[Here’s Part 2 of the transcription of my travel journal from my 1982 visit to Israel and Egypt. This will actually conclude the chronicle I wrote during the trip; starting with Part 3 (to be posted on 17 July), I’ll be posting my recollections of the trip, aided by the itineraries from the tour companies.
[As I said at the end of Part 1, I plan to post the entire journal in segments at three-day intervals (though I reserve the option of interrupting the series if I deem it useful). I can’t say at present how long the whole series will be, but I know it won’t finish until sometime in August.
[As I’ve said before with multi-part posts on Rick On Theater, I recommend going back to the beginning (11 July) if you haven’t read the first installment as much of what follows won’t make a lot of sense out of order.]
Haifa – Monday, 13 December
Up early to drive to [Mediterranean] port city of Haifa. Stops in Megiddo, Tiberias, and Capernaum on the way.
Drove the mountain pass of Megiddo along route of ancient Via Maris [“way of the sea”; ancient trade route along the Mediterranean coast, dating from the early Bronze Age (ca. 3300-1200 BCE), linking Egypt with the northern empires of Syria, Mesopotamia (area of present-day Iraq, and parts of Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Kuwait), and Anatolia (Asia Minor, majority of modern-day Turkey)] into Plain of Jezreel (Armageddon) to Tel Megiddo on which [novelist James A.] Michener [1907-97] based The Source [1965].
[An explanation for the connection of the Plain of Jezreel with Armageddon, the biblical battle between good and evil, is that the Via Maris crosses the plain and became a crossroads for peoples of the whole known world, bringing with them their contradictory and sometimes inimical beliefs, faiths, and gods.
[The plain lies at the foot of the hills of Megiddo, known in Hebrew as Har (‘mountain’ or ‘range of hills’) Megiddo—transliterated into Greek as Harmagedon. The prediction was that the great battle would take place there because it was a gathering place for a multitude of forces (Megiddo means ‘place of crowds’).
[From the Hebrew word for ‘hill,’ a tel (or ‘tell’) is an artificial mound created over centuries through the accumulation of successive layers of civilization built one over the other. The name Tel Aviv comes from the Hebrew for “the hill of spring,” referring to the seasonal renewal of the earth and symbolizing the rebirth of the ancient Jewish homeland.
[The Source is a historical novel that recapitulates the history of the Jewish people and the land of Israel from pre-monotheistic days to the birth of the modern State of Israel. It uses for its central device a fictional tel in northern Israel where archeologists uncover artifacts from each layer, which then serve as the basis for a chapter exploring the lives of the people involved with that artifact. The book follows the same family from the Stone Age to present-day (i.e., 1960s) Israel.]
Walked around the ruins and through water-access tunnel to spring (dug under city in [King] Solomon’s time [reigned ca. 970 to 931 BCE] to protect women getting water from enemies besieging town).
[Tel Megiddo was first excavated in 1903 and was periodically the site of archeological exploration until 1971. Digging was resumed in 1994.]
On to Capernaum (Kfar Nahum), home of [Saint] Peter on [the Sea of] Galilee – Monastery occupies site of old city; some ruins excavated, including large biblical-era synagogue where Jesus taught on visits to Peter. [The village was inhabited from the 2nd century BCE to the 11th century CE, when it was abandoned; re-established after 749 CE. The Greek Orthodox Monastery of the Holy Apostles was built in 1931.] Some artifacts of interest: [Roman-era] grape and olive presses.
Tiberias on Galilee – lunch overlooking sea (Lake Kinneret [modern Hebrew name]). St. Peter’s fish [Redbelly tilapia] for lunch – specialty and unique indigenous fish.
[Everyone ate St. Peter’s fish, so the waiters brought trays piled with the fried fish into the dining room from the kitchen. The dining area was a large, glassed-in porch overlooking the sea. As they circulated among the lunch-eaters, they lifted the whole fish off the tray with a pair of tongs and placed it on our plates.
[Then they asked each of us whether we wanted the fish head on or off. If we asked for the head to be removed, the waiter simply took the tongs and broke off the head from the fish on the plate, and dropped it back onto the tray. Not a lot of finesse or ceremony!
[One further note about Tiberias: The restaurant where we ate the St. Peter’s fish was right on the shore of Galilee and members of the Unitours group wandered down to the water. As I mentioned in the introduction of this post, my birthday is on Christmas Day, so I had the idea to get someone to take a photo of me “walking” on the water of the Sea of Galilee.
[On such short notice, none of us could come up with a way to make it look like I was walking on the surface of the water, so I settled for a picture of me standing in the shallows near the beach. It wasn’t a very convincing illusion in the end, but it was the best we could come up with without special effects at hand.]
Visit to tombs of [Moses] Maimonides [Moshe ben Maimon (1138-1204), commonly referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam; medieval Sephardic philosopher, astronomer, and physician] and Yohanan ben Zakkai [sometimes acronymed as Ribaz; important Jewish sage and rabbi, ca. 30 BCE-90 CE (120 years!)] and saw [Rabbi] Akiva’s [Akiva ben Yosef (ca. 50-135 CE), leading Jewish scholar and sage] tomb from afar.
[Many Hebrew names—especially iconic historical rabbis—and phrases are abbreviated as acronyms. A practice dating back to ancient times, it’s easy to make a pronounceable word from the initial letters or elements of a name or a phrase in Hebrew because the Hebrew alphabet contains only consonants. Speakers insert vowel sounds at will (guided by tradition) within any string of letters.
[Though a system of
diacritical marks was devised in ancient times to indicate vowel sounds, modern
Hebrew is generally written without them.
So initials such as, say, RMBM (for Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon) or TzHL
(for Tzavah Hahaganah L’Yisrael – Israel Defense Force [IDF], the
Israeli military) can be read as Rambam or Tzahal. (In acronyms, the most commonly inserted
vowel is a.)
[Famous rabbis and sages aren’t the only people whose names are acronymed. Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1888-1970), the only person to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature (1966) for works written in Hebrew (Isaac Bashevis Singer [1903-91], a Nobel Prize-winner in 1978, wrote in Yiddish), is known in Hebrew as Shai Agnon. (In English, he’s published as S. Y. Agnon.)]
Passed Nazareth from below – not enough time for real visit, but stopped at Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation [built in 1769; not to be confused with the Catholic church of the same name] and the [underground] spring of Nazareth where Saint James (in the Apocrypha) says Mary was getting water when Gabriel announced birth to her. Only historical site in Nazareth – other 32 churches are on traditional (but historically unsupported) sites.
[The Catholic church, also called the Basilica of the Annunciation, built in 1966, was built over the traditional site of the house of the Virgin Mary, where Catholic tradition holds the Annunciation occurred. As for the Greek church’s claim to historicity, in the New Testament, the Book of Luke doesn’t say more than that the Angel Gabriel makes the annunciation of the birth of Jesus, but doesn’t say where the Annunciation took place.
[The Apocrypha says, however, that Gabriel first appeared to Mary as she was drawing water, but he didn’t complete the Annunciation there. Then she returned home with the jug of water and the archangel came to her again there and gave her the tidings. So the Greek church’s claim regarding the Annunciation itself is traditional, but the spring, if not Mary’s house, is real—and still runs into the apse of the church.]
Arrived Haifa after dark. Check-in [at the Nof Hotel] and dinner (nicer than Tel Aviv) and cable [funicular] subway “Carmelit” down to main drag, Herzl Street for quick visit. Nof Hotel on top of Mount Carmel with gorgeous view of Haifa and harbor.
On the way to Haifa, passed through Afula, “Chelm” of modern Israel: Chinese immigrants (boat people) would not stay there; factories that succeed elsewhere go bust in Afula.
[Chelm is a city in Poland known in Jewish/Yiddish stories as “a legendary town inhabited by befuddled, stupid, foolish, but endearing people,” says Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish (McGraw-Hill, 1968). “[I]n Jewish folklore [Chelm] has become the archetypal home of simpletons, an incubator of amiable fools . . . .”]
Haifa – Tuesday, 14 December
Tour of city, including Technion (solar disc and energy project; sewerage reclamation for irrigation; mechanical engineering building painting boondoggle), Baha’i Shrine and Gardens – very pretty but sort of soulless in a strange way. Sort of clean Moonies.
[Technion – Israel Institute of Technology is a research university in Haifa. Founded in 1912 (as Technikum), it’s the oldest university in the country (predating the State of Israel by more than 35 years). It has degree programs in science and engineering, and related fields such as architecture, medicine, industrial management, and education.
[The Baha’i Faith, or, less commonly, Bahaʼism, is a monotheistic Abrahamic religion founded in Persia in the mid-19th century. (Abrahamic religions are those in which the adherents worship the God of Abraham; they are all directly or indirectly descendants, therefore, of Judaism. The three largest branches of Abrahamism are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.)
[The origins of the Baha’i Faith are too complex to outline here, but it was born in 1863 in Baghdad, when its founder, Bahaʼu’llah (1817-92), declared himself a Manifestation of God, a prophet on the same plane as Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed. The basic tenet of the religion is the essential worth of all religions and the unity of all people.
[The World Centre of the Baha’i Faith was established in Haifa for several reasons. First, Bahaʼu’llah was exiled from Persia by the shah and then from Iraq by the sultan of the Ottoman Empire and settled in Akko (Acre) in what is now Israel. Akko is only 16 miles north of Haifa along the Mediterranean coast, and at his death, Bahaʼu’llah instructed his son and successor, ’Abdu’l-Bahá (1844-1921), to build a tomb for the Bab (Sayyed ’Alí Muḥammad Shirazi, 1819-50), considered the inspiration for the founding of Baha’i Faith, on Mount Carmel in Haifa. (Bab is an Arabic word that means ‘gate’ or ‘door.’)
[ʻAbdu’l-Bahá had the tomb built, completed in 1909, and it’s become the Shrine of the Bab. The landscape surrounding the shrine was purchased over time by the Baha’i community and since 1982, the buildings of the World Centre have been constructed; the Terraces of the Bahaʼí Faith, also known as the Hanging Gardens of Haifa, have also been created on the grounds, opened to the public in 2001.
[The gardens we saw were in Akko, on the grounds of Bahaʼu’llah’s Mansion of Bahji (‘mansion of delight’), where he lived from 1879 to his death in 1892 at 74. His shrine is located next to the mansion and the gardens surround the property. These are among the most sacred spots on earth for Bahaʼis.]
Paid a visit to a Druze village – visited home of Arab Christian women – second floor of two-family building (the parents may live below) – seven children, but spacious and modern home clean and well furnished for the culture (2 TV’s) – very gracious person.
Then Druze man across the street – young man just about to marry and put his two returning brothers (from Canada) up. Also very new and clean – and expanding.
Druzes are interesting sect – very secretive – even they don’t know all the secrets (only elders know; others follow blindly). Very loyal Israelis.
[The Druzes are Arabic-speaking, but they may or may not be ethnically Arabs (or even predominantly Arab). Druzes are adamant that their religion is not a sect of Islam and do not identify as Muslims. But their ethnicity is unclear.
[One reason for their resistance to a definitive identification is that Druzes, who live primarily in Lebanon, Syria, and Israel, tend to be loyal to the countries within which they live. So in Lebanon and Syria, they may say they are Arabs, while in Israel, they may insist that they aren’t. It’s a matter of politics more than genetics.
[The Druze religion, which first appeared in the late 10th century, is monotheistic and Abrahamic. It incorporates elements of Isma’ilism—a branch of Shia Islam—Gnosticism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Neoplatonism, Pythagoreanism, and Judaism. Its teachings are drawn from those of Islamic theologians and Ancient Greek philosophers.
[The Druze religion is esoteric in that its adherents believe there are meanings reserved for those of intellect. Many Druze religious practices are kept secret even from the community as a whole. Only an elite of initiates participate fully in their religious services and have access to the secret teachings of the scriptures.]
On to Akko (Acre), ancient port and headquarters of crusaders in 11th-13th centuries. Passed through “old city” of Turks and defense gates. Under old city is crusader city currently being excavated. Story of crusaders – Knights Hospitaler dormitory and great crypt of Saint John. Through secret underground tunnel beneath crusader [city].
Trip to Rosh Hanikra, the grottoes carved out of the chalk cliffs by the Mediterranean practically at the Lebanese border. Very pretty.
[Rosh Hanikra is about 82 miles north of Tel Aviv along the Mediterranean coast, a 1¾ -hour drive, but only 26½ miles from Haifa and 11 miles from Akko. (If it were possible to go directly, it would be about 57 miles from Beirut, Lebanon, and 67 miles from Damascus, Syria.)]
Story of Eli Avivi [1930-2018] and Achzivland! [This is the only note I made on this subject, but it intrigued me so much that a few years after I got home, I got in touch with my friend Helen Eleasari, who had emigrated to Tel Aviv after my visit to Israel and wrote for the Jerusalem Post, and asked her to help me research the story.
[Years after that—maybe as much as 20—having started Rick On Theater by then, I posted the results on 24 December 2010 as “Achzivland” (https://rickontheater.blogspot.com/2010/12/akhzivland.html).]
Haifa – Wednesday, 15 December
Early departure for Safed and Golan Heights. Passed through valley between Upper and Lower Galilee [Beit Hakerem Valley] with many Arab villages and their tiny plots of farmland (inheritance problem). 17-year-old industrial village of Karmiel with average age of population at 21.
[The Golan Heights, a western section of Syria that borders northern Israel, was used by Syria and pro-Palestinian organizations like Fatah and Hezbollah backed by Syria, as a strategic position from which to shell Israeli towns, villages, and kibbutzim in the mid-1960s. Israel retaliated, and when the Six-Day War (5-10 June 1967) broke out between the Arab League and Israel, Israel seized the Golan.
[Israel has occupied and administered the Golan Heights since then and in 1981, began allowing settlements in the region to much international opposition (including the United Nations). The criticism insists that Israel’s actions in the Golan amounts to an annexation of territory acquired by war, which is prohibited by international law.
[The issue with Arab-owned farmland in Israel is a matter of the inheritance practices of the Israeli Arabs. An Israeli Jew (or, I presume, Christian) who owns land will generally pass it on to one heir in order to keep the land intact. It’s the custom of the Arabs, however, to divide up the inheritance among all the male heirs in equal portions. Over a generation or two, the land each heir receives gets too small to farm (and is practically even smaller if the parcels are not contiguous after a couple of generations). This makes eking a living off the land virtually impossible.
[Karmiel, a town 15 miles east of Akko, was established in 1964 on land confiscated from surrounding Arab villages. Its population in 1983 was 16,500 (it was granted city status in 1986; 2019 population: 46,250) and its relative youth was the result of express policies in the 1980s to lure young immigrants, especially those from Arab nations and the Soviet Union, to settle in the town.
[Today, the city maintains a campaign to recruit young workers for its factories and plants. Karmiel’s industries include light metalworking and the manufacture of textiles (shirts and blouses), building materials, aerospace products and parts, and plastic and rubber products.
[Safed, also spelled, among several other variations, Safad or Tsfat, has two significant identities of interest to visitors. The city became a center of Kabbalism (Jewish mysticism) during the 16th century. After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, numerous prominent rabbis found their way to Safed, many Kabbalists among them. The influx of Sephardi Jews (Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, as distinguished from Ashkenazi Jews from Central and Eastern Europe) made Safed a global center for Jewish learning.
[In the 1950s and ’60s, Safed became known as Israel’s art capital because the mountainous Upper Galilee attracted painters and other artists. (At an elevation of 2,953 feet above sea level, Safed is the highest city in Israel.) An artists’ colony established in the old Arab quarter, abandoned in 1948 when the city fell to the Haganah (the clandestine Jewish paramilitary force in British Mandatory Palestine), was a hub of creativity that drew artists from around the country.
[The Glicenstein (aka: Glitzenstein) Museum opened in 1953 (it became the Israel Bible Museum in 1985, which moved to Be’er Sheva in 2006), and there are several museums and galleries that function in the historical homes of major Israeli artists. Today the area contains a large number of galleries and studios run by individual artists and art vendors.
[While we were visiting Safed, after seeing the General Exhibition of Safed (a sort of colony showroom), I became interested in the work of one local artist, sculptor Haim Azuz (b. Turkey, 1932). I went to his studio in the Artists’ Quarter only to find he wasn’t there. His wife, who was also his business manager, was, however, and she showed me his current works.
[I made the group wait while I made my choice, paid, and arranged for the shipment of the piece back home. I used the excuse that I was about to spend what for me was a lot of money to leave behind in Israel, so they could be a little patient.
[I bought a small bronze sculpture called The Pair, an abstract casting of two standing arcs of patinated bronze—Azuz also made the piece in polished metal—valued in July 1983 at $900. It remains one of my favorite pieces of art in my small collection. Sometime around 1986 or so, I got a notice from Azuz that he’d be exhibiting at Art Expo at the newly-opened Jacob K. Javits Center. I went to the exhibition and finally met the artist.]
[This was the last entry in my journal for this trip. As I explained in my introduction to this installment, Part 3 will be the beginning of the recovered portion of the journal. There’s still a lot of the Israeli portion of the journey to go, and then the ten days in Egypt (which includes a cruise down the Nile), so I hope readers will stick with this long account.
[I’ve written the whole post,
but I’ve only prepared the Israeli portion for posting so far. I know that it’s six installments, which will
take until 26 July to publish on the current schedule. I haven’t sectioned the Egyptian part of the
journey yet, so I don’t know how it’ll divide up, but I’d guess it’ll be at
least the same length as (if not a little longer than) the Israeli part.]
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