humbling to meet historical actors whom you have described in print.  Fortunately, he thought I did an accurate job (and actually made only one mistake in over-crediting him for something).  For the SF and BHDS readers, he was the one who organized a "sit in" and a "pray in" at the SF Federation in 1971 to demand that it fund Brandeis Hillel Day School.  Special to Sam, Amy, and the rest from Advancement, I did give him an appropriate donor thank you!  Special to Cal alum..  Go Bears...and Sherman and Melodie were the founders of the Israel Action Committee at Berkeley.  (Special to those engaged by Reform Judaism in Israel. Mike Nitzan, whom I interviewed a few days ago in Jerusalem, was the first Reform wedding at Kibbutz Lotan and he sought, unsuccessfully, to have his marriage become a test case through the Israeli legal system. ).

Sherman brought me to the train station.  I hopped on a Tel Aviv bound train and made my way to the hotel.  We enjoyed dinner at Susanna's in Neve Tzedek with Stacy Friedman, Ellen Levin, and the kids.  Query?  Where did the shrimp on that menu come from?   Welcome to Tel Aviv!

Oh, yah, and one more thing...it's HUMID here.

Marc

Shayna and the children at the Arab/Jewish school..

Rebecca playing soccer at the Arab/Jewish school..

Marci and the other adults learning about the Arab/Jewish school..

Masada, the Dead Sea, and the Negev Desert

This was a very early morning.....yet another 6 am wake up call.

We loaded our suitcases and headed out, and DOWN, to the Dead Sea.

After a morning drive through East Jerusalem and onto the West Bank (ooohh,  aaahhh, big reaction from tourists on the bus), we made our way to Masada, passing the caves of Kumran on the way.

What can I say, it was HOT.  How hot?  VERY HOT?  Actually, for readers from the trip two years ago, it was VERY COLD.  Rabbi sighting.... Phil Nadel...leading a group up the mountain.    We took the cable car up the mountain and Maron, our guide, shared the story.  We were all melting (with all due respect to Elphaba).  Rebecca and I retreated to shade about halfway through.  

From Masada, we headed to Ein Gedi, where we were told....15 minutes walk to the spring; 30 minutes swimming; 15 minute walk back.  NOT TRUE.  Instead, hike up the mountainside in blistering heat, lots of kids, a few grandparents and one none-too-happy diabetic (that be me).  The oasis was...refreshing  (just keep all the algae and moss off of you) and the brought body temperature and tempers down.  Still, not much left in my tank by the time that experience was over.  Shayna did well until she decided to play soccer with an underwater rock.  Ouch.  We hiked back down, counting the steps, sighting the buildings in the distance, recalling ALL the water we had drunk all day, realizing that, yes, we really did have to go the bathroom....walk...walk...jog...jog...there's the building...pictograms are great (no need to read the Hebrew)...enough!

By the time we got to the Dead Sea, the Dollinger family went on collective strike.  Shayna has heat rashes on her body (not so good in the Dead Sea).  Marc was still way wiped out; Rebecca wanted rest and air conditioning.  Marci had blisters...  and so we sat in the restaurant.  When the rest of the group returned, we heard harrowing stories of a dead sea so receded that the hike there was compared to, yes, say it, the Ein Gedi hike we'd just completed! 

From the Dead Sea, we drove inland, through Arad, and then Dimona where we DID NOT SEE the Israeli nuclear plant, then on to a Beduin village, sort of... It's actually a tourist tent village created by Israelis to LOOK like a Beduin village, but it was way fun anyway.  We all went into a giant tent, sat on the floor (after a few minutes, I did, indeed, realize that there was actually no place for my legs), and they brought out HUGE amounts of really good food; salads, hummus, beduin bread, lamb shishlik, chicken kabobs, roasted chicken, blah blah blah.   After dinner we moved to another tent for some stories, history, music, mint tea and dessert.

Then, the bravery begins...a camel ride.

These are mean looking camels (are there nice looking camels), all tied together in a long train, two to a camel.  Shayna and I were together, which was fine until they said, "Get on the camel at exactly the same moment because the camel with try to stand up as soon as he senses someone climbing on."  On your mark, get set...

As Shayna and I held on for dear life, the camel jolted butt up, face up, back, forth, WE'RE ON! (except that someone from Rabbi Mona Alfi's group was bitten by one of them there camels and Shayna witnessed it).  She was quite scared and all my encouragement could do NOTHING once the camel behind us decided to investigate Shayna REALLY CLOSE.  OK, so close that the camel's head was at Shayna's waste and Shayna's mouth was wide open screaming.  We did get the handler to come over the keep the camel back from Shayna...until Marci yelled from the camel behind us, "He licked me!"  This, at least, made Shayna laugh.  We decided, Marc and Rebecca liked the ride.  Shayna and Marci, not so much!

We were back on the bus and off to our hotel in Mitzpe Ramon, a small town in the Negev desert famous for a giant crater-like formation.

While it was only about 7 pm, we just vegetated in the hotel room and caught up on needed sleep!

Marc at Ein Gedi oasis..

Marci (far left) at Ein Gedi oasis..

Shayna, Marc, Rebecca, Marci (four on right) at Beduin Village..

A Beduin dinner!