Israel Trip

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The Golan Heights

Our morning plans involved starting at the northern border of the Golan Heights and driving south. Our first stop was Mitzpe Golani, an old Syrian bunker and artillery emplacement and site of one of the bloodiest battles of the 1967 Six Day War. It was quite an experience to peek out of an underground bunker and look upon the valley knowing that the Syrians systematically shelled civilian targets from that location. Further south in the Heights, we drove to the top of Mt. Bantal for a lovely view of Kuneitra across the border in Syria. We had drinks at Coffee Anan, a play on the UN Secretary General's name and the Hebrew words which translate to 'coffee in the clouds', and then we descended to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.

It's an odd feeling to look out over a beautiful vista and realize that we are technically still at war with the country you see just a few miles away. Even odder is the fact that we are constantly faced with views of youngsters throughout the country carrying guns and assault rifles. When they are obviously active military in full uniform, it blends better into the scenery. But when they are dressed in street clothes, in a mall talking on a cell phone, but with an AK47 slung across their back, it is a bit more disconcerting. At one point we were driving along a road in the north of the country and kept passing huge thick cement walls that were discontinuous with one another, spaced about every mile or so. It was later explained that they were constructed to provide shelter for motorists in case of shelling from the Lebanese side of the border. Between the incident in Old Jerusalem where we had to wait for our armed escort, the revelation of the 'panic room' in every home, and the weapons we noticed everywhere, it became very obvious that we were in a country with a completely different mindset regarding the immediacy of a state of war.

Mitzpe Shalom

We stopped for lunch at a new artists village and met several of the artists including a goldsmith descended from a family of jewelers in Hungary (he had his grandfather's journeyman jeweler diploma on display). We then continued on to Mitzpe Shalom, a lookout with a wonderful view of the Sea of Galilee from above the eastern shore. Here we saw prolific banana plantations that are possible because the position of the Sea of Galilee below sea level in the Syrio-African Rift allows for a sub-tropical climate. However, we primates found this same climate to be uncomfortably hot and humid. We also learned that the majority of this region had been swamp that was drained to allow for farming.

The Church of the Seven Apostles

Our drive continued up around the northern end of the lake, and down the western side to The Church of the Seven Apostles. This was a beautiful Greek Orthodox church with white walls and pink domes on the shores of the Sea of Galilee surrounded by beautiful gardens. Inside the walls and domes were covered with illuminated scenes from the lives of Jesus and his early disciples.

Rosh Pina

From there, we traveled west to Rosh Pina, a settlement sponsored in 1884 by the Baron Rothschild. We were able to explore the beautiful hillside gardens as well as the museum in the home of Professor Gidon Mer where he conducted research on malaria.

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Copyright © 2005 by Oreet Herbst and John Knott