PURIM MADNESS!!: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL

In this week before Purim, we find ourselves perhaps, among the tights and pink tutus in San Francisco….? Maybe we are in Mexico with the Caballeros… …and with Dia de Los Muertos celebrants? No, we are in Tel Aviv on the promenade with all the other party go-ers like the astronauts and police officers with Continue Reading »

OLD, OLDER, OLDEST: HAIFA PART II

In the ‘Cradle of Civilization’ we expected to see well researched antiquities from the Canaanites, through Hellenistic and Roman Periods, through the Crusades to the Fall of the Ottoman Empire. What really surprised us though is the frequent NEW findings by amateur archeologists, even in the midst of our visit to Haifa. Local spelunkers just Continue Reading »

“redo”: EVERYBODY LOVES HAIFA & EIN HOD: PART I

We switched iPhone blog app and…what a mess! This “redo” is what we intended the first time we published this blog…Sorry! Residents boast that because Haifa has such a diverse population (Ethiopians, Muslims, Druze, Ba’hai, Christians, Jews, and even Scientologists get along). Does such tolerance come from the example of the dominant religious site in Continue Reading »

PETRA: LONG HIDDEN CITY

The Kingdom of Jordan has few resources to raise their citizens above the poverty level. They have no oil reserves like the Arabic countries around them, and the landscape is barren desert or arid mountains. Most agriculture is primitive, low yield farming eg. ‘plant seeds on steep hillsides, wait for rain, hope for the best.’ Continue Reading »

ISRAEL-A-GO-GO: EILAT

We realized upon our arrival that our pre-formed ideas about Israel were based primarily on the little we knew about Jerusalem: old and religious. Eilat was a culture shock; the mix of European scantily clad bikini bods, Chasidim in wool frock coats and black hats, Ethiopian and Russian immigrants, and young Arabic families strolling together Continue Reading »

SHABAT SHALOM: ERETZ ISRAEL

Tonight at 5:21 PM, the sun will set here in Eilat on the Red Sea in Israel. We will light shabat candles with our portable, traveling candleholders (Todah Rabah, Ricky!) in our airbnb.com garden. We wish my son Jacob could be with us tonight, especially as it is 87 degrees F. here while he awakens Continue Reading »

REAL WINTER: NEW YORK CITY

En route to Israel and Jordan, we elected to stop for a family visit in Essex Fells, New Jersey. First, a day in Manhattan after a red eye flight…in 16 degree F. weather with a wind chill factor bringing it down to 4 degrees F. Brrrrr! As Californians after 4 years of drought we celebrated Continue Reading »