Visit Zefat the city of mystics; Malkiyya along the border with Lebanon; kayak down the Jordan river; explore the Golan Heights in jeeps to learn about the history of the wars with the Syrians. Overnight in Kibbutz Nof Ginnosar.
This morning we woke up at 6:30 by a phone call. After everyone had breakfast we got our back packs and water bottles and got ready for a long day. First we drove to Zefat and one we got there all the women put their dresses on [over their clothes] for Jewish tradition. When we were there we waw all these rabbis and we even saw a rabbi with a cell phone. We went in front of a school with a famous olive tree. The tree had a hollow center and the trunk was dead, but there were living branches coming out of it and Walter said the olive tree symbolizes that the center can be dead, but life can be growing from it. Then we went to a temple which had a carved wooden ark where the torah was kept. We walked up on the bimah and saw where the rabbi would stand. It was crowded because the temple was small and there was another tour group as big as us. We stopped in a plaza and Walter explained the history of Zefat.
Then we drove to another kibbutz [Malkiya] and Rabbi Jonathan Matt came onto our bus and we drove all around the kibbutz and Jonny told us all about it. Then we drove to a military base where they donŐt usually let tour groups there because it's right on the Lebanon border. The lady who greeted us explained that this was her last day from two years of her service. Most of the kids got their picture taken with the soldiers or the kids holding a M16. We went into their living quarters then they let us look around their look-out bunkers and we saw how they looked down onto the border of Lebanon. After that the soldier hid a non-active mine and Rabbi Prinz used a metal detector to find it. She didn't find it.
Then we went to lunch at a stop. There were about 30 soldiers there waiting for a bus or something. Then we drove to the Jordan river where we all got kayaks and flowed down the river. It was really windy [not wind but curve] and lots of people were hitting the sides of the Jordan.
Right after that we went on jeeps when we were still wet. We drove up to the Golan Heights. It was really bumpy on the way up. We stopped and everyone got out. One of the drivers talked about a war and how long the war was [the 6 Day War].
Then we drove back to the bus. We went back to the kibbutz and later that night Walter talked about Israeli politics.
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Acknowledgments:
Despite Everything - Davka
A Starting Point
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