Mount of The Beatitudes, Church of the Anunciation, Safed

My favorite part of the day was the Mount of the Beatitudes, where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount.

 

Some Fijian UN troops came in while we there, and they sang. It was beautiful and inspiring, I posted a clip on my Facebook page, but can't get it to post here.

 

Next we went to Nazereth, to the Church of the Anunciation, the site where Mary received the news she was carrying the Son of God. It's a new church, built over the site where she lived. There were some beautiful mosaics contributed by all countries, and some beautiful stained glass windows.

This is from the US...silver.

Japan

 

 

Next door was the church of St. Joseph, over his house. I love this bronze of him.

 

 

Nazereth is the largest Arab town in Israel. About the Arab homes, when a couple has a child, the father starts building an addition to the house. And they keep adding, so the whole family lives together. None of the houses ever looks finished, they seem to spread into each other...some examples:

Our next stop was Safat, which is one of the holy Jewish cities, home of mysticism and kaballah (made famous by Madonna) and art. Because Purim was going on, the city was closed down, except for a LOT of drinking, by people of all ages. You are supposed to get ferschnickered. Some pics of the narrow walkways, and a Sephardic temple that was open.

 

 

Tomorrow, we're on the road to Jerusalem!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Kibbutz, Assaf Winery, Mount Bentel, Capernaum, the Jesus Boat, Tiberius...another slow day!

What a day, starting with a tour of the kibbutz, by a gentleman who was born there in 1941. This is an original barrack building from 1920.

 

His dog never strayed far from him.

There were 2 long rooms, and 8 families slept in each.

The grounds were lovely...lots of pretty gardens, flowers.

 

 

Bomb shelters everywhere.

One of the children's bomb shelters. When they were attacked by rocket missles 1948, War of Independence, they stopped housing all the children together...decided they could lose too many at once.

Lebanon/Hezbollah is at the top of the hill. Lebanon isn't the problem, it's Hezbollah...

This is their dining hall with a 1 meter thick concrete roof, so rocket fire cannot penetrate.

To make money, they have a quarry, run the hotel, and farm. A lot of young people are feeling nationalistic, and are joining the kibbutzes in the northern Galilee.

Next stop, the Golan Heights, which is like a long mesa between Israel, Lebanon to the north, and Syria to the east. I totally understand it's strategic importance. Before Israel annexed in the 1967 war, Syria would sit on top and lob rockets at Israel. On the way to the summit, where there is a bunker

there are fun sculptures made of war junk. My favorite is the Godzilla.

 

To the east, inside the Israel border, is a major operating station on Mt Avital

and below that is a United Nations outpost, where there are troops and equipment.

 

Syria starts where the clouds are. The fields belong to a kibbutz.

Here you can see the fence between Israel and Lebanon.

There are lots of military bases/training facilities. These tanks, designed by Israel, have the engines in the front, so if they are hit, the personnel are protected.

 

After all of that, it was great to stop at a winery for tasting...really pleasant wines. Two were new for me, a pinotage, which is pinot noir and a South African grape, and Moise. They will arrive home in a few weeks!

The wine maker had spent some time in Sonoma.

The Golan Heights is beautiful...reminds me of the high country in Utah. Everything is green now because of recent rain, but as California, it will be brown soon. I understnd why the Israelis love the Golan.

Next, on the way to Tiberius, and Caperneum, the home of St. Peter, and where Jesus taught

This is the temple where Jesus ministered

and a church built over Simon Peter's house.

The onto the site of the "Jesus Boat", supposedly the boat that Jesus sailed through the Galalee with...hmmm....

They found it on a kibbutz, by mistake. Once discovered, "they" didn't know how to get it up, without it falling apart. They injected it with a poly-something, then sailed it to a dry dock and lifted it out of the water. It has since been injected with some sort of a wax, so it won't fall apart.

Next stop, our hotel. It's a great little boutique hotel, founded by the Scotts. I'll write tomorrow about what we did today...I am so tired, I'm off to bed. Be well all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Caesarea, Ein Hod, the Upper Gallilea, and Unasked for Fireworks!

We left Tel Aviv in the rain and more thunder, and it was cold. Thankfully I brought a silk long sleeved undershirt, scarf, gloves, and a head band thing...and I wore them. The guide tells us that because of the rain, we won't be able to walk the whole length of the port city, but...it stopped raining, the sun came out, and it was beautiful. Casearea was built by King Herod, on the beautiful coast north of Tel Aviv in 22 BC, to impress his Roman buddies. For 500 years, it was the Roman capital in Palestine, and served as a deep sea port,

with a hippodrome (over 200 yards long), used for chariots, and also for gladiators.

 

and an amphitheater, which was used for orators, plays, music, and is still used today.

 

We learned that when the Byzantines invaded, and rebuilt the city, they built the walls at an angle, to make them harder to scale, with a dry(!) moat.

 

Next we traveled inland to Mt. Carmel, to Ein Hod, a community only for artists.

About 200 families live there, and it is a requirement that you must produce art. It is also the location of the Marcel Janco Museum, founder of Dadaism (not my favorite). Because it was/is the feast of Purim, which is like Halloween but with religious conotations, there was a big party for the children...it was fun to see them dressed up, and having a great time.

There were numerous outdoor sculptures, and beautiful flower gardens. It was beautiful.

 

 

 

 

We continued inland to the Upper Gallilee, all the way to the top of Israel near the Lebanon border, where we stayed on a kibbutz which was founded in the early 1900s...one of the oldest in the country. As we left for a visit to a high tech dairy farm, we heard 2 explosions...hmm. We went to the dairy, and heard more explosions and helicopters. I asked our guide (who had served time in the Israeli army, and is a reservist) what was going on...he said that an Israel patrol on the border hit an IED, and that no one was hurt, but there would be/was some retribution...they blew up a Herbollah outpost, got the UN involved, and it got quiet. The dairy farm was really interesting...they put a pedometer/GPS tracker on each cows lower leg, which the farmer monitors on his cell phone...if the cow stops walking, there is a problem. When the cows come in for milking, the tracker lets them know which cow it is, and how much milk they produce. We've never seen anything as high tech as this, and we live around a ton of dairies.

See the strap around the cows fetlock? (above)

We went back to the kibbutz, and had a nice Shabbat dinner. Learned that the skirmish was 2 1/2 miles from where we were...Robert, who lived in Israel during the '73 war said unless you hear air raid sirens, it's no big thing. More tomorrow!

 

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