The North--Days 8 and 9

What beautiful country--and how amazing it is the way Israel has made the land so resourceful.  Dina pointed out that Israel is the only country greener in the 21st century than  in the 20th, and nothing is more apparent than when you stand at the top of a mountain overlooking the border of Lebanon (so close Matt can reach it with one of the stones he has been throwing as target practice) and Israel, that the dividing line is road or fence that separates the green from the yellow/brown.  We heard so many views with a common theme--a love for this country because of the people and what it stands for.  We heard it from guides talking about the mostly one sided humanitarian aid offered by Jews to its neighbors and the neighbor either not accepting the aid b/c it is from Jewish hands or accepting it in disbelief as the compassion would not be reciprocated.  From the practical, intelligent developer of an olive oil plant passionately talking about taking back a message that it is about the future, not arguing a point no one can win regarding the past.  From an intense and passionate zionist at a Kibbutz on the Lebanese border who despises his Hezbollah neighbors only because they constantly want to take away Eretz Yisrayel and will therefore fall on his sword for the country he loves.  From a man from the Golan Heights who prefers the devil they know (Assad) to the one that they don't (the rebels).  And then  we saw an intense passion for Jewish heritage in a Tunisian synagogue designed by an elderly man with a vision that resulted in the entire synagogue filled with mosaics and stained glass and sculptures  that tell the history of the Jews, from the bible stories to the Holocaust.  

In between, we not only rode jeeps, ate some chocolate, bought some olive oil, stayed on a kibbutz, played volleyball, took a walk in a nature reserve,  saw some ruins, learned how to shoot uzi's, learned about the true Kabbalah and toured a Kabbalah synagogue in Safed, shopped in artist colony, explored Akko from the time of the crusaders to 200 years ago, walked through tunnels at Rosh Hanikra, the Lebanon border crossing point and ended up in Haifa.

The pictures may tell 1000 words, but the feeling can't be put into pictures or words...

At Misgav Am this guy was crazy

But definitely not lazy

Intense with a passion

And t-shirt fashion

His love for the country not hazy

Then a Nature Reserve called Tel Dan

With more ruins to sit and lean on

A walk through a bunker

Our heads took a clunker

Then tree climbing showed off some brawn

Time for a race down the river

With this heat nary a shiver

2 kayaks and a boat

We all took a float

The "rapid" fun but no reason to quiver

On to Kibbutz Kfar Blum

Where we had a few challenges with the room

The boys' inability to dive really didn't make sense

But volleyball was fun and intense

And then touring the country did resume

Safed is an ancient town

Kabbalah is what goes down

Artists galore

Was what was in store

We barely had time to sit down

The guns turned them all into jocks

The Moms were a little bit shocked

The noise was quite loud

The kids were so proud

If they think they get their own guns their farchadat 

On to Akko and the Tunisian Synagogue:

Mosaics wherever you look

In each crevice, cranny and nook

The ark itself is a design

From Jews' lives over time

Who could actually pray from the book?

We learned about Akko and the Crusaders

Then Jezzar who became the invader

The streets were so quaint

The history great

And the fish lunch so much we gave to Dina for later

We then went to Rosh Hanikra--the northern most border with Lebanon:

We saw Mediterranean waves

walked though tunnels and caves

But actually crossing the border

would be out of order

None of us are that brave