From the grottoes of Rosh Hanikra to the reefs of Eilat, from the Tel Aviv beaches to the canyons of Judea, I have known the sands of Israel. I am no son of this nation and I do not intend to become one, but I’ve watched the sands of Israel fall onto my grandfather’s coffin—seen […]
Just over two weeks ago, I stood at the border with Lebanon. Today I soak my feet in the Red Sea, at the opposite end of Israel. Eilat, just across the border from Aqaba in Jordan, is the quintessential beach city: crowded with tourists, loaded with tacky attractions, and hot. Like, holy shit hot. Satan’s […]
The town of Mitzpe Ramon is perched atop the precipitous Makhtesh Ramon, an erosion crater that was formed when Africa collided with Europe. The ensuing compression of continent against continent created a ripple, a folding chain of hills and valleys down what 70,000 years later would become the State of Israel. In a country so […]
The settlements of Bethlehem are around the city. The settlements of Hebron are within the city. The City of the Ancestors is home to 600 Jews and 250,000 Palestinians; these populations are separated by laws, fences, and soldiers. For hundreds of years, the Arabs and Jews of Hebron enjoyed a relatively peaceful coexistence. But in […]
The alumni of Livnot call it “Leave-not,” due to their tendency to stay on campus in Tzfat for days—even weeks—after the program ends. And yes, I still haven’t left Tzfat, though I spent today in Acre (pronounced “Akko”), a mostly-Arab city whose port is dominated by 900-year-old Crusader fortifications. Acre is all the way across […]
At the edge of the Artists’ Colony in Tzfat, a building riddled with bullet holes marks the dividing line between what were once the city’s Jewish and Arab neighborhoods. This building is the Antique Safed Winery. In 1948, when the British withdrew from the land that would become Israel, they offered to shuttle every Jew […]
“Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God,” wrote Kurt Vonnegut, who went to my alma mater, where he behaved considerably worse than I did. I took a peculiar travel suggestion last Sunday—to spend a week of hiking and community service at Livnot U’Lehibanot, “To Build and Be Built,” a Tzfat-based NGO that seeks to […]
According to Jewish tradition, there are four holy cities, each corresponding to one of the elements with which God created the universe. Jerusalem is fire—the spark at the center of the world. Hebron is earth—the burial place of our ancestors. Tiberias, on the Kinneret, is water—the final convening point of the Sanhedrin. And Tzfat, in […]
Caesarea, like much of the Israel of old, was built by King Herod, who—despite being barely Jewish, was appointed King of the Jews by the Romans in 37 BCE. As his way of saying thanks, Herod ordered the construction of the port of Caesarea over the Phoenician town of Strato’s Tower on the Mediterranean coast. […]
I spent the past few days Couchsurfing in Haifa. My original plan was to crash by a couple of nudists who live in the German Colony beneath the Bahá’í Gardens, but they’re having their house redone, so instead I’m staying with a New York-born Israeli and his bodyguard girlfriend. We’re not all getting naked together, […]
