Israel 6.30.08

Another long day, but much more active and interesting. First we went to the old city in Acco. We learned about the history of the city and saw its old fort, walls, and tunnels. We visited the Arab market and ate hummus at a restaurant where it is made by hand. Acco played a huge role during the crusades, and it was interesting to see the mix of Arab, Roman, and European architecture.

The Arab market was in a series of covered alleyways. Fish stalls, spice stalls, produce and dried beans shared space with scarves, belly-dancing costumes, Judaica, and Arab sweets. Both local people and tourists thronged the narrow walkways, while skinny stray cats slunk around the fish and meat stalls, begging or stealing scraps. The cobbled alleyways were damp. Mysterious doors led off to dark spaces.

We saw a young boy on a bicycle, delivering bread. He rode up to a building. On the top floor was an open window. A woman stood there and pulled up a dumbwaiter, which looked like a metal cage on a chain. She filled it with more bread and lowered it for the boy to put on his bicycle and deliver.

After Acco we visited Shlomit on her kibbutz, which was started by her parents about 60 years ago. We were all surprised at how impressive and large it was. Shlomit said that the kibbutz is changing a lot, and many things in it are becoming more privatized.

We then went on a hike in the Upper Galilee to see the ancient Israeli city of Dan. It was located on a tel, which is an artificial hill made from cities being built on top of one another. We saw the site of the ancient Temple that was built here, in a sort of competition with the Judean Temple in Jersusalem. I loved touching stones that people touched thousands of years ago, and wondering what the city was like then. The hike itself was beautiful. I can't believe how rich and diverse the landscape can be in such a dry country.

In the evening, we arrived at our hotel, which is on the Kefar Giladi kibbutz in an area near the Golan Heights, basically right on the border with Lebanon. In the evening, Josh, Keith, and I went for a walk. We saw the mountains, and talked about how strange it was to be looking at Lebanon, a country that is basically our enemy. Then we noticed trenches dug in the ground and lined with cement, with machine gun mounts on top. A dilapidated tower with what appeared to be bullet holes in it stood above. A fence lined the ground about 60 feet below. This area had been reached by Hezballah two years ago.

As we were taking all of this in, across the ridge we heard Muslim prayers being played over the loudspeaker of a city in Lebanon. It was haunting-beautiful and melancholy and frightening. We wondered if the Lebanese felt about us the way we do about them, that right over the ridge is an ominous enemy, just waiting to wipe them out. We tried to imagine living in a place that was so close to two countries who are considered enemies. We were struck by the fragility of peace between these nations.

Josh and I had an interesting discussion about our feelings of being here, our sense of place and of Israel as both an identity and as a holy place. Does it feel holy to us? What makes it so? Do we feel its holiness in our gut? I don't feel that yet, but I feel like I get the idea. Israel feels holy in an intellectual sense, because of the vastness and richness of its history. Also the miracle of this dry desert land producing so much agriculture. And the miracle of it even existing at all as a nation of Jews.

I feel the same sense of purpse that I felt after reading Treblinka, that this country must continue to exist and to thrive, adn that we, as Jews, have an obligation to support the state of Israel. I don't think that I felt that before coming here. The belief and hard work of the people here are theonly things that made this nation possible, and I think that that in itself is part of what makes this land feel holy. It is holy because of the intense faith and passion that has allowed it to survive in spite of seemingly insurmountable odds.