Tiyul up North

I’m back from the north! I actually got back Thursday evening, but I don’t think I was caught up on sleep until today. Which is good, since tomorrow it is back to the grind. It was a great trip. Read this one when you have some time; it’s a long one. Pictures will be posted soon, so keep checking back!

Tuesday

We met at HUC at 7 am, which is a very early time to meet. This was morning one that I was up before the sun. I know I should get used to it before the winter, but I’m not so excited about that. We all piled onto the two buses and headed out of Jerusalem. Right as I drifted off to sleep (I’m a champion bus/car sleeper!), the tour guide started talking. This was a theme. He was great and had a million interesting things to tell us, but it did infringe on my bus sleeping tendencies. We drove north, along the border fence with the West Bank. He told us a lot about that fence. The big ugly wall you see on TV on the time is only what about 4 percent of the fence looks like. The little part where it runs right next to a road and people used to occasionally in ugly times shoot at passing cars, they made that fence solid to stop that sport. The rest of the fence is hard to see. It’s all wire, with electric sensors that tell the guards when someone touches it. Our guide was very adamant about telling us several times that the ugly wall is all they show on CNN because it photographs better and it makes better news. The wire fence is what they have on Israel’s other borders as well.

We drove up to Zichron Yaacov, one of the first Jewish Zionist settlements in Israel, and walked around and learned about the first Aliyah, the movement in the late 1800s when Jews started moving in larger numbers to this area. We were talked to by an Israeli Reform rabbi and learned about their synagogue. We got to walk around the town on our own (it’s cute!) and find lunch. They did show us the apparently somewhat famous ice cream place. It was delicious! I like ice cream. We made another stop to learn about the founder of the Shomer movement, basically the first person who pushed to have Jews guarding Jews. It was the first time in the region that Jews were allowed to bear arms, and therefore a big step forward.

Then we got to Kfar Blum, where we changed into bathing suits for an adventure in the Jordan River. (Aside: much of the Jordan River is not so large. It trickles in places, especially in late summer, the driest time of the year.) We were given the choice between “kayaks” for two people and rafts for 4-6 people. The kayaks were basically smaller rafts. I decided on kayak, which turned out to be a great choice. The rafters were given two paddles, one for the front and one for the back. The kayakers were also given two paddles. This left the middle of the rafts unarmed, and easy targets. That’s correct, we had splashing fights all the way down the river. Sometimes a few rafts/kayaks would team up, create a river blockade, and splash at anyone who tried to pass through. Sometimes we spotted someone in front of us and paddled fast to catch up and soak them. Sometimes they were moving so slowly that it didn’t require so much work to catch up. My Valley Mill kayaking days served me well; I was a competent paddler. I was also soaked by the time we were done, as was most of our group. It was so much fun!

After that, it was back to the buses to go to the Kibbutz where we were staying to check in and have dinner. I was rooming with Emily, Laura, and Jessica. Emily and I roomed together in Barcelona as well, but Laura and Jessica I had not spent much time with until this week. We had a great time! I love that we’ve been here for almost three months (!) and I’m still making new friends. Yay. I think Kibbutz Gadot accommodations were nicer than any of us expected them to be. Especially the showers, which had impressive water pressure, which is always a nice find when you least expect it! Even their food was decent, which is always a nice surprise. After dinner and evening services, I stayed up for a while hanging out with friends and playing cards, and then headed back to the room exhausted to collapse into bed.

Wednesday

Morning two of up before dawn. Early morning Shacharit and breakfast, and then to the buses to head out for the day. We went first to Kiriat Shmona, a border town that was originally settled by many of the Northern African Jews. It was also one of the towns hit hardest by this summer’s war. As we were driving there, our tour guide pointed out that along the hills bordering the town, there were a lot of black patches. These were places where Katyushas hit the hills and burned the land. We were also looking for signs of the destruction in the town. It turns out, Israelis usually fix these things very quickly. We did see a few buildings with severe damage, or in once case completely destroyed, but most places had already been repaired. We were also supposed to help rehabilitate a park this day, but it turned out that they had already fixed it up by the time we got there! In Kiryat Shmona, we met with a psychologist who works in the local emergency room. She was busy during the war, when more than 100 rockets were falling on this town every day, and people would wander into the emergency room because they didn’t know what else to do. They also handled some of the soldiers who were serving on the border.

After this meeting we went to “help the Israeli economy” by visiting the Naot Shoe factory store. They make great shoes! Unfortunately for me, the other bus had been there first, so the sale rack was picked over and there was nothing I felt like I needed…that they had in my size or the color I wanted. I was ok with that. We then traveled to the border town Metulla, which is really (REALLY) on the border of Lebanon. We went up a big hill to a lookout point, where we met with the mayor of Metulla who talked to us about life on a border. For a long time the border was much friendlier, with people from Lebanon coming into Israel daily to work on farms, and going back to Lebanon each night. That doesn’t really happen anymore. Looking at the border from above it is fascinating. The fence is wire, so you can’t see it from far away. You can see the road, but more obvious is the contrast. Especially because Israel has a town and farmland right up to the border, there is a huge color difference. We were standing there and our guide told us that where it turns from green to brown, that’s the border. It was amazing. Also, while Israel uses the land right up to the border, there was nothing in Lebanon in the land anywhere near the border. (Well, except for a base that has been occupied by Hezbollah until recently.) It was all unpopulated desert, with towns a bit farther away.

After our border experience, we went to the Kiryat Shmona mall to grab lunch, and then headed up to the Golan. Our first stop was a winery. They make a lot of wine in the Golan Heights! As we drove around this area, our guide pointed out several times that now we were entering land that used to be Syria. The life of a young country is amazing. The winery tour was of course a lot of fun. We saw a brief movie on winemaking, which we mostly laughed at for the English dubbing that was so incredibly obvious. We saw the barrels where they make wine and talked about the process for a little while, and then we got our very own wine tasting. We tasted three different wines, before they let us loose in their store, and it was interesting. I enjoyed it, and like all three wines we tasted, including a red one! (The last one was my favorite. Mmmmm, dessert wine.)

After the winery we went to a lookout point on the Golan Heights. We talked more about Israeli history, and how it was so important to keep the heights because previously, Syria would shoot at the towns below fairly frequently, and there was nothing that could be done about it. We walked through some old bunkers (that are now tourist sites) and looked at the view. From this point we could see into both Lebanon and Syria. Again, the border was marked mainly by a color change from green to brown. Our guide told us some stories of his army days. So did one of our professors who was with us. He had been in a unit laying mines. It’s easy to forget here, at least as an American, that all Israelis serve in the army, so everyone we meet, from tour guides to professors to rabbis, has been in the army for a few years and has amazing stories to tell. It was also interesting to be so close to the borders that were so ugly and unsafe and scary only a few weeks ago. I guess it’s a great sign that things are under control and peaceful for now!

We headed back to Kibbutz Gadot again for dinner, and also to make breakfast. We were planning to leave so early the next morning that we were packing breakfast the night before. Uh-oh. After dinner we met with a member of the Kibbutz, who talked to us about how it had changed in the more than fifty years he had lived there. For example, everyone has always received the same salary, regardless of whether they were managing a factory or doing gardening work, because that is the original kibbutz model. However, he told us they were trying to change that. He was not happy about it. Also, children used to all be raised in a communal children’s house, where they lived mainly with the other kids. Now they live with their individual families. He said he thought the children’s house model worked really well, and he would do it again if he could. It was really interesting, but I also wish we could have heard from someone who embraced the changes, to hear a different perspective. After the talk, we had a wine and cheese party! People brought some of the wine we had bought at the winery, and the kibbutz provided cheese that they made on site. The cheeses were AMAZING! I was a very happy person, even without the wine. It was a really fun night of just hanging out and eating cheese and drinking a little wine…we had a really early morning coming up.

Thursday

We had to be completely packed and out of our rooms and at the buses at 5:45 in the morning. Needless to say, it was still dark out, and mighty early. We were going hiking! They warned us at the beginning of the hike (in one of those “this used to be Syria” areas) to stay on the path, and to ask before wandering off to pee. We looked around and saw areas nearby fenced off with barbed wire and labeled “Danger: Mine Field.” Awesome. Except that as far as we could tell from other ones that we had passed, there are probably few mines left, and it’s a precaution. We definitely saw cattle grazing in a couple of the mine fields the day before. In any case, we stayed on the path and the hike was gorgeous. We saw some beautiful parts of the country and a great waterfall. We were a little disappointed when the hike was over after about two hours, since they had originally told us we were going on a four hour hike. Oh well. We then headed to the Kinneret, where we got time to swim! It was so nice. The water was warm, so it didn’t take me the whole hour to get in. We were all swimming in the roped off, fairly shallow swimming area, but a few people decided to swim out of the area, to the floating platform a ways off. I eventually decided this was a good idea, so I swam over there also. It felt so good to swim! At the platform, there was the expected diving off, boys pushing each other off, and just playing in the water. It was definitely a good break, but it was hard to go back to the learning part of the trip afterwards.

We met with someone from another Kibbutz who told us about his life and kibbutz life and Judaism on many of the fairly secular Kibbutzim. Once we got the air conditioning working so we could sit and breathe and not melt, he was a very interesting speaker. After the speaker, we went to discuss the Zionist settlement of the Galil, and visited what is best described as a Zionist cemetery. Buried there are people who were influential to the Zionist movement and people who were associated with one or two specific Kibbutzim, including basically a women’s kibbutz nearby. Many tourists visit this cemetery; among others buried there are the poet Rachel and the songwriter Naomi Shemer. Both were associated with the women’s kibbutz. We had a short service overlooking the Kinneret, piled back on the buses, had a short snack/bathroom/early dinner stop at a local mall, and then we were finally headed back to Jerusalem.

I somehow stayed awake on the drive, looking out the windows and watching the beautiful scenery. But all of us were startled when the tour guide announced, “we’re slowing down because we are going through the checkpoint to enter the West Bank.” What?! He assured us that it was a safe road, or else his wife would not let him go this way. It is definitely the most direct route back to Jerusalem, but I don’t think any of us expected to go that way. We drove mainly down the eastern side of the West Bank, along the border with Jordan, where our tour guide told us another story about his army days and tracking someone who had crossed the border. It turned out to be a cat. Driving down the West Bank we saw mainly miles (or more appropriately, kilometers) of empty desert, some Israeli settlements, and some Bedouin villages. We did not see much of Palestinian life until we were almost all the way back into Jerusalem. At times it felt like we had traveled back in time. We saw lots of shepherds with their herds of sheep. They rode on donkeys. We saw villages without electricity. It was sort of fascinating, and then I would remember that we were in the West Bank, and it was all a little nerve-wracking. We made it back to Jerusalem safely, of course, and thoroughly exhausted.

Bonus points for making it to the very end of this very long blog! The trip was as packed and exhausting as it sounds like it was, but it was a ton of fun and I learned a lot. I am looking forward to our next one in November!