want to know what i love about Israel?

the sunsets.

עכו (Akko)

Went to Akko today, and I didn't believe everyone when they told me how amazing it was.  HOLY MOSES!  Coolest place I've ever been in my life.  The city is one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites in Israel, and was first mentioned in historical texts concerning the Pharaoh Tuthmosis III around 2,000 BC.  It is also mentioned in the bible (Judges 1:31), and has seen Greek, Roman, Crusader, Ottoman and Arab conquests throughout history.  There are ruins which you can just walk on- no payment, no tour guide, and the "old city" section of Akko is medieval.  I watched the sun disappear on the horizon of the Mediterranean, I walked through a crusader tunnel, saw a real open air arab market, ate some shwarma and took lots of wicked pics and videos.  Here are some, and the videos are coming soon- they take a while to upload.  I'm going back with the kibbutz people on a group tour later in the month, instead of just going with some friends like today.  So, more on history to come, I'm sure.  Thats all for now, enjoy the photos :)

edit: so, here's a video and a picture, the internet is slow.  more to come later.




this is when we first got there, just a panorama of the old sea wall and the old city







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The Chicken Ritual...

update: I know some of the pics aren't opening up to a larger size, but I'm not sure why.  Check them out on my flickr page.  link is on the right side.  also added a video of some jews chanting :)

So, I went to Tsfat last night.  Tsfat is one of the 4 holy cities of Judaism, the other three being Hebron, Jerusalem and....  ok, right.  So, Tsfat is one of the 4 holy cities of Judaism.  During the high holidays, and specifically on Yom Kippur, thousands of Israeli Jews flock to one of two places- Tzfat and Jerusalem.  That's the story.  So, the day before Yom Kippur is the ritual of Kaporot.  The "traditional" Kaporot ritual goes like this:  Orthodox rabbi takes a chicken, grabs it by the neck, and swings it around in a circle above the head of himself and another Jew five times.  The bird is symbolically absorbing all the sins of the person who's head it is being killed above.  Nowadays, they do it like this: they hold the chicken above the head of another person 5 seperate times, slice open its neck, let it bleed out into a bucket, and feed it to the poor.  All the chicken must be eaten, as this makes it a mitzvah (good deed).  In the interests of not being stoned by orthodox Jews, I didn't take any pictures.  However, I'm sure that a youtube.com search would yield results.

Tsfat is a really nice looking place, and despite the fact our tour was at 11pm, I did manage to get some pictures of the city.  It's an incredibly old place, so the parts of the city I saw were quite medieval looking, which at night made it even more interesting- albeit not easy to photograph well.  Below are some pictures, and they're mainly of streets and shuls, but I put up some of the better ones so you can see some of it for yourself .  I've made plans to scooter back there with my roommate so we can get daytime pictures- it was that sababa (cool).  Anyway...  pics!!

 The guy in the white, center, looks like Jesus to me...  link

outside a synogogue  link

really old section of the city.  link

Same picture with flash.  link

Entrance to a park.  link

more of the old city.  link

just looking at rooftops.  from this point, during the day, you can see the Med.  link

walking past some shuls in the Old Jewish Quarter. link

Ruins of a building on the outskirts of the city.  link

That's all for now, folks.  I'm going to make some Turkish coffee and head into town on foot and take some videos.  There's an eerie silence here right now, since literally no one in the country except police, fire, and EMS vehicles are on the roads.  NO ONE DRIVES on Yom Kippur, if you do, the people will throw stones at your car and cause injuries to you and damage to your vehicle.  The streets are filled with bicycles and pedestrians instead, so it should make for some interesting footage :)

safed

I'm heading to Tsfat tonight with the ulpan.  I'm told its where kabalah originated, and that all of the haredim go to Tsfat (also called Safed) or Jerusalem for Yom Kippur.  This should be interesting, so I'm going to try and take a lot of pictures.

שנאה טובה

I'd write this in Hebrew, but no one would really get it. L'shanah tovah, chag sameach, v'ata v'mishpachot. Happy new year to you and your families. May it be peaceful and successful. Every rosh hashana here we (because I'm officially an Israeli citizen) say a prayer that gilad shalit be freed and reunited with his family. Rosh hashana is less spiritual here and despite the Jewishness of the holiday, it's more of a secular holiday here. People spend time with families and friends and go to new years parties, just like in the US. They celebrate new years in january also, but they call it something completely different. It's somewhat weird how everything closes here like on new years in the US, but rather than freezing temps and snow, it's like 90 and humid right now. We're all going to a giant kibbutz party, so I'll keep this short. Shanah tovah, and to all my Christian friends....uhhhhhhhhhh....enjoy your Wednesday.

Shabbat- the most boring day of the week.

This whole "on the seventh day he rested" thing has been taken to the extreme here.  Major cities like Haifa and Kiryat Ata (the town nearest the kibbutz) resemble ghost towns.  Nothing is open, only the taxis and a few cars are on the roads.  But, unlike anywhere else, at around 8pm coffee shops open, restaurants open, convenience stores open, the buses and trains start running again until around 11:30.  There's a big electronic billboard in town that shows when prayers should start, and when shabbat should end, and about 30 minutes after that the cities come back to life.

I found out the other night that the trains here put the U.S. to shame.  For around 8 shekelim you can ride the train from Haifa to the closest "checkpost," which is basically an israeli term for a transportation center.  The trains are clean, fast, and you can get pretty much anywhere in the country by using them.

My first kibbutz job is to work in the hadarochel, or cafeteria, and its a somewhat frustrating job for being so incredibly easy.  I found out that I cannot cut tomatoes properly, despite several attempts by an english speaking Israeli to show me how he wanted them cut.  I ended up peeling beets, and then cleaning up in the cafeteria itself.

Language classes are going well.  I've learned some new phrases and vocabulary beyond "I don't speak hebrew."  That said, being able to speak a mix of Spanish, English and Hebrew has helped out immensely.  In fact, I don't think I have spoken this much spanish since being in Barcelona...maybe not since learning it in high school.

Not much else to say right now, its just a lazy shabbat afternoon here in Ramat Yochanan.  Maybe I'll go for a swim, or play some ping pong in the bomb shelter.  Peace!

PS: here's some more photos to enjoy, this time with labels.  And I'm going back to edit my other post and put in descriptions of pictures- at mommy's request hahahaha.  Peace.

taken from the entrance of Carmel Hospital looking down at the valley on the other side of Mt. Carmel.  (No, I wasn't at the hospital for medical reasons.  My friend Josh had to meet with a family member to get a birthday gift, and I felt like exploring that day.)

I forget the name of the valley :(

A much better picture of Camel Beach in Haifa.  There's a Columbia store somewhere close by with a 4 story rock wall that I really want to find and climb.

The atmosphere is soooooooooo laid back around Haifa.  Its as if no one is in a hurry to do anything or go anywhere...but everyone is doing something, and/or going somewhere.  Its kinda like the southern US, but only in that sense.

Camel Beach at sunset

A slightly better sunset picture, in my opinion.

We took the train back home..

  The train lets you off at the Lev-Hamifratz checkpost, which has a pretty large mall next to it.  The mall was open at 10pm, but all the stores inside were closed...  weird..

I can find amusement with anything...even a beach towel.