Over the past three days we have traveled through several thousand years of history. Here's a quick overview and I'll elaborate in a later post.
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| The port, palace and city of Caesarea (use your imagination) |
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On Sunday we traveled by train and taxi to Ceasarea -- the Herodian port, palace and city named for Augustus Caesar which, in turn, was conquered by the Byzantines, Mamluks, and Ottomans. It was a truly remarkable feat of engineering for the time because the port's breakwater was completely man-made. To me it really rivals the pyramids of Giza and other similar wonders.
Then, on Monday, after a wonderful breakfast of hummus at Abu Hassan, we trained it to quasi-contemporary 1948 at the Ayalon Institute in Rehovot, which is a former kibbutz that actually hid a secret, underground bullet factory for the Haganah -- the first Israeli army.
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| Ella and Sam at the Ayalon Institute (Bullet Factory) |
The story is really quite remarkable, and interestingly the purpose of the present-day Institute is to provide continuing ethics education for the Israel Defense Forces because, these day, they are often (as we know all too well) confronting civilians rather than troops from other countries. Really fascinating and worth thinking about.
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| Sam and Bryant in the Roman amphitheater at Caesarea |
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| Sam and Bryant... up close and personal... |
After returning from the Ayalon Institute we high-tailed it back to the apartment to grab our bags, load them into the taxi and head over to the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv to meet up with Bryant, Mary, Mark and Ian to share a sherut (shared taxi van) to begin the next leg of our journey: Jerusalem. Ella, Sam, Jen and I were sad to be leaving Yafo and Tel Aviv because we had so enjoyed the diverse, liberal atmosphere, wonderful food, friendly people, and the beach into the evening (oh yeah...the waves were "tubular" for body surfing ("later days and bigger waves, dude")). Still, we were excited about the next stop. The crossroads of East and West.
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| Mark flexing outside the Roman amphitheatre... another forgotten Roman God |
We arrived in Yemin Moshe, Jerusalem -- just outside the Jaffa Gate of the Old City -- on Monday afternoon. After getting settled, we meandered through the new Mamilla Mall nearby and then grabbed an excellent Italian dinner near Ben Yehuda Street. We shopped a bit on Ben Yehuda, purchasing a couple of tee shirts for Sam and a friend from the States who'd put in a special order, and purchasing brilliant new kippot, topping it off with gelato. Then, we strolled several blocks over to the Jaffa Gate. The sky was dark, the moon was full and we entered the Old City, which was fairly quiet at 10pm. We made our way through the alleyways of the Christian and Muslim Quarters, the silent sook, and ended up at the Western Wall. There, we simply took it in, in all of its lighted Glory. Men on one side; womeon on the much smaller other side (We don't like that.).
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| Brother and Sister at the Kotel (Western Wall) |
We prayed, Sam and Ella wrote notes to stick in between the stones of the mammoth 2,000 year-old Wall. Jen took Ella to the women's and girl's side. Sam hugged the Wall and just meditated there for about 20 minutes, alone. I watched him from a few yards away and cried, thinking about how, 26 years ago my father and I had visited this place together and how coming with my family to Israel was the best decision I had made in a long time. I hope my kids will do it with their families and that the tradition will continue from generation to generation.
Stay tuned for more Awesomeness from Jerusalem....
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