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Hi Faun -- hope you are safe and sound. I'm not sure how the blog works, but I trust you will assist me. This is what I sent to some friends about halfway through our trip....more to come. Love and peace, Dean

E-MAIL: drdean262@yahoo.com

November 20, 2007

Hotel Nof Ginnosar
On the Eastern Shore of the Sea of Galilee
North of Tiberias, ISRAEL

Coming to the end of our 4th full day in Israel and
winding down after another chock full day of visiting
holy sites in the Galilee—Beit Alpha, an excavated
Jewish synagogue from the 6th century AD; Capernaum,
which was, according to Christian belief, the home
base of Jesus during his Galilean ministries; and the
Mount of Beatitude—where Jesus delivered the Sermon on
the Mount. Our long bus ride from Jerusalem took us
through the Jordan Valley where we could see Jordanian
military outposts on the east side of the Jordan
River. Miles of electronic fence divide the friendly
neighbors who have been nervously at peace for many
years now. An eerie calm prevails so far, but I don’t
think I could ever get used to seeing military
checkpoints with mounted machine guns and ubiquitous
young Israeli soldiers causally dangling M-16’s from
their shoulder while munching a falafel sandwich.
The tiredness of the long flight to Israel via Paris
(about 15 hours air travel) has pretty much passed.
We travelled with Yuval Ron and family as part of a
group of 30 about 14 from L.A., a couple from Bay
Area, a delightful woman from Netherlands, and about a dozen from Seattle, and dancer/correspondent from North Carolina.
Hotel Dan Panorama in Jerusalem
is comfortable enough and well-located in easy walking
distance to Old City and City Center. We will be
returning there later next week after a few more days
in the Galilee and visiting Haifa. We’ve had time to
walk into the historic Old City market where the
vendors practically tackle you in their fervor to sell
you hats, scarves, menorahs, rugs, souvenirs and
countless other treasures. Jerusalem is a busy
metropolis where the ancient and modern worlds
collide. It was “united” 40 years ago following
Israel’s triumph in the 1967 war. We have been guided
by an excellent professional Israeli guide named Ze’ev Beck. Yuval’s uncle (from Tel Aviv) knew of this manand he proven to be invaluable, even though he regularly scolds us for not being on time to the bus.
It is simply impossible to transform thirty travellers
into a well-oiled expeditionary force. There are
simply too many wills to reconcile. Still, he has
been a great resource and has helped us to appreciate
the sites and history of the country. We have seen
the view of the city from the Mount of Olives, visited
the extraordinary Holocaust Museum—Yod Vashem,
traveled to Masade and floated in the Dead Sea took a
mud path that left us smelling like sulfur for a day,
In a trip that has been non-stop highlights, we spent
a memorable afternoon in a Bedouin tent where we
enjoyed an incredible feast and were treated to a
great musical concrt by Yair Dalal—an Iraqi Jewish
oud and violin player who has recorded music with the
Bedouin tribesman who were our hosts. That same
evening—yesterday…it seems like a week ago already…we
saw an excellent concert as our first of four
professional oud/Middle Eastern music events that are
part of our trip.
Tomorrow I think that I am going to get up early and
go for a run in the direction of Tiberias. There is
still a ton of touring and music ahead of us and I
need a day to truly change gears. There are many
details and stories to share, but it is late and I am
needing some sleep. I think that I can figure out how
to access the Internet here at this kibbutz hotel and
send this to you back in the U.S.A. We are having a
fantastic time and are very blessed to be on this
journey........

Well, two more days flew by, the internet connection
was temporarily down when I went to send this, so it’s
now Tuesday evening November 20th. Yesterday our
group visited Nazareth and toured the Basilica of the
Annunciation and the marketplace of the largest Arab
city in Israel. It is a main destination for
Christian pilgrims looking to walk in the footsteps of
Jesus. Nowadays they have to wend their way through
countless souvenir shops and fend off overzealous
shopkeepers. Our tour continued to a Jewish-Arabic
pre-school called Ein Bustan where we sang and danced
with little children and heard about the Waldorf
philosophy of education that is seeking to lay the
foundation for better understanding and tolerance in
the upcoming generation of Israelis—Jews, Arab Muslims
and Arab Christians—who will inherit this beautiful
but troubled land. Next we toured the gallery of an
Arab Muslim woman artist in the Arab town of Arara and
a gallery in Umm El Fahm. These were rare and unique
experiences for Western tourists, most of whom would
never find their way to this place. We also had an
opportunity today to tour the mystical city of Tsfat
(or Safed) and see a 16th century synagogue that is
still in use today. Yuval’s principal vocalist, Najwa
Gibran, guided us to her family’s ancestral village of
Jeesh where we heard a presentation by the Arabic
Christian priest and a member of the local city
council. They shared the story of Kafar Bire’m, an
Arabic Christian town of 1000 people who were
displaced in 1948 and had their town bulldozed in
1952. They are still living as displaced persons 55
years later, waiting for the Israeli government to
honor an Israel Supreme Court decision that says they
should be able to return and rebuild their homes.
Today was the first day of the rainy season and it
made it a bit more difficult to navigate, but our bus
driver successfully negotiated the winding mountain
roads and returned us safely to the kibbutz. It’s
dinner time and hopefully to bed early tonight.
Now that we have reached the halfway point of our trip
I want to tell you that this has been a most inspiring
and challenging journey. If you have read this far, I
want to direct you to a website/blog that Faun Finley has created with the help of the
newspaper she works for in North Carolina:

http://blog.news-record.com/desertdiary

Though I haven’t checked it myself, I understand there
are enough stories and pictures to give you a better
sense of what we have been seeing.

Tomorrow is an early start for our journey to Haifa.

More to come…. Have a very Happy Thanksgiving. We
send you much love from the Holy Land.

D & R

I used Ze'ev in 2005. EXCELLENT tour guide. Invaluable. Highly recommend!!!