TRAVELOGUE: OUR HONEYMOON IN ISRAEL (continued)

Bruce David Wilner
April 1999

MON 12 April

We were both up half the night tossing and turning. The tension is mounting: this place is alien and uncomfortable and there is no privacy. I literally can’t even wipe my anus in the manner to which I am accustomed.

As usual, we are awake at 6:30AM and at breakfast by 7:00AM. The suggestion box at the front desk of the hotel is full. Other people seem to have their criticisms; I know that we certainly do. However, I learn to criticize in English, not in Hebrew. When there is no waiter available to pour our coffee at breakfast, and I ask the manager, "Lo echad meltzer?" ("Isn’t there a waiter?"), he responds, "Don’t you speak English?" Nevertheless, the waiter soon comes running with my coffee.

Back at home, we call this simply a "subdivision," but here they view it as a colony for brave pioneers—pioneers who ventured forth into the wilderness a whole ten miles outside Jerusalem. I guess it all depends on how you look at things.

On our way through the Negev desert down to the Dead Sea (Yam Hamelach), we pass several frightful accidents and see bus stops that, despite being in the middle of nowhere, have soldiers waiting at them. We also see wretched, squalid Bedouin camps, roughly built from corrugated tin sheets, used oil drums, and a few blankets. The Bedouins, who increasingly work day jobs in the city, graze their donkeys by the roadside, and Eytan tells me that donkey carcasses are not an uncommon sight on Israeli highways. He adds that you really don’t want to hit a camel. (America has similar problems with different species: while you see deer carcasses here and there, you certainly don’t want to hit a moose.) Oddly enough, just meters from this sea that is so salty that it cannot sustain any macroscopic life, and where only one inch of rain falls per year, drip irrigation systems feed verdant groves of date palms.

Our first touring stop is Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. Cheryl is upset that, aside from the film, we do not receive any guided tour; indeed, the German group that entered ahead of us is getting quite a detailed tour. Personally, I am tired of looking at rocks and ruins; I would rather hide in the air-conditioned gift shop. They have a most unusual coffee machine where you press a button and the required ingredients are intermixed into the cup before your very eyes. The standard items are for sale, but they also offer Dead Sea bath salts, brightly colored flip-flops, and a staggering selection of liquors. Back on the road, I see yet more power lines, strung with brightly colored spheres at intervals. Showing off my graduate-level knowledge of electric power engineering, I tell people about these "detuning" balls that prevent wind-induced "galloping" and the subsequent phase-to-phase faults. I am disappointed when Eytan tells me that they are simply brightly colored balls that can be easily spotted by aircraft overflying the featureless Negev.

We stop at Mineral Springs (Hame Matzor) along the Dead Sea, where, Eytan tells us, one must float in the Dead Sea. I head into the bathhouse to change. I am not used to this low level of hygiene, and I am disturbed to see a large cockroach on the bathhouse wall. This one is yellow, unlike the brown ones with two fashionable black stripes that one sees in the U.S.. I fear the possibility that one might sneak into my bag, whence it will invade the U.S. with its hardened Israeli genes and take over the world. The beach is rocky, and the water, which is quite chilly, is so salty that it is disgusting. I overcome my better senses, dive into the water, and—incredibly enough—float. Lunch at this miserable "resort" features a never-empty bowl of homemade vegetable soup. For NIS 36 (US$9), you get to keep the bowl, which is a handmade ceramic piece fashioned in the potter’s shed just up the hill.

Our next stop is the mountaintop fortress of Masada. We ride a cable car from the base camp up to the site. I sincerely hope that we don’t plummet to our deaths on the rocks below in this lonely, windswept mountain range in an isolated desert in some lousy Third World country in southwest Asia. On the mountaintop, I learn a painful lesson about carefully planning one’s clothing. A loose cotton T-shirt and short shorts were a very good idea in the desert heat, but these leather Birkenstock thong sandals were not. They are durable and, of course, extremely comfortable, but on this dusty, rocky mountaintop, I am constantly being tortured by pebbles that ensconce themselves under my tender soles and between my toes. (I make no pretense to being a "tough guy.") Eytan tells us of the unique species of black grackle with yellow wings that lives only on this mountain, and we soon see a number of them. Interestingly, the numerous mountaintop mice of which he told us are nowhere in sight.

Leaving Masada, Mike teases me by claiming to have seen an ibex, for which I have unsuccessfully been scouting all day. No, I don’t see any ibexes, but I see frequent road signs warning "ibex crossing" in Hebrew. En route to Yericho (Jericho), we follow a truck stuffed to the brim with Nubian goats. A tail sticks out here, an ear flops out there. The goats come in a wide range of patterns: solid brown, gray with black spots, cream with brown splotches. I explain to our companions that the Nubian goats are the ones with the long, drooping ears, and that one can always tell a sheep from a goat because sheep’s tails hang down whereas goats’ tails stand up. Our stop in Yericho is brief. Like all other Arab villages, this one is absolutely squalid. We pass a joint Israeli-Palestinian security patrol, where the lead jeep flies the Palestinian flag and the rear jeep flies the Israeli flag. A robed Arab who looks black as the ace of spades clutches a handful of U.S. dollars and solicits tourists to mount his wretched camel for a quick photo (NIS 5, please). Cheryl thinks the Arabs are undressing her with their eyes, and they probably are.

On the way to Kibbutz Ayelet Hashachar, where we will spend two nights, we pass Yardenit (a baptismal site on the Jordan River) and Kibbutz Deganya Alef (where Moshe Dayan was born). I pass a strange graffito by the roadside that reads, "Yisrael, atah bivi?" meaning, "Israel, are you my sewage?" I ask Eytan about this, and he swears that the sign must have said "Bibi" (viz., Benyamin Netanyahu), not "bivi." Now, both words are spelled beth-yodh-beth-yodh, differing only in the diacritical marks (which are usually omitted but were present in this case), but I know what I saw. Then we see two Israeli military planes fly overhead, which Eytan tells us are Hercules. (Over the next several days, we see quite a variety of military aircraft.) We next pass a radar speed trap along the side of this two-lane "highway." The only difference between this speed trap and the ones at home is that this one is manned by a contingent of policemen and soldiers with enough automatic weapons among them to conquer a small African nation.

Somewhere during the bus ride, the two Romanian ladies complained to Eytan about screwed-up flight arrangements. They were allowed into Israel without presenting a return-trip ticket, they said. They paid for this but didn’t receive it, they said. They paid for that but didn’t receive it, they said. They speak no English, they said, but they are on an English-language tour, and one of them is slick enough to manage a Romanian newspaper publishing company based in New York, she said.

At the end of the day (6:30PM or so), having arrived at the kibbutz, I am totally sunburned on my nose, neck, and arms. But my sunburned feet are a new and fascinating phenomenon. The foot is its normal pale color where it was protected by leather straps but bright cherry red where its naked flesh was relentlessly fried in the Middle Eastern sun. As it is getting chilly, I put on jeans, comfy socks, clogs, and a windbreaker before dinner.

Our kibbutz offers an outstanding multi-course evening repast at no extra charge. After a complete salad, one enjoys delicious chicken vegetable soup and a choice of three entrees (chicken, beef, or "St. Peter’s bones"). You can have seconds or thirds if you like, and various fruit and Jell-O® concoctions offered for dessert complete the satisfying meal. Oddly, the add-on NIS 25 vodka/grapefruit libation is made with grapefruit drink, not grapefruit juice. (This is a surprise in a country that exports its top-notch oranges, grapefruits, bananas, mangos, pecans, grapes, cherries, blueberries, strawberries, and avocados worldwide.) I further find it disturbing that a kibbutz that offers such a generous supper does not see fit to provide washcloths in its guest house rooms. Also apparently missing from Israeli hotel rooms in general: a telephone directory, a pen (paper is provided, though), and a Gideon Bible! However, the maids here at the kibbutz guest house passed Cheryl’s "hair test"—unlike the shifty-eyed staffers at the Radisson in Jerusalem.

We stroll around the kibbutz and discover all sorts of Mexican flora. The sabra cactus is indeed—as Eytan later admits—a New World nopal (prickly pear): it is not at all a native Israeli plant as one might be led to believe. We also see some maguey and a host of other American cacti (barrel, organ pipe, etc.). We visit the gift shop, where the manager is a genial and chatty British immigrant lady; spend a small fortune on gold, silver, malachite, and Eilat stone jewelry; and then hit the sack. I have never been so exhausted in all my life.

*

A man boards a bus. He stutters at the driver, "D-d-does this b-b-bus go to J-j-jerusalem?" The bus driver responds, "Y-y-yes it d-d-does." The passenger thinks he is being made fun of but ignores it for the moment. When the next person boards the bus and asks a question, the driver answers without stuttering. The first passenger furiously challenges the driver, "Y-y-you asshole, you made f-f-fun of me," and the driver answers, "I w-w-wasn’t making f-f-fun of you, I was m-m-making fun of that other g-g-guy."

 

TUE 13 April

Yesterday we drove all over hell and creation. I am relieved that today we only drive all over hell. Leaving the kibbutz, we spot a blocked road with a quickly erected machsos ("roadblock") sign and discover that the culprit is an overturned tractor-trailer that has spilled its cargo of oranges all over the road.

Unlike in Jerusalem, the drivers are courteous up here in the Galilee ("Hagalil"). No wonder: one false move and you plunge over a cliff. I also now understand why we switched to such a small bus: the larger bus might not have made it up these roads, which cling to the mountainsides for dear life. I find it amusing that the speed limit on these goat paths is 60 kmph (37 mph), occasionally punctuated by a judicious but imprecise haet ("slow down") sign.

We enter Nazareth and find the entire town under construction in preparation for millennial celebrations. The Church of the Annunciation and the associated complex are quite nice, including a Japanese mosaic made from real pearls, but I find the ancillary sights more interesting. Specifically, we see a real kosher shochet slaughtering chickens then and there on a wooden stump, with a bearded, sagacious-looking mashgiach present to ensure rigid adherence to the kashrut (the Scriptural laws governing food preparation). The butcher at the next stall doesn’t want to be photographed, so I suspect he is short-circuiting the kashrut. There are partial carcasses of some unidentifiable long-necked mammal in a basket in his stall. I then make fast friends with a fruiterer who is desperate to practice his English, and I am careful to also teach him the British terms for zucchini (courgette) and eggplant (aubergine) so that he will be equipped to function in any situation.

I am picking up a fair amount of Hebrew. Indeed, I learned enough to notice a typographical error on the hotel’s stationery. Ayelet is spelled with one yodh on the stationery but with two at the front entrance. With only one yodh, it would have the same spelling as the Israeli resort town of Eilat. (While two words can have the same spelling, it is unlikely that two place names would: that would be like having two towns called Smithville in the same state.) Eytan assures me that my eagle eyes have indeed detected a typo.

Everywhere we go, we find soldiers hitchhiking. As I learn later, even though there are scheduled pickups for soldiers, it is quicker for them to thumb a ride. The Government discourages the practice of soldiers hitchhiking, since they are occasionally ambushed and killed. I suspect that this is not the whole story: it makes more sense to first torture the soldier for his military secrets, and then kill him.

We stop for lunch in Teveryah (Tiberias) by the shores of the beautiful Yam Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), which is actually a lake. Cheryl is pissed that we didn’t stop at the tomb of Rabbi Moses Maimonides. She is even more disturbed when we stop at a self-service restaurant that looks only moderately clean. Therefore, we trudge up the hill to the Pagoda kosher Chinese restaurant and order food to go. The manager is friendly and speaks excellent English. He tells me that his Chinese food is so good that people drive three hours from Jerusalem just to eat there. We find his egg rolls (sans shrimp: remember, they’re kosher), chicken with garlic sauce, and chicken with cashews to be freshly prepared, good, but certainly not excellent. I find it surprising that a chicken entrée costs NIS 52 (US$13). Oh, well, the food is a welcome treat, and it is attractively packaged, although, surprisingly, it is not packed with soy sauce. (Asking for chopsticks, I learn that the Hebrew term for them is machlot. I will also add this useful word to my growing Hebrew vocabulary.) We eat reclining on a beautiful green lawn overlooking the small yachts moored at the harbor.

At the Mount of Beatitudes, we stop at a church so that Eytan can read a portion of the Sermon on the Mount to the unwashed. He is madly flipping through the Bible looking for the red text that identifies the words of Jesus, so I suggest to him that he try Matthew 5:1. I sit there cringing while he dictates, since the modern translations sound like garbage compared to the glorious King James Version of 1611, but Eytan says he has to read a newer translation so that ignorant people can understand the language. While sitting in the garden, I see a guy wearing munchkin shoes. That’s the only way I can describe them: they have exaggerated, pointed, upturned toes and are tied by leather thongs around his ankles. I think he is probably a Gypsy. When I try to take his picture, he makes it perfectly clear that he does not intend to be photographed.

We stop at Kfar Nachum (Capernaum), which we skipped this morning. We look at more ruins, a synagogue, and an Orthodox church in the distance and we buy some ice creams. (The ice cream here says Nestle Motta on it, and they have weird ice creams, such as one that is one-half ice cream sandwich, one-half éclair with chocolate candy crunch center. It costs NIS 8, which is quite reasonable.) Eytan recognizes that Cheryl is frustrated at our evident avoidance of Jewish sites in favor of Christian ones, and he is trying to make it up to her. Perhaps he is also worrying about his tip. It must be difficult for a tour guide to juggle the respective needs of the tourists in a democratic manner while also feathering his own nest to the best of his ability. I trust he already knows that, even if American Jews are not the majority of the tour group, they tend to tip much more generously than either American goyim or non-Americans in general.

We enjoy coffee and exotic chocolate pastries at a restaurant called Blueberry where the menu amusingly includes pitzot (plural of pitzah) and sandvitshim (plural of sandvitsh). The café is full of soldiers, whose machine guns are left lying around on the floor. I snap a picture of the shoulder of a female soldier for two reasons: her shoulder patch, featuring a red-and-white deer, looks interesting, and her garrison cap is peculiarly folded and stuffed into her epaulet. She asks us why I took the picture, and I tell her the truth. Convinced that we are not Syrian spies, she lets us keep both the camera and the film.

We cross a rickety wooden bridge over the River Jordan ("Yarden") and drive toward some overlook on Mount Hermon so that we can gaze across the Syrian border. All over the place, we see bikers and hikers who are evidently oblivious to the fact that the countryside is teeming with land mines. We see the remains of a tank turret overlooking the Syrian frontier. In the distance, at the highest elevation available, the Israelis have erected a sophisticated satellite communication substation for monitoring activity at the Syrian border. On the way back to the kibbutz, our songfest is a little wilder than usual, since this is the last night that we will spend with Eytan. After the standard Israeli tunes, the microphone is passed around the bus.

Eternal vigilance at the Syrian border

Neil wants Old McDonald Had a Farm (he’s only thirteen, remember) but has Eytan sing it, and Eytan condescends to allow pigs on the farm even though they’re trafah (non-kosher). Feeling patriotic, I belt out Star-Spangled Banner, and, being asked for an encore, I deliver California, Here I Come—to which, to my utter shock, the Australian ladies know all the lyrics. Back at the kibbutz, we enjoy another excellent four-course dinner. I should have known better than to reach for that luscious-looking chocolate "mousse" that tasted like shaving cream. Neil reminded me, bless his heart, that, since this place is kosher, they cannot provide a milk-based dessert with a dinner that includes a beef entrée.

Ex. 23:19 … Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.

The long and short of it is that I just ate a spoonful of chocolate margarine. I stoically accept this misfortune and resignedly content myself with a fruit cup.

After dinner, we are treated to a lecture on kibbutz life, delivered in flawless English by Carl, a flawed Englishman, who has lived on and off the kibbutz with his family for fifteen years. His buddy Shmuel, who sounds American to me, fills in supplementary information at odd points during the lecture. The kibbutz, a community of about 150 souls, reminds me of the television series The Prisoner (starring Patrick McGoohan), wherein ex-spies were whisked off to "The Village," a place where the weather was always perfect; all sorts of community activities were planned; technicians drove around in little carts; people were identified only by number; and nobody could possibly escape. On the kibbutz, as throughout Israel, there is tension, clumsiness, and artificiality interpreting religious restrictions within a largely secular community. Specifically, during the Sabbath, Carl is not permitted to feed the calves at the nursery (one of his usual chores), so he must pile up sufficient food for them on Friday afternoon. If they overeat and get sick, such is life; and if the food runs out, the calves simply starve until Saturday night. I find this strange, since, as I recall, the LORD has a warm spot in His heart for cattle:

Jon. 4:11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

The kibbutz provides food, housing, education, and medical care, but discretionary income for a family of four is only about NIS 1700 (US$425) per month. (The doctor receives the same salary as the toilet cleaner.) Carl then tells us that the kibbutz is US$5 million in debt; that their Japanese restaurant, which was well attended on opening night, failed; that the people almost literally don’t have a pot to piss in (Carl can’t even afford his own refrigerator); that a side trip to the city is a very rare treat for the youngsters; and that he must buy ice cream at the kibbutz’s supermarket because, if he spends the extra five shqalim at a non-subsidized supermarket, there won’t be enough money left to buy falafel.

*

A Jew and a Chinese man have been lunch companions for years. Out of a blue sky, the Jew hauls off and punches the Chinese. "What’s that for?" asks the Chinese. "Pearl Harbor," says the Jew. "But Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese, not the Chinese!" protests the Chinese, to which the Jew responds, "Chinese, Japanese, all the same to me." Presently, the Chinese whacks the Jew. When the Jew asks why, the Chinese says, "Titanic." "But the Titanic was sunk by an iceberg," explains the startled Jew, which the Chinese wryly counters with, "Iceberg, Goldberg, all the same to me."

 

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