Israel
My friend Caron came to Malta for Thanksgiving. It was another fun holiday, spent with 30+ friends from all over the world. As I did the 2 previous years, I cooked all the American food and everyone brought a dish from their home country. Caron is in the travel industry; she designs tours for small groups. Her friend Peter, a tour operator, invited us to join his tour of Israel. At half the normal price for a group tour, we said yes! So the day after Thanksgiving, we were on a flight.
Let me just say, Israelis are not messing around where security is concerned. Our gate was at the very end of the big airport in Rome. Before the check in counter, you have to pass the scrutiny of a guard. You then enter a secure area where you are immediately pulled aside by a serious looking security person. I got grilled for 20 min by 2 different people: where are you from, what was your job, how did you meet your travel companion, how long have you known her, what does she do, where have you traveled (in your entire life), what were you doing in Iraq, (lots of questions there)... When they got to details of our pending trip I answered everything with 'I don't know'. What's the name of your tour company, where exactly are you going, where exactly are you staying, who's leading the tour, who's on the tour.... The reality is, I knew none of that off the top of my head. I offered to pull out my itinerary but they just kept asking questions. Eventually I was told to wait by a special scanner. Remember, I hadn't even checked in yet. Caron joined me and we watched all the other passengers go by, skipping this scan. We couldn't imagine why we were singled out. After running our bags through a machine, the guy dug out some paddles and scanned Caron's bag still more. Her computer cord couldn't be carried on but was OK in her checked bag. That was weird. He seemed friendly enough so we were joking around with him. I asked him why Caron got paddled and not me. As he started to explain, he realized what I said just as Caron and I burst out laughing. This flustered him and he started to blush, which made us all laugh harder. He finally told us 'just go'! We're off to a great start! Once in Israel, we met our fellow travelers. There were about 45 people from all over Europe, although most lived in Germany. They turned out to be so much fun, 45 new travel buddies.
Israel was very interesting; it was not someplace high on my list to go, but the opportunity presented itself, so why not. What struck me was the arbitrary nature of many of the religious sites we saw. Sites like Mount of Beatitudes, Capernaum, Church of Annunciation, and Church of Nativity were all relatively new buildings. They attach a biblical significance to them, but its not like the Coliseum in Rome for example, that was built in 72 AD and history actually happened there. Many of the places we visited had more recent structures, built in the 1900's and merely commemorated a biblical event that may have happened nearby. Other places we saw were much more impressive; a 2000 year old boat found perfectly preserved in the mud as the waters in the Sea of Galilee receded, or Masada, the ancient fortress in the Judean desert.
Herod the Great built his palace on top of a mountain in 37 BC. The fortress was inhabited in 66 CE by the Sicari, an extremist Jewish splinter group. The Roman governor laid siege to the fortress by surrounding it with a wall, then built a ramp and used a battering ram to finally breach the fortress 3 months later. The Romans used some 15,000 Jewish slaves to build the wall, and the Sicari refused to attack them. (Odd, since they were said to have raided nearby Jewish villages where they slaughtered 700 women and children.) The story goes that rather then become Roman slaves themselves, the 960 inhabitants of the fortress chose death. Each man was to kill his wife and children. Of the remaining men, 10 were selected to kill the others. One of the 10 then killed the other 9 before falling on his own sword. Thus, they all chose death over slavery, but only one committed the mortal sin of suicide.
This history was recorded by a 1st century historian called Josephus. Modern archaeological finding support the siege narrative; you can look down from the fortress and plainly see the ramp and the walls as well as 11 barracks for the Roman soldiers. There were 11 ostraca, or pieces of pottery found. Each ostraca had a name on it; one is though to be the fortress commander and the other 10 could be the final 10 men, like names in a hat. As to the question of the 960 deaths, there is no archaeological evidence of Masada's defenders dying, as only 28 skeletal remains were found and those are thought to be Roman.
Our swim in the Dead Sea is almost impossible to describe; the water has such a high saline content that you float whether you want to or not. You wade in about waist deep, then turn around and sit down. But you only sink up to your shoulders, even though your feet are not touching the bottom. It's easy to lay on your back, but damn near impossible to get back up or turn over. It reminded me of the kids toy called weebles. There is sand in the bottom of the toy and when you tip it over, it pops right back up. The Dead Sea was the opposite; if you tried to get your feet under you to stand up, you toppled right back over. The sea floor was comprised of salt rocks the size of grapes but it wasn't difficult to walk because you could barely get your feet to touch bottom. The high salinity made your skin feel slimy, not abrasive like we thought it would be. We were warned not to get it in our mouth, but of course we all had to taste it. Just touching your wet finger to your tongue actually burned. No way did you want that in your eyes.
We traveled from the Golan Heights in the north down to Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the middle of the country. In the Golan Heights we drove to a point where we could look down on the border to Syria and see the UN Compound. In the distance you could barely see Damascus. While we were standing there, the UN compound came under mortar attack. They fell a bit short of the buildings, but did set a roaring fire to some bushes nearby.
As we drove along the Sea of Galilee, we could see Jordan on the other side. We stopped on the River Jordan at a spot where people traveled from all over the world to be baptized. It was a beautiful place with several really pretty churches or mosques on both sides. There was a rope running down the center of the river marking the border between Israel and Jordan. There were armed soldiers from both countries watching from platforms on shore, probably 20 or 30 feet apart. I couldn't help but wonder if they ever got to chat with each other, they were that close.
We went for a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee and it was a strange experience. It was very foggy that day, you could barely see the shore even though we didn't go very far out. You could see a hint of the mountains in Jordan on the far side. It was totally silent and the water was so still it looked like glass. The whole place had a very eerie feeling.
We visited the Wailing Wall which seemed to me to be a place of great religious faith and fervor, but also the sense of community and a social gathering spot. Right on the wall, you could see people deep in prayer; their whole body rocking front to back. Farther back, you could see people socializing in small groups.
When we exited the area, we went through a checkpoint and suddenly we were on the Arab side and the most fantastic market. It was a sea of tightly packed stalls selling hookah pipes, dried fruit used for tea, spices, candy, fruit, copper wear, wood carvings, scarves, clothes, household goods and anything else you can think of. And like the rest of Israel, on every corner there was a guy with a pomegranate press, making juice. I kept seeing carved wooden camels in the souvenir shops but never a live camel. I ended up getting a little glass pomegranate because they will always remind me of my trip.
Once in Jerusalem, we had a fantastic view of the city from a monastery just south of the city. Between us and the city walls was the Mount of Olives, a Jewish cemetery for over 3000 years. It is said to hold over 150,000 graves. Looking down on the thousands and thousands of raised tombs covering the landscape, I would have though there were many more. On the tombs you could see small stones or pebbles, placed each time someone visited the grave of their loved one. Looking into the city, I could see many beautiful churches, synagogues, and mosques. Some of the more identifiable ones were the Dome of the Rock, Temple Mount, Church of the Ascension and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Its a very beautiful skyline really, we were lucky enough to be there at sunset and it was spectacular.
The food was fantastic! As much as I had, you'd think I'd never want pomegranate juice, dates, hummus, pita bread, and swarma meat again! But it was so good, I brought a huge bag of dates home, then made swarmas with pita and hummus for dinner my first night back. I really enjoyed my trip and I'm very glad I went, but I don't think it had the same historic or religious significance for me as it did for some in our group.
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