Shalom from Jerusalem!

And what a lovely two days it’s been. After a conversation of Jewish
Memory two nights ago, yesterday morning (it feels like days ago, it
seems) we woke up early at our kibbutz in the Golan Heights, had the bus
loaded by 6:55 AM (can you believe?), ate some breakfast, and were on the
road.

As we made our way down the Golan Heights over the Hula Valley, there was
an extraordinary-looking cluster of clouds between us and the Valley; it
was breathtaking:

Our first stop was Misgav Am on the   ebanese border where we had practically a 270 degree panoramic view of Lebanon and of Mt. Hermon (topped with snow) in Israel. Here we learned about the history of Israel/Lebanon border and the evolution of challenges Israel has faced
from some of its neighbors since the first Gulf War–particularly the horror of attacks on civilians. We in particular learned about the experience of the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006.

You can get some sense of the view here:

http://www.misgav-am.com/english.htm

From Misgav Am, we headed back down into the Hula Valley, where we stopped for a little while at the nature preserve. We learned about the millions of birds that fly through this valley every year–migrations as far as Zimbabwe and Finland–and how scientists study birds by attaching a small light ring to one of their feet with the hopes of finding some of the birds with rings at different times an different places.

After a drive around the nature preserve, we ascended to Tsfat, known as one of the four ancient holy cities in the land of Israel, and perhaps most famous as an epicenter for Jewish mysticism during the medieval period. We learned about Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai who is associated with the Zohar, the text par excellence of Jewish mysticism and about Rabbi
Isaac Luria (nicknamed the “Ari”) and visited one of his synagogues. We had some free time for shopping–from candles to necklaces to Judaic artwork, and many students ate Lahu (I have know idea how to spell that in English–think semi-hard “h”), a Yemenite bread together with some vegetable toppings for lunch:

Others were content with more falafel or shwarma.

What the students did not know but what their staff did know is that we wanted to do a special “shehecheyanu” ceremony welcoming them to Jerusalem yesterday evening, but that time was tight (it would be a three hour ride from Tsfat if we were lucky). So we headed out of Tsfat and drove clockwise around the Kineret (Sea of Galilee) to avoid traffic in Tiberias and then headed down the Jordan Valley Road toward the Jericho Road that leads to Jerusalem. We learned about Israel’s relatively warm peace with Jordan and heard moving stories of their late King Hussein. We also started to talk more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as we were driving down a road shared by Israeli and Palestinian vehicles and had a view of Jericho in the Palestinian Territories just before sunset.

So somehow by hook or crook–call it divine intervention or the luck of no traffic, we–while singing “Yerushalayim shel Zahav” (Jerusalem of Gold) emerged from the tunnels on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem just as the sun was starting to set. We disembarked from the bus and danced our way to an overlook of the city, took some pictures, and toasted l’chayim over a
little wine to welcome the students.

Then, we headed to our hotel near the City Entrance from the main road to Tel Aviv and checked in, had dinner, and heard some speakers from Gift of Life (the prospective bone marrow donor registry) talk about what they do and registered a bunch of our participants. Some students stayed up for a while at the hotel’s bar, others were in bed by 9 PM, but we were all back on the bus by 8:00 this morning when we headed to the Haas Promenade, where we had a gorgeous view of the Old City from the south, heard some Jewish traditional stories about that place, and learned about 3000 years of Jerusalem history–complete with visual aids–from the City of David the Mount of Olives, from the Temple Mount to the Separation Fence between
Israelis and Palestinians built by Israel.

We entered the Old City itself through the Zion Gate and walked through the Jewish quarter. We learned more about the Roman period in the Cardo, and–after a break for lunch and shopping–made our way down the Western Wall plaza. Students had about half an hour to experience the kotel–the Western Wall. Some people wrote notes, others prayed, wished bar mitzvahs “mazal tov,” some of our men (third picture attached) experimented with the ritual of putting on tefillin (there aren’t any folks at the wall asking women to put on tefillin as there are for men, so I made sure I didn’t forget my tefillin if any of our women wanted to try putting on
tefillin as well).

We visited the Davidson Center and learned about the excavations in the southwest corner of the Temple Mount and then had a walk through Hezekiah’s tunnels (we took the dry tunnels in spite of the very warm day
today) that brought water to the city at a time when Assyrians threatened Jerusalem’s existence as a Jewish city (8th-7th century BCE).

And then our students headed to Taglit-Birthright Israel’s “Mega Event,” a night of food, performance, and speeches. There are rumors that the President and/or prime minister will make an appearance tonight in honor of Taglit-Birthright Israel’s 10th anniversary, celebrating 220,000 people traveling to Israel on the program.