The Old, the New, and the Mystics
Jun. 15th, 2004 10:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
av8rmikeNote: The titles are not my invention, they came from our daily guide.
Today we woke up bright and early to head north to Caesarea, a port town built by Herod the Great in Roman times. There's a theater there with nearly perfect acoustics, and a Hippodrome (Circus), where the Romans held chariot races and the occasional execution. We spent the morning there before getting on the bus and heading for lunch at זכרון יעקב (Zichron Ya'akov, or memory of Jacob), a town founded by immigrants in the late 1800s. We ran into an American expatriate with a giant parrot on his shoulder, who was actually looking for someone, but in the other Birthright bus. There was a small group of about 7 of us who set off to find some good food. A helpful Israeli with a rifle (no, not a parrot) suggested we avoid the falafel at most of the restaurants and get kebabs at a place he'd pointed out. The place was a small open-air cafe with all kinds of interesting things on the menu (even testicles), but we opted for hummus, kebabs, and schnitzel. They brought out so much food, like pitas, olives, salads, french fries, and the chicken that we could barely eat it all. And, at 60 NIS (about $15) each, it was quite a bargain!
We then drove to the far north of the country, to the mountaintop kibbutz* of משגב־עם (Misgav-Am). We listened to Mike Ginsberg, another American expatriate, in this case from Brooklyn at age 14. He spoke fluent Hebrew, but still spoke fluent Brooklynese, i.e., a four-letter word every sentence. He'd served in the 1973 Yom Kippur war and is now an ambulance driver. He told us all about the Israeli military campaigns in Lebanon, which is literally a stones-throw from the kibbutz, one of the northern-most in the country. He gave us a fascinating and eye-opening account of life so close to the border, with Hezbollah so nearby. "See that mountaintop over there, with the antennas on it? That's Hezbollah, watching us. Everybody wave at them." Then he did, but he only used one finger. He also described a hostage situation that took place in a small house right next to where we were sitting, which was pretty scary.
We left Misgav Am for another kibbutz, this one at הגושרים (Hagoshrim). This place is more of a hotel and resort, but it's still very nice. Most of my group stayed in the "Spanish House," which looks like some kind of, well, house in Spain, and with the same roommates as before. We had dinner with the other two buses, then had a "Jewish Identity" program, where we each talked about our own identity and why we were here. We were supposed to have a pool party, but our program ran late, so by the time we got to the pool, it was closed. It was still interesting to hear everyone else's stories, even if there was nothing particularly mystical about anything we did that day.
*- A "kibbutz" is a sort of "commune," a settlement where almost everybody who lives in it works to support it in some way.
Today we woke up bright and early to head north to Caesarea, a port town built by Herod the Great in Roman times. There's a theater there with nearly perfect acoustics, and a Hippodrome (Circus), where the Romans held chariot races and the occasional execution. We spent the morning there before getting on the bus and heading for lunch at זכרון יעקב (Zichron Ya'akov, or memory of Jacob), a town founded by immigrants in the late 1800s. We ran into an American expatriate with a giant parrot on his shoulder, who was actually looking for someone, but in the other Birthright bus. There was a small group of about 7 of us who set off to find some good food. A helpful Israeli with a rifle (no, not a parrot) suggested we avoid the falafel at most of the restaurants and get kebabs at a place he'd pointed out. The place was a small open-air cafe with all kinds of interesting things on the menu (even testicles), but we opted for hummus, kebabs, and schnitzel. They brought out so much food, like pitas, olives, salads, french fries, and the chicken that we could barely eat it all. And, at 60 NIS (about $15) each, it was quite a bargain!
We then drove to the far north of the country, to the mountaintop kibbutz* of משגב־עם (Misgav-Am). We listened to Mike Ginsberg, another American expatriate, in this case from Brooklyn at age 14. He spoke fluent Hebrew, but still spoke fluent Brooklynese, i.e., a four-letter word every sentence. He'd served in the 1973 Yom Kippur war and is now an ambulance driver. He told us all about the Israeli military campaigns in Lebanon, which is literally a stones-throw from the kibbutz, one of the northern-most in the country. He gave us a fascinating and eye-opening account of life so close to the border, with Hezbollah so nearby. "See that mountaintop over there, with the antennas on it? That's Hezbollah, watching us. Everybody wave at them." Then he did, but he only used one finger. He also described a hostage situation that took place in a small house right next to where we were sitting, which was pretty scary.
We left Misgav Am for another kibbutz, this one at הגושרים (Hagoshrim). This place is more of a hotel and resort, but it's still very nice. Most of my group stayed in the "Spanish House," which looks like some kind of, well, house in Spain, and with the same roommates as before. We had dinner with the other two buses, then had a "Jewish Identity" program, where we each talked about our own identity and why we were here. We were supposed to have a pool party, but our program ran late, so by the time we got to the pool, it was closed. It was still interesting to hear everyone else's stories, even if there was nothing particularly mystical about anything we did that day.
*- A "kibbutz" is a sort of "commune," a settlement where almost everybody who lives in it works to support it in some way.
