Walking in Israel

There is a monumental feel to walking in a land with such a long and storied history and of such a religious significance to the world's major religions. The mix of conflict and consolidation, tension and everyday exisitence can be felt in the air. Security at a level that is hard to imagine is solidly part of everyday life in Israel, yet it is vibrant, thriving country in a beautiful land. History measured in thousands of years is part of everyone's life, personal conduct and interaction.

To walk around in this land is to walk in the footsteps of the earliest civilizations and source of beliefs that are just as strong and a part of life as they were at the beginning of religion. You can not be in Israel and not feel it and breath it in as a conscience element of existance. It may sound as if I were being overly dramatic but, I do the palpabilty little justice. It is ot just overwhelming.  It is as real and solid as a love for one's child or cool water on a hot day.

Inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre built over where Christ was buried.

We arrived in Haifa, the main port in Israel, neat the Lebanonese border to the north, early in the morning. Israel is about the size of New Jersey with about 9 million people.  The are more than 20 cities on earth with larger population. I left on a two excursion at 7:00 am and jmonumental ust barely made it back to the ship for a 8:00 pm departure the next day.

We went through four checkpoints before we were allowed entry. Done quickly and more common sense that in the U.S. In fact it was much quicker than going through TSA lines at an airport. An example I can offer is when we stopped at a high-secirty checkpoint coming from the Weatbank back into Israel, the borger agent looked into our van waved use through.  

We were in a new van, well-dressed, pale faces, wearing tourist type clothes, men and women, westerners, cameras, bags, not at all nervous and the door had a professional done sign with the tourist transport company name and contact information on it. They surely would have inspected more closely a beat up vehicle full of young male Palestinian males who acted nervious and excited on approaching the checkpoint. In America we have turned "profiling" into a dirty and racist word instead of a common sense method of looking at something more closely.

 We followed the Yizre'el Valley east to the Jordan River and south through the Westbank towatds the Dead Sea. Recent and ancient wars, peoples, civilizaions and concering armies encamped and settled every area we went through, especially if it had springs. There is history at every point on a scale that makes us in America look like overnight guests.

At first it looked like Arkansas

Then it was like West Texas

Then bam, it is like a California desert,

We followed highway 90 south through the Jordon valley which is the slip fault line from the collistion of the African and Asian tutonic plates. Past were Sodom and Gomora were.  The passed by the Jericho were the walls came tubbling down probabbly from an earthquake.

The came on the Dead Sea in the middle of the day. It had been falling for eons but more so since the sourse of its water has been cut off by a dam at the Sea of Galilee and irrigation  The water level drops about a meter a year from evaporation. It is the lowest point on earth at over 1400 feet below sea level.

Dead Sea came up to this road not to many years ago. Now evaporated and lowered considerably.

We first went to the Masada National Park about halfway down the Dead Sea. Masada is a mountain black that became detached from a fault escarpmet leaving it 450 meters above the surrounding desert. That's almost 1500 feet high. The plateau on top is the size of a small town and extremely defendable.  The overlooks the Dead Sea and two major ancient routes.

The first fortress on top was built Jonathon the High Priest arount 80 BC. Herord who ruled from 37 BC - 4BC build a winter palance and refuge against enemies. The reble Jews occupied it around 73 BC and it was the last stronghold against the invading Romans in Judea.

Model of Masada. See the Roman ramp on the model just to left of center. Imagine piling up dirt to over a thousand feet while rocks and arrows rain down on you. The ramp is still there.

The ramp is in the center of the picture and looks like a 45 degree angle. It's not that much but it is pretty steep to roll a multi-ton ram up, especially under fire.

The Roman 10th Legion laid seige to the mountain with 8000 troops and as many support personnel. in 8 camps around the mountain led by Flavius Silva. In about 3 months the Romans built an earthen ramp (which is still there today) and brought up a battering ram to bust through the city gate.  After a battle and a fire of both the ram and the wooden gate the Romans were sucessful.  They decided after a long day of fighting to enter the city-fort early the next morning.

They entered the city unoppsed the next day and found al  but two women and three children dead by their own hand. They knew all the men would be killed immediately or put into slavery until worked to dead.  They knew their women would be raped and murdered and their children put into slavery and dispursed from their land. From excerpts from Eleazar Ben-Yair's speech to his people he said, "...God had granted us,  that it is still in our power to die bravely, and ina state of freedom..." and "we have preferred death before slavery."

This shocked the Romans and Masada was not occupied again for centeries. There was a TV mini-series about Masada aired in 1981 starring Peter O'Tool.

An 80 passenger cable car took us to  the top of Masada and back. I can't imagine climbing a snake like path to fight and try to breach the fortress walls. It probably took them longer to build this than the 3 months it took the Roman to build a dirt ramp up there. That's the Dead Sea in the background.

The sun was so bright up there. These photos are over-exposed. I couldn't see the camera screen for the sun.

Original floor from the century before Christ.

2000+ year old plaster. Below the black line is original rock and above that is reconstructed from rock left at ruins.

We went to the southern tip of the Dead Sea tnear Ne'ot Hakikar and swan in the 39% salt saturated water.  There were steel railings going into the water so one chould hold their feet to the bottom on the sea. Falling into the water made it almost impossible to get back on your feet.

These are some pictures of the area. We traveled a few hours back to Jerusalum and spent the night after viewing the cily from the Mount of Olives.

Railing is so you could keep your feet on the bottom and walk out.