Barbara and Howard Arrive in Israel! Crowd Goes Wild!
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| At Ben Gurion Airport! |
At the Museum, the group had an extensive private tour with Hagit, where they learned about what kept Jewish communities intact throughout the Diaspora, across generations. Family, life cycle events, ritual, holidays and synagogue life were some of the ways that Jews continued to develop throughout time and across geographies. Barbara (“Grandma Bashie”) got to research her family names and locations of origins, trying to learn more about an ill-recorded past.
After a morning at the airport and museum, the gang headed off to hear a stunning lecture by Professor Colin Polsky on land use cover and the growth of American suburban lawns, in particular. Grandma Bashie promptly fell asleep; Ben loudly hankered for ‘glida’ (ice cream), and Howard was the first to ask a question during Q&A.
After a trafficky drive to Netanya, the gang spent the evening resting up at home, preparing for a southern adventure that Bashie, Howard, Ben and Nancy would take the next day...
Ben, Bashie, Howard and Nancy set out for the Negev Wednesday morning. A lovely lunch with Toni and Len Calo on Moshav Sde Nitzan was followed by an adventurous night in Moshav Dekel’s yurt, a Kazakh tent meant to withstand extreme weather. Yurt Jacuzzi, accommodations and meals were wonderful, but being so close to the Gaza and Egyptian borders (1 km each!) left the gang a bit anxious. The next day in Be’er Sheva, the awesome foursome enjoyed a lovely meet-up with cousins Stella and Jeremy, and proceeded on to Sde Boker, final resting place of David Ben Gurion. Although it was American Thanksgiving, the evening meal was served on mats in a open-air Bedouin tent, quite an experience! Howard was awoken on his birthday morning to Ben jumping on his head!
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| Us at the Bedouin tent dinner! |
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| Ben in the Ramon Crater. |
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| Thanks Caleb and Colin! |
Dig For A Day
Three generations of Marmorsteins/Polskys headed out to Beit Guvrin National Park to spend a day on an archeological dig at Tel Maresha. After a brief introduction by host Missy, the group descended into the depths of Cave 61 to begin their dig! After just a few minutes, Caleb found important pottery shards with a stamp indicating Rhodes, Greece as its place of origin; clearly, the people living here 2,000 years ago were wealthy enough and wine-snobby enough to import wine! We also found animal bones, animal teeth, more pottery shards, and even 2,000 year old olive pits!
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| Digging was a blast! |
After digging, we ascended and sifted through the ‘trash’ rocks in order to find yet more pottery shards.
Finally, Howard, Nancy, Caleb and Ben explored an unexcavated cave where an ancient pigeon-raising industry was in full production. They crawled through dark caves lit only with candle, squeezed through the “toilet bowl” and made it back out the other side!
A great day indeed!
Invitation To Silence
On Saturday, Grandma, Uncle Howard and Caleb entered a world previously unknown to them...a world absent of voice and sound. At the Children’s Museum in Holon, they participated in an interactive exhibition about communication guided by deaf guides.
This exhibition — certainly not solely for children, despite its location — brings forth the non- oral communication skills that exist in every one of us, best expressed in the absence of voice and sound. In this unique experience without speech nor hearing, they discovered an alternative world of communication through hands movements and body language. An acquaintance between the deaf guide and hearing participants was developed. When asked about the experience, Grandma Bashie indicated she found it very difficult to rely on non-oral communication after living with oral communication all these years!
Saturday evening, Nancy cooked an Israeli dinner… for which both Colin and Bashie got stomach aches!
Last Stop: Jerusalem
Well, it wasn’t a ‘typical’ tour of Israel: no Western Wall, no Tel Aviv beach, no Haifa hilltop… but it wouldn’t be complete without a visit to our Nation’s capital, Jerusalem. After another day fighting traffic near Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, we missed our destination of the JNF Forest to plant saplings… will have to plan that for the next visit! The rest of the day was in the Israel Museum, and then back to Netanya for a falafel Chez Claude, an after-dinner stroll, and luggage packing.
L-hitraot
We all know that in Hebrew, “Shalom” means “hello”, “goodbye”, and also “peace.” However, in Israel, we don’t say “Shalom” upon departing, finding it too, well, permanent. Instead, we know we’ll meet again, so we say “L-hitraot,” or, see you later!
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