day one: tsfat, kayaking on jordan river, golan heights

actually day one was spent enduring a lengthy and trying commute that took us from JFK to Zurich after a 4 hour wait, then Zurich to Tel Aviv after another 4 hour wait. in other words, lots of waiting, lots of sitting in planes, lots of looking at expensive Swiss airport stuff and not buying it, like cans of caviar, designer handbags, 5 dollar espressos, and liver-cheese sandwiches (as delicious as that sounds i did not shell out the 10 dollars). travel, travel, travel. and when we got to Israel, who was there to greet us but a man with a beaming smile warmly saying to each of us, "welcome home." as cheesy as it sounds, and also as untrue as it was, and even as politically loaded as it might be, it still had a profound effect on me.

our tour guide is a yemenite jew (he is brown, not white) named shani with a funny english accent that makes him sound like a british-educated indian man. he has a long black ponytail and is both witty and historically knowledgeable in his speeches. however, approach him for a one-to-one question and he will spit out one-word answers and hiss unfriendly responses. he seems very tolerant of all peoples, but seems to think that muslims are stupid. a slight character flaw in my opinion, as i was expecting a venomous reproach if anyone were to even ask our guide about the muslims that live right across the border. he also believes that columbus and his entire crew, as jews, set out to find a new homeland for their people in 1492 in exchange for bringing new commerce to the spanish throne. i really don't know about that one. i've never even heard that theory.

our personal defender, first aid specialist, and chick with a big gun is Avital. she speaks english that she said she learned from tv. who knew tv could actually educate and not just melt brains like butter in the microwave? avital knew. and she watched and watched until she could kick back with american kids and talk about "hanging out" and "man, that sucks." i asked her at dinner today, "avital, i have been asking you so many questions over these two days. don't you have any questions for us americans?" the table had been silent: the guy to my left was silent as a stone, the guy to my right too nervous to open his mouth. and across the table from me, a scowling israeli girl with a big gun, shoveling cabbage salad into her mouth. she looked at me, and with that signature israeli expression that expresses both irony and intense disinterest, said simply, "no."

tsfat is known as the birthplace of kabbalah, as the zohar (apparently the book that teaches kabbalah) was written there. the city stands on a mountainside, and i was reminded of small mountain towns i hiked through in tokushima. the place is full of hippies: regular hippies, orthodox hippies, chasidic hippies. and probably sorcerers. everything is laid out in gray stone, and long stairways lead up the mountainside. we didn't get to see much of it, but i did have some decent falafel and got to peruse the judaica stands down a pleasant little alley, where sad old men hawk many kinds of mezuzah, kipa, tallis, and paintings of dancing laughing jews. i bought nothing, although i was tempted to get an enormous mural of dancing laughing jews to hang on my wall, to remind myself of happiness, good times, and good ol' fashioned jeweyness.

kayaking on the jordan was gorgeous. the river is not by any means wide; it is more like an american stream. but in israel, everything is bigger, said shani. he further remarked with an anecdote about how crossing the jordan in biblical times was considered "a miracle." there were all sorts of birds flittering about, including colorful doves, piebald crows with cream stomachs, and even a flashy kingfisher with blue patches underwing. the whole experience was serene and refreshing after spending most of the day cooped up in the bus.

and finally, the golan heights. we climbed a volcano, from the top of which we could see both syria and lebanon. it was on this site, below us near the kibbutsim that sprawled across the land, that syria had launched rockets over the border at the onset of the 1967 arab-israeli war. the landscape was saturated with history. we watched the sun set over the mountaintop. i was freezing in my soaked tee-shirt (i had fallen off the kayak after trying to retrieve a fallen shoe and suffering a collision with a fellow vessel. i clung desperately to the side as the vicious rapids tried to swallow me beneath their hungry waves. and then i just put my feet down and stood up.)

that is all for now, and perhaps i shall be more inspired to expound upon some of my party mates next time. shalom~