Glimpses of Israel

The Promised Land!

Travelogue 34

 

With all the politics and noise surrounding Israel, it is often easy to overlook the sheer and amazing beauty of this country. The rich history, people, culture, sights, food – so much beauty in the land of Israel. 

 

Prologue

In 1948, in the face of opposition from Arab countries in the region, the State of Israel was created. Since then, there have been many disputes, and even wars, over the land. The latest flare up in the Gaza Strip adjoining Israel may prove to be the tip of another iceberg. In 1967, Israel achieved major territorial gains after the so called “six-day war”. It had to relinquish most of that after the 1973 “Yom Kippur War”.  Since then, there has been a tenuous situation, with mainly local conflicts with Palestine liberation units.

For long, India had sided strongly with the Arab nations and ‘boycotted’ Israel.  Formal diplomatic ties between Israel and India were established in 1992 and they have strengthened ever since.

This travelogue is an account of my visit to Israel as part of a commercially organized ten-day tourist trip jointly to Israel and Jordan in Sep-Oct 2018.  For understandable reasons, I am steering clear of any sensitive political, territorial or religious issues in my narrative.

The Journey

Our large group of tourists started from Bangalore and arrived at Amman, capital of Jordan, on 27 Sep 2018.  After quick immigration formalities, we were driven a long way through much of Jordan to its land border control post with Israel.  Entry to Israeli soil followed after some of the most rigorous and lengthy immigration checks I have experienced anywhere.  A bus waiting on the other side drove us on another long journey, all the way past ancient Jerusalem to Israel’s commercial hub and former political capital, Tel Aviv.  Before reaching Tel Aviv, the bus drove past a heavily protected Ben Gurion Airport.  It flashed to my mind that our flight to Jordan must have been significantly less expensive for our tour operator than a direct entry into Israel via Ben Gurion Airport. 

We reached our hotel in Tel Aviv late in the evening after a very long and tiresome journey on a warm day, in a rather low mood.  A long delay in allotting our rooms further added to our misery.  The rather uncomfortable and cramped accommodation we had for the next three days turned out to be in a small but imposing multi storied hotel named after the great Leonardo da Vinci (see picture below), and located very close to the best part of the busy beach in the southern part of the city. Our sightseeing tour was to begin the following day. 

Tel Aviv

Located in the Mediterranean coastline and founded in 1909, Tel Aviv is the most populous city in Israel after Jerusalem, as well as the economic and technological heartland of the small country. In 1948, the Israeli Declaration of Independence was formally proclaimed in the city. Representative of this is the Founders Monument and Fountain (see picture below) in the middle of Rothchild Boulevard in the heart of the city. 

Located close by was the lively and famous Street Market (see picture below) where we spent a good bit of time in the warm sunny weather. 

Tel Aviv is however better known for its soaring skyscrapers like the following, symbolizing its commercial character. 

Tel Aviv is also a highly cosmopolitan city, in sharp contrast to Jerusalem. For this reason, the sight of Jewish orthodoxy as in the following picture is a rare and treasured sight in the heart of the city:

Tel Aviv is also known for sights like the following, a huge hotel complex, that underscore its commercial and metropolitan character. 

Within a short walking distance of our hotel was the expansive beach, full of evening revelers. The picture below shows a part of the crowded sandy beach on the right and a part of the city skyline on the left.  I could relax in the beach on two consecutive evenings, soaking up the beautiful scenery and watching the Sun set in clear cloudless skies. 

Jaffa

Sitting atop a hilly outcrop on the Mediterranean coastline, Jaffa is an old historic port city that is now part of southern Tel Aviv. Set in beautiful greenery and picturesque surroundings, it commands a scenic view of Tel Aviv and its coastline as can be seen in the picture below: 

The best-known landmark of Jaffa is the St Peter’s catholic church, with its adjacent tall clock tower, as captured in the picture below: 

Haifa 

Located about 90 km north of Tel Aviv, Haifa is the third largest city in Israel and a major seaport in the Mediterranean region. Here is a view of the city and its busy harbor from an elevated lookout point on the way from Tel Aviv on the following day of our trip: 

Here is a zoomed-in view of the Haifa harbour from the same spot: 

Bahai Gardens

Haifa is best known for its spectacular and world-famous Bahai Gardens, also known as the Hanging Gardens of Haifa (pictured below) located in the heart of the city. 

The above picture is an aerial view sourced from the Wikipedia. The best picture that I could capture is shown below: 

The Bahai gardens are garden terraces on Mount Carmel in Haifa, and one of the most popular tourist destinations in Israel. Completed in 2001, there are 19 terraces and more than 1,500 steps ascending the mountain. The central terrace has the Shrine of the Báb, one of the main religious sites of the Baháʼí Faith. Beginning at its base, the gardens extend almost one kilometre up the side of Mount Carmel, covering some 200,000 square metres of land. The gardens are linked by a set of stairs flanked by twin streams of running water cascading down the mountainside through the steps and terrace bridges. The irrigation system is fully computerized. Based on meteorologic data it receives, the computer controls hundreds of valves to distribute water throughout the gardens by sprinkling and dripping. This is done at night and in the early morning, to avoid wasting water by evaporation. The water that flows alongside the stairs is circulating in a closed system within each terrace, so that little water is wasted.

It would have taken us about 90 minutes to descend the steps leading to the central shrine and return to our bus. It was around 4:30 pm and most of us were very eager to do this.  But our local (Israeli) guide refused to wait that long and insisted on our returning to the bus immediately.  He had not planned on providing us adequate time to explore what the tour organizers had touted as one of the wonders of the world.  This was the worst instance of his overall incompetence as a tour guide, with several more to follow.

Before returning very reluctantly, I shot the following zoomed-in view of a particularly beautiful portion of the garden looking down, and recognizable in the previous two pictures: 

Caesarea

Caesarea was an ancient and medieval port city on the coast of the Eastern Mediterranean, and later a small fishing village. In 63 BCE, when the Roman Republic annexed the region, it was significantly enlarged with the establishment of a new harbour, and the town and its port were dedicated to Augustus Caesar as Caesarea. A portion of the ruins of Caesarea is shown in the picture below: 

Here is a modernized version of the original Roman theatre at Caesarea: 

Ein Karem

This is a historic mountain village southwest of Jerusalem, presently a neighbourhood in the outskirts of the modern city.  A famous medical centre is located here.  Christian tradition holds that John the Baptist was born in Ein Karem. Probably because of its location between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, many churches and monasteries came up in the area, and it is now a major pilgrimage centre.

Here is a picture of the ‘Steeple Tower of the Church of the Visitation’, with our tour bus parked in the foreground. 

Here is a picture at the entrance to the church complex: 

Jericho

Jericho is a small city located in the Jordan Valley, under the administrative control of Israel, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. Jericho is also among the oldest cities in the world and archaeologists have unearthed the remains of more than 20 successive settlements, dating back 11,000 years. The picture below captures the claim that it is actually the oldest city in the world: 

Here is another picture of Jericho, with a row of souvenir shops on the left: 

Jerusalem 

After three days of trips originating from Tel Aviv, we shifted base to Jerusalem for the next two days and stayed in one of the finest hotels in the city, making up for our poor quarters in Tel Aviv.

Jerusalem is an ancient city, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, and is also considered very holy to the three major Abrahamic religions -Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Both Israelis and Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital; Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions as well as its Knesset (parliament) there, and the State of Palestine looks upon it as its eventual seat of power. However, neither claim is widely recognized internationally.

Our first (panoramic) view of the ancient city of Jerusalem was from a view point on the nearby Mount of Olives as can be seen in the picture below: 

Most of the old city can be seen in the background, including the golden Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount (upper right), the monument that stands out most visibly in any such view. Here is a zoomed-in view of the Dome and its neighborhood: 

The famous Al Aqsa Mosque is seen prominently at the left and it is part of the larger complex that includes the Dome. We had to be satisfied with this distant view since our local guide had no intention of taking us there.

Reflecting the historical claims made on it, the walled city of Jerusalem is divided into different quarters as can be seen in the following map: 

Here is another view of parts of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives: 

The Jaffa Gate in East Jerusalem can be seen at left in the picture below, which I took while walking through some of the more important parts of the city: 

Below is a part of the Christian Quarter: 

Via Dolorosa (see picture below) is the purported processional route in the Old City of Jerusalem, representing the path that Jesus took, forced by the Roman soldiers, on the way to his crucifixion. The winding route from the former Antonia Fortress to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre - a distance of about 600 metres - is a celebrated place of Christian pilgrimage.  Our guide led us through this full route. 

Below is another segment of the narrow processional route through the old city, completely empty when we approached it: 

Here is a picture inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the end point of the processional route: 

After our short tour of the walled city, we spent some leisurely time at “The Church of All Nations” or “Basilica of the Agony”, a Roman Catholic church (see picture below) near the Garden of Gethsemane at the Mount of Olives, as also at the exotic garden itself. 

Before we wound up our tour of Jerusalem, we also wanted to visit the iconic ‘Wailing Wall’, another major landmark of the city.  Our guide was very reluctant to take us there and yielded only after strong pressure from some of us.  It turned out to be a worthwhile visit, but I have no visual record of it since photography was not permitted at that place.  However, we did see a number of people in the act of wailing, but at a very low decibel level.

The Church of Nativity

The Church of the Nativity, or Basilica of the Nativity (see picture below), is located in Bethlehem in the West Bank and holds a prominent religious significance to Christians of various denominations as the birthplace of Jesus. It is the oldest site continuously used as a place of worship in Christianity, and the basilica is the oldest major church in the Holy Land. 

Here is a picture I took inside the highly revered church that was teeming with worshippers and visitors alike: 

Holocaust Museum

Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the victims and survivors of the Holocaust. The museum is dedicated to the memory of the Jews who were exterminated by Hitler’s Nazi regime in Germany during the second world war. It echoes the stories of the survivors, honoring Jews who fought against their Nazi oppressors as also those who selflessly aided Jews in need. Yad Vashem's vision, as stated on its website, is: "To lead the documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust, and to convey the chronicles of this singular Jewish and human event to every person in Israel, to the Jewish people, and to every significant and relevant audience worldwide." Established in 1953, Yad Vashem is located on the Mount of Remembrance, on the western slope of Mount Herzl. 

Before I entered the museum, my state of mind was very similar to the one I had experienced earlier the same year while looking at the Atom Bomb site in Hiroshima (see my blog article titled ‘Horror of Hiroshima’ here). Below is a picture that I took inside the appropriately eerie, quaintly shaped, interior of the museum: 

Here is a display of some of the holocaust victims arranged so as to produce an unforgettable impact: 

Dead Sea

The Dead Sea is a landlocked, highly salty, lake whose location is shown in the map below: 

The Dead Sea is one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world, about ten times as salty as any ocean. With a density of 1.24 kg/liter, swimming in it is almost like floating.  Indeed, most good swimmers, including one from our group who I observed for a long time, just stay floating dead pan on it for as long as they care to.  The dissolved salts are said to have many medical benefits deemed particularly good for the human skin.

Also, the lake's surface is 430 metres below sea level, as is its shores.  It is 304 m deep, the deepest saline lake in the world.

Here is a picture of the Dead Sea that I captured a short while after sunrise, through the window of my hotel, on the morning after we had checked in. 

The huge hotel complex where we stayed is shown in the first picture below. However, it looks rather puny in relation to the massive land block nearby, something I found fascinating (see the second picture below): 

Reverting to the hotel, its interior was as fascinating as the exterior, and the view of a tree lined winding staircase captured my imagination (see picture below): 

Everything about the hotel was extraordinary and memorable. Later in the afternoon, I looked straight down from the window of my room and saw quite an unbelievably spectacular sight (see picture below).   So much greenery and clear blue fresh water so close to the Dead Sea’s salt water was a mesmerizing sight. 

The picture below shows the facilities provided for visitors at the lake front, with the waters of the lake visible at far right. 

I fell far short of floating or swimming in the Dead Sea, being satisfied, instead, merely to get my feet wet in the salty waters and have a picture taken (see below) for keep-sake.

Kalia Beach 

Kalia Beach is one of the best-known beaches of the Dead Sea. It is located in the northern part of the Dead Sea, a calm spot away from the more crowded hotel area at Ein Bokek. A lovely terrace built above the beach provides a gorgeous view of the turquoise waters of the Dead Sea and the surrounding golden-brown mountains. Kalia beach is best known for floating on the Dead Sea and mud bathing, which is supposed to enhance the medicinal effect of the dissolved salts and minerals.

Here is a large poster that is self-explanatory: 

Here is another similar poster in a somewhat discouraging tone against the backdrop of the spread-out waters:

Masada

Masada is an ancient fortification in the southern part of Israel situated on top of an isolated rock plateau. It is located on the eastern edge of the Judaean Desert, overlooking the Dead Sea, which is about 20 km away. Herod the Great built two palaces for himself on the mountain and fortified Masada between 37 and 31 BCE. At the end of the First Jewish-Roman War, the siege of Fort Masada by Roman troops from 73 to 74 CE ended in the defeat and the mass suicide, in preference to surrender, of the 960 Sicarii tribe rebels who had taken refuge there.

Fort Masada is one of the most visited tourist spots in Israel, and excellent facilities have been developed at the site. A rope way can be used to go up to the top of the fortification and explore the remains at the end of the rebels’ heroic resistance, which is now part of Jewish folklore.

Here is a model of the full Masada fortification that greets the visitors: 

The picture below shows a group of visitors looking at a display of the Masada fortification features in a large hall before going to the ropeway: 

The ropeway leading to the top and the barren surroundings are captured in the picture below:

A large descriptive poster and the artist’s rendering of the Masada resistance are both seen in the picture below: 

The Roman troops are believed to have built a ramp up the path seen in the picture below to overthrow the rebel stronghold in the fortress. 

Kibbutz

Kibbutz is a communal settlement in Israel, typically a farm, cultivating a variety of agricultural, horticultural, dairy and other produce on a large tract of land. Such enterprises are encouraged and supported by the government.  Some of the people in our group were basically farmers, also interested in observing agricultural practices in Israel.  They, as well as the rest of us, had something worthwhile to see in a large kibbutz with diverse facilities and activities where we spent a whole afternoon towards the end of our stay in Israel.

Considering the desert-like climate prevailing in the kibbutz, it is no surprise that a variety of dates are cultivated extensively there. Here is part of a large array of trees yielding dates: 

Production of milk was a major enterprise in the kibbutz, with hundreds of cows being bred and reared in a highly scientific setup. Here is a large dedicated enclosure I captured there for rearing cows: 

Milking of cows and the collection of their milk in a mechanized process is seen in the picture below:

Eilat

Eilat is the southernmost city in Israel. It is a busy port and popular resort at the northern tip of the Red Sea, on what is known as the Gulf of Eilat in Israel and as the Gulf of Aqaba in Jordan. The city is a major tourist attraction for both domestic and international tourists.

Eilat is part of the Southern Negev Desert, adjacent to the Egyptian resort city of Taba to the south, the Jordanian port city of Aqaba to the east, and within sight of Saudi Arabia, across the gulf to the southeast.

At Eilat, we visited a diamond mines museum and showroom, with an impressive display of diamonds of various sorts. Below is one such display. Not surprisingly, none of us bought anything there.

While approaching the outskirts of Eilat by bus, we chanced to see a commercial passenger aircraft descend rapidly and land right next to the road we were travelling. Apparently, the airport was small and located adjacent to the highway.  It was an eerie experience.  I captured the following picture immediately after the aircraft landed. The highway is also visible in the picture. Part of the cityscape can be seen in the background. 

Eilat is a large and busy seaport as can be made out from the picture below: 

The Coral World Underwater Observatory is a unique public aquarium, park and conservation centre, and a major tourist attraction. Founded in 1974, it is the biggest public aquarium in Israel, hosting over 800 species. It was also the first of its kind. Below is a picture of the observatory, with me standing in the foreground. The big beautiful structure seen above water acts as a buoy to the underwater observatory, with glass bottom and viewing panels on the sides. 

Here are two pictures taken through the viewing panels in the underground observatory: 

 

Adjacent to the underground observatory is an extensive and beautiful Marine Park which is entered through the main gate seen in the picture below: 

I end this rather long presentation of my glimpses of Israel as an admiring tourist with the picture of a typical, superbly attractive and colorful, display inside the large marine park in Eilat, our last stop in the country: 

We left Israel back to Jordan on a three-day trip, crossing over at the land border between the two countries at Eilat.  This time, the formalities were less stringent, but we had to walk a considerable stretch of no man’s land with our luggage dragged along unassisted under a torrid Sun.

Epilogue

In terms of land area, Israel is a small country, about half the size of the south Indian state of Kerala; in terms of population, it is about one-fourth.  Also, as a nation, it is just about as old as independent India. Yet, it is one of the most scientifically and technologically advanced countries in the world, a fact that is not reflected in a tourist travelogue like the present one. If the number of Nobel prizes won is an indication of the status of a nation (I certainly don’t think it is) Israel has got thirteen of them since 1964, most of them in science disciplines.  In terms of its military might, it is certainly a regional super power, and a perennial threat to neighboring nations.  Though these facts were very much in my mind, I approached my long-cherished trip to the ‘promised land’ predominantly as a tourist.  It certainly lived up to my expectations.