The cultural treasures of Israel are sequestered by boundaries of politics and violence. One of the great tragedies of conflict is that it reduces access to the sum of human knowledge. A trip like Birthright, no matter how immersive, cannot be comprehensive, since much of the shared cultural heritage of this land is blocked off […]
It is Friday night in Tekoa, and my friend Nachshon’s mother lights the nerot shabbat. From the kitchen window, I can see the minarets of Beit Lechem—Bethlehem—where the muezzin sounds the evening prayer for the first Friday of Ramadan. Tekoa, an Israeli settlement considered illegal under international law, sits atop the Wadi Tekoa, a vast […]
“Tel Aviv is sweet, bro! For four days I would just sleep on the beach, wake up, smoke some hash, and go for a swim!” This was the advice I got from the bedouin tent DJ when I told him I was staying in Israel. He wore fingerless wool gloves in the middle of the […]
In a past life, I was Miles Davis. In this life, I can barely play the triangle. Anyway, your unemployed narrator who used to be Miles Davis was reminded of his previous self this morning when, on a brief deviation from his Sea to Sea Trek, he visited the shrine of Nebi (Prophet) Sabalan in […]
Were this a normal Birthright trip, it would now be over. Instead, we’ve only just begun our Sea to Sea Trek from the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Kinneret. A more technical name would be Sea to Lake Trek, since like most seas in Israel, the Kinneret is not actually […]
Israel is a country where the forces of geological time and human history are frequently—often simultaneously—evident. At Rosh Hanikra, on the border with Lebanon, railways tunnels built under the British Mandate lie mere meters from ancient grottoes, hollowed out over millennia by the pounding of Mediterranean waves on limestone. These caves are home to fruit […]
I don’t like to be nude around other people. After swimming lessons as a lad, I’d take off my bathing suit in the toilet stall; as an adult, I’ve mastered the art of changing underwear with my pants still on. I’m half Jew, half WASP, and while the Jew in me is beseder with the […]
We stand atop an extinct volcano watching a bomb detonate in a town just across the Disengagement Zone. We’re in the Golan Heights, where UN observers monitor the Israel-Syria border. This frontier was last defined in 1973, at the conclusion of the Yom Kippur War; currently, another war rages just across it, in territory now […]
I am effectively homeless. As such, I’ve been developing a healthy appreciation for facial hair, cheap booze, and crack. Not really (I still hate facial hair), but this Birthright trip is the ideal segue into the nomad life. We’re mostly off the grid, we’re not staying anywhere longer than a night, and last Monday, we […]
The Dead Sea is gross. Gross in the most incredible way, but gross. If I were more prepared, I would have brought the following: a bottle of sunscreen a large chicken Sunscreen because I couldn’t tell if my skin was burning thanks to the sun or the salt water (correct answer: both), and a very […]
