but rather cold, we got a portable heater and were full of hope.
The flight was comfortable: I got a window seat for me and an aisle seat for V, and hoped that the middle seat wouldn't look too attractive in case the flight is not totally full. It was not and so it didn't, and as a result, we got three seats with the middle one for our legs and feet. Nice. The flight and everything upon arrival was reasonably on time , even the sherut (Minibus) to Jerusalem was simply waiting for two more people when we walked up to it, so it was less than an hour and a half between landing and walking into the apartment. All together it took us 14 hours, door to door, amazing!
JERUSALEM
the apartment was beautiful,
but rather cold,
we got a portable heater and were full of hope.
We arrived in Jerusalem and it was March 10, Erev Shushan Purim, celebration of Purim in the walled cities. Shushan Purim (the fifteenth of the month of Adar) is the day after Purim (the fourteenth of the month of Adar). It commemorates the day when the Jews of Shushan, the Persian capital, finally rested after defeating their enemies. And so Jerusalem is one of the walled cities that celebrate Purim on the fifteenth as well. And so we were in to join each and every Yerushalmi. Megilla is being read in the in different voices and the reader is dressed up. It is read at different times in the synagogues and yeshivas, but also in a chocolate shop, in a small sushi restaurant, it is heard through the windows overlooking an alley, probably a home where relatives and friends gathered together to hear the Book of Esther. Everywhere people in Purim costumes were walking up and down the streets.
The next day I walked in pretty places in the German Colony and in Yamin Moshe filled with people in Purim costumes. I saw a young man in a purple royal robe, with a purple turban brushing his teeth at the side door of his house. I took a lot of pictures, which was fun.
The next day we walked through Moshava Germanit (German Colony) into Rehavia and then up Usyshkin street to Shilo (a street that starts with steps and leads straight to the shuk (market) Mahane Yehuda and spent quite a lot of time there selecting cheeses, dried fruit, herring, a Beitar Yerushalaim scarf for Yo, smelling the smells and marvelling at the sights of beautiful foods. Had a quick lunch of a bureka filled with cheese and egg, which was big enough for us to split, then took a cab back home.
Friday (the 13th) we spent walking with V's college friend on Har Herzl and around Yad Vashem. We didn't enter the museum buildings, but just walked around, something I had always wanted to do but never had enough time. It was amazing, the sun, the greens, the flowers, the designs, the space, the memories. Later we bought food at the place on Rachel Imenu (very close to our apartment) where the advertisement insisted: take me home! So we did, and it was good. we had hot meals for Shabbos. (The apartment had the water urn and the hotplate to keep the food warm on Shabbat)
Shabbos was very nice. V. went to another shul, sefardi, and enjoyed it. (Last year he went to Rambam.) After dinner we walked the empty streets of Moshava Germanit. After lunch we walked to the Kotel and later walked in the old city and returned via Yamin Moshe Soooo beautiful, and with the colors of all kinds of blooms, flowering trees, flowering bushes, flowering plants in numerous pots.
Shabbos at the Kotel and in the old city is quite an experience. Little and not so little kids everywhere, running, filling the narrow streets , playing on many playgrounds, a big sister carrying a small boy while in animated discussion with her several friends. All dressed up in their Shabbos best.
in the evening the son of our friends came (I had a package from his mother for him and he came to fetch it after spending Shabbat at an yeshiva in Yerushalaim)) and we took him to a restaurant to eat - it was our first eating out and his second. Then he ran to catch the bus to Kfar Saba where he is staying.
It was raining in the morning of Yom Rishon (Sunday), the 16th, but later we were ready to go out. We returned to the place on Rachel Imenu where we bought the Shabbos food and got some fish and salads and soup, and were treated by the owner to a meat-filled deep-fried cigar-shaped dough and a meat-filled deep-fried egg-shaped dought, which we shared right there and they were delicious. In the apartment we ate soup and salads and went on the town. We took a bus to the center and walked along King George, Ben Yehuda, Hillel and Histadrut, staring at the people, things in the stores, the paving job on Ben Yehuda that had been going on for years is now complete, but Yaffo is all open up to place the rails for some kind of a futuristic street car.
The night was rather bad, I had a bad cold and immediately started self on ester c. In the morning V. got more ester c for me, and i ate some 10-12 gramms of it during the day, and actually managed to have stopped my cold on tracks. We went out in the evening and bought a new beautiful matza cover for Pesach, also got a ceramic rimon (pomegranate) for my Avivik. it can be used as a tiny vase for a flower or a huge somim box ( it has a cork that fits snaggly the opening on the top)
BE"ER SHEVA, ARAD, DEAD SEA
On Tuesday we turned the apartment back to the owner and took a city bus to Tachana Merkazit (Central Bus Station) and from there an express bus to Be'er Sheva. Less then two hours later we were taking to Elah, the daughter of my friend from Alabama. Elah met us at the bus station to get books that her mom had sent for her. So here we were, the three of us talking, while I was scanning the space in search of my high school friend Dina whom I hadn't seen in 35 years... Dina is nowhere to be seen, and i pull out the cell phone (rented for our stay in Israel). It starts ringing in my hand. I see Dina's number on the screen, then hear man's voice, two identical male voices, one from the phone and the other one in the space next to me. It is Dina's husband who came to fetch us and was instructed by Dina to look for two people of his age, a couple, a man and a woman, and the woman is probably chubby. Instead he encountered a group of three, including a college girl, and the woman of his age was not too chubby. The rest of the day was a delight. We spent hours talking, walking the streets of Omer, where Dina lives, eating, talking, laughing, being serious, laughing again. What thirty five years? it felt as if we saw each other just yesterday. What a great way to re-acquire good friends, for all four of us, We shall stay in close touch from now on.
In the evening we took a bus to Arad. You hardly hear any Hebrew spoken in Arad. RAK RUSIT! (only Russian!) It is surreal. But seems to be a safe place for kids . Limor, aged 12, a daughter of my niece, moves around the small town freely, to tennis, to school, to shop with friends, to walk her little dog, That is really nice.
Wednesday the 18th - took a bus to the Dead Sea, Dipped in the waters, but then stayed for quite a while, didn't want to get out. so nice to feel so totally supported... The way there was beautiful, descending from the mountain down down to the sea level, and still down, down way below the sea level. a winding mountain road between dry mountains of pressed sand and clay. The way back was less beautiful because we took a sherut, and the driver, a Beduin, was too sure of himself, driving on the wrong side of the road while bypassing other vehicles, talking on the cell phone, had to be yelled at that he would be reported to the police unless he stops, he was driving way too fast, and following the preceeding cars/busses/trucks so closely that the distance between the vehicles could be expressed with use if a two-degit number only in millimeters. Arriving back in Arad alive felt like a big mazal.
RISHON LEZION, NETANIA
thursday the 19th was a bus day. First we took a bus from Arad to Be'er Sheva. there we got on a bus taking us to Rishon le Zion. Both made multiple stops and moved slowly while passing through towns. The ride through Rehovot added to my singularly Weizman Institute visit of the year before. This time while the bus was crawling along the main street i got a pretty good view of Rehovot. Fnally we arrived in Rishon L'Zion at the Tachana Merkazit Hadasha where we were met and taken to the apartment of our old friends. A few hours later we took a 4pm bus from Rishon to Tel Aviv, and another bus from there to Netania, where we simply walked along Sderot Weitzman to our friends' house, pulling our small suitcases on their little wheels.
The 20th - Friday - walks in Netania, along the sea, up and down the streets, coffee in an Italian coffeeshop, outside, of course, watching people. Shabbos dinner at the the house of a new ola (newcomer), a hundred year old mother of our friend.
TOUR OF GALIL
On Sunday morning Judith and I took a cab to Kikar Haatzmaut where several people were already waiting for our tour bus. When the bus arrived those already on board (from Yerushalaim and from Tel Aviv) got off and headed to one of the two cafes where they could use the bathrooms.. Eventually we all got seated and started moving out of Netania heading north.
The noise on the bus reminded me of the very beginning of the film "Voyages", where a group of French survivors is taking a bus tour of Poland... On our bus several married couples, some single people, all middle age and beyond, talking rather loudly, a bit excitedly, sharing life stories across the aisle and between the rows.
We went up north toward Haifa, then turned on the road leading to Naharia, then off that road travelled through lower Galil, and then started climbing a mountain following route 85, the ancient road from the times of Yosef Ben Matityahu, aka Flavius Josephus,--- to Peki'in. Town of Peki'in is perched high on a slope of a mountain. Mostly Druze population. But it used to be a Jewish town, They say that three Jewish families are known to have lived there continously since Flavius' times. An 85 year old woman named Margalit Zinati is from the family that has lived in this town for 2000 years, since the time of the Second Temple. Still lives there. Her house is across a narrow street from the synagogue to which she has the keys. Alas, she is too tired to oblige and let tourists into the shul. A few Chabad families moved into Peki'in and hold services on Shabbat in the synangogue
A rocket-warning siren was sounded with an aircraft flying over , but people took it matter-of-factly. Later we learned that it was a false alarm in Kiryat Shmona up north from us.
Climbing down the steps got to the cave where Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai spent 12 years and then 12 more months with his son hiding from the Romans during the Bar-Kochba rebellion. A carob tree miraculously appeared nearby in order to supply the nourishment and a spring a bit lower offered water. Saw a few fig trees nearby, Could it be that they too offered fruit for rav's consumption? The size of the cave must have changed in 2000 years it really... is very small now.
Lunch in the sheikh's house. The Sheik of Druze had lived there and must have entertained in that dark enfilade with perfectly alligned arched doorways, multiple sofas along the walls, long tables running for lengths of rooms. Or it was a fruit of imagination of a Druzs artist who was born in Peki'in, left it for years of study, travel, art work, collecting, and then returned to the place of his childhood, took possession in the warehouse which used to be the sheik's home, and set up a restaurant there. Food was served as a long sequence of single dishes, veggies, pita bread, rice with cinnamon, lentil under some different name, and meats, meats baked into veggies, meats grilled, meats minced, spiced, delicious, each taste is its own, little herb tea served in the end, baklava offered at the same time. At the entrance shelves of spices in bottles, jars, and sheves themselves generously decorated with raws of dangling earrings .
Supposingly, Peki'in is a place where the Druze and the Arabs peacefully co-exist, except when they are violent... The most recent story goes like this Someone had an cell phone antenna installed very close to the homes in the town and the residents didn't want it there due to the suspected correlation between antennas and cancer. They were upset. So they rioted.
Avi Hirshfield, our photography instructor climbed onto the bus. Avi was born in South Africa and now resides in the north of Israel. The next stop was Tefen art museum with its Sculpture Garden where we photographed sculptures (made of stone, bronze, iron, wood, marble, clay and steel) those willing models that do not move and let you experiment as much as you wish.
Arrival in the hotel-spa in Maalot. Ate dinner and then attended our evening photography class with Avi.
After breakfast the bus took us to Yehiam Fortress. Did a lot of shots around the fortress. Returned to the hotel for lunch and a short stationary tripod session. Then along a narrow road with sharp curves - to Hemdat Yamim, a house on Har Meron, almost on the top of the mountain. The house was built by Izhak Tavior and his wife back in the late 1960's. Later they added a huge attic to serve as a room to practice and perform for small groups of visitors. A Grand piano in the middle of the room, a small wood burning stove and a few electric heaters, cushion covered wooden benches with multiple pillows along the walls. Windows overlooking the whole world. A magnificent view of the mountains around and Lake Kineret at a distance. Thunder during the performance of Scarlatti, Storm Sonata by Beethoven and Chopin's skerzzo. Coffee served during the intermission, and Robert Shuman for Finale.
Then a drive down the same narrow winding road with sharp iurns here and there, in a rain. When we arrived in Zfat the rain stopped and we did some night photography, a small group of people with their tripods, shooting pictures between narrow streets and many steps of Zfat. Unfortunately another rain stopped the photographic activities, and we proceeded to Gan Eden which in fact turned out to be a Restauranto Italiano. Upon arrival back to our Maalot hotel, we had individual sessions with the Avi till almost midnight.
We spent the next morning in Acco first visiting the Tunisian synagogue, litrally covered in mosaics - every floor, wall, ceiling... Construction of this synagogue has been going on since 1955. It is also named the Djerba Synagogue, after the Jewish community on the Djerba island off the coast of Tunisia.
Then we went to the Old City, photographing away, the sea, the harbor, the walls, the fortifications, ancient trees in an ancient garden, the Arab market, the reflections of all of the above in the glass of a door, in a puddle on the ground...
Drove to Rosh HaNikra. Ate lunch in a restaurant at the northern end of Israel, right on the border with Lebanon while three UN trucks with Chinese soldiers were let through the gate out of Israel and into Lebanon. After lunch --- to the Grottos that were right underneath of the restaurant
Beauty, overwhelming force, purity, and tremendous
power, Waters rushing into the grotto, breaking, overpowering, cherning,
changing colours, here it is mint, here it is green, and here all is white
froth, taking up all the space, hurriedly running back, leaving a miriad of small waterfalls running down the walls.
Another siren was sounded upon our arrival to the hotel from Rosh HaNikra --- a test, probably
Our Tour Guide Adi on the bus: "here is a jewish settlement, and there is an arab settlement..." Why is "settlement" a reserved word used all over the world to designate places where Jews live as temporary entities? Even if our guide Adi used the expression "an Arab settlement" for the lack of a proper English word, she certainly made a powerful statement by being fair, didn't she?
The last day of the Galil Tour started with a portrait photography session in the morning. At noon we checked out from the hotel. got on a bus and headed to another Druze villiage for lunch at a kosher restaurant owned and run by a retired Colonel of the Israeli Army, a Druze. He built a restaurant in the basement of his beautiful house, and the whole family is involved in operations.
Then we visited
HAIFA - TECHNION
Don't you think it was rather far out--- me getting off our bus into complete (almost) darkness? Being dropped off on a highway... But not to worry, Miraculously a bus stop with a young girl, college type, appeared, and she also was going to Tachana Merkazit Haifa, which was the last stop anyway. The bus didn't make us wait. It came, we climbed in, and of course, i had been quite used to sitting on a bus by that time. When getting off I asked the driver and my fellow passengers where the bus to the Technion could possibly be. My fellow passengers looked a bit bewildered, searching the depth of their early memories for the answer. but not the driver. The driver silently got off the bus, silently picked up my suitcase and simply deposited me and the suitcase into a cab. The cab driver wanted directions but spoke no English, that was when the radio communications with the dispatcher became handy. and so i arrived at the Technion Faculty Guest House and it was 7:15 pm.
Haifa was fine: had been staring at the Technion through my camera view finder
ACCO AGAIN
well well, Acco with the crowd of scientists consisting of a Christian Arab who has a perfectly Jewish name and who is against any religion, a Moslem Arab who grew up in Acco, a few French men, two Italians and many Russians, seemed like we were the only Jews on that tiul. Not counting the bus driver, of course. The bus ride turned out to be an experience too. Imagine the driver yelling something excitedly into his cell phone. Clearly he is not amused. Rather angry, I would say. Soon it became clear why: He stopped the bus on a street and got out without saying a word to the passengers. A few minutes later another driver got in and started driving. It was the order to be replaced coming by the phone that angered the first driver... Anyway, before that replacement, the first driver was loudly on the phone, speaking Hebrew. The two French guys behind us were discussing something in French. The two Italians conversed in Italian across the aisle. But the Russians were the loudest, and of course engaged into several conversations at once. The whole Babel Tower collapsed into our bus.
Finally we arrived, and the Moslem Arab who grew up in Acco became our guide. In the course of our tour he did the cheek touching (one and then the other) with a great many locals. He led the group through allyes and passages that none of us, the Jewish photographers on the Galil Tiul, or even Avi the Grand Photographer
himself, wouldn't dare to enter. 
Eventually the group ended up in a cafe where most men
pretended to enjoy smoking from the tubes, some with and others without inhaling... And so it went for a while, sitting outside, watching these men smoke hookah waterpipes and sip Turkish coffee. Groups of Arabs walked by, some drove by, some passed by on motocycles, and a few on horses without a saddle. Meanwhile it got quite dark. And here I simply chickened out from my plan to find a place to wait out while the group eats dinner in a restaurant. The idea of finding a cab to take us to the rail or bus station so that we would return to Haifa also stopped looking doable. The Old City of Acco feels like a totally foreign land, it is an Arab town, and the current natives are not really friendly to the visitors. And so I thought it would be the safest to stick around and enjoy the protection of our guide. Thus I suggested that we stay with the group and keep a low profile. And this was how we ended up in Abu Christo, an Arab restaurant. Judging by the name and the fact that they served wines, it belonged to a Christian Arab. And we sat at the table, refused the main course telling the host that we do not normally eat that late, picked at salads and watched the crowd. Abu Cristo is located near the marina, overlooking the bay. We could have watched the waves crash into the walls of the Crusader harbor, but the scientific crowd felt it would be too cold, and so the group was served in a picturesque private room.
Learned about an interesting development that is going on in the Old City of Acco. According to our guide, the Baha'is are agressively acquiring the arab properties in the Old City of Acco which is important to the Baha'i religion. The Arabs are complaining, of course.
TEL AVIV
Our Haifa friends Nira and Shaul offerred the get-together in their car as they were going to Tel Aviv for a Friday opera matinee, That worked out very well.
Our last 2.5 days in Tel Aviv - a lot of photographing : the sea, the promenade, the market, the people, almost a century old buildings, the bauhous architecture, etc. It is rather ironic that lots of Tel-Aviv houses are designed in an architectural style developed in pre-Nazi Germany ... Many of the historical buildings are being restored now. Some stay looking like they are going to fall apart any time soon. Others are gutted and undergoing restoration, Yet others are so beautiful, brought back to life, with freshly painted stacco.
Strolls along the seashore were wonderful, the paved promenade in the central and Southern parts of the city is lively and the new Old Tel Aviv Port, a relatively small area of wooden promenade packed with seaside restaurants, bars, and café is full of life day or night. A wooden platform designed and built with dips and curves is so clever. Bikers, walkers, people watchers, skateboarders, segwayers, and restaurant goers share the space.
We ate at Badulina, a kosher dairy and fish place, twice. A lunch with Yo's friend who used to spend Shabbos with us while he was a college student and who is now in medical school of Tel-Aviv U. And a dinner with my Tel Aviv niece and my friend Ayala.
RETURNING HOME
When going through security in Tel Aviv airport we met our friend and neighbor and she was on the same flight and her husband was picking her up at the airport and so we got a ride home with them.( we flew with her returning from Israel last year too... Purely coincidentally.) Yo was delighted that he didn't have to wait for us at the subway station at 7am!