Today we visited the room of the last supper, King David’s tomb, old Jerusalem, the church of the holy sepulchre, and the western wall. Having a private Kabbalat Shabbat service at the wall was pretty cool.
Must say, I did not expect to see a BAMA gift shop in the Arab quarter of Old Jerusalem.
@jym626 isn’t cool to see all the different religions in the 4/5 quarters all getting along peacefully. You can see a monk walking next to someone orthodox next to a priest. That was eye opening to me.
@Knowsstuff - agreed. The quarters of the old city, the Armenian, the Christian, the Jewish, the Muslim, all seem to coexist.
Yesterday we went through the western side of Jerusalem and got that iconic photo of jerusalem and the mt. of olives. Then went to Masada and floated in the Dead Sea. Both are definite “must do”s.
Interesting info about the military: Ben Gurion made an arrangement with the ultra orthodox that the few thousand studying in the yeshiva would be exempt from the military. Well that few thousand is now 60,000. But if they remain in yeshiva they may be as old as 26 when they finish and may be married with several children and the military doesn’t see them as useful at that time, plus the government would have to support these families, which would be more impractical.
Just looked it up - one source says there were only 400 or so ultra orthodox studying at yeshiva when Ben Gurion initially excused them from military service (if anyone cares).
^^^^ I knew the military rule, but not the reason. Yes - interested! Thanks for sharing. I think you are writing my itinerary if I am ever so lucky as to find Israel in my plans!
The (adult) son of the tour guide has several amusing army stories and has his own opinion about the ultra orthodox and was not disappointed that most do not serve (they can volunteer if they choose to).
Today so far we visited a huge humanitarian hospital with large underground bomb shelter and the ability to function as a fully functioning underground hospital during any times of danger. This hospital serves Israeli, Lebanese, Syrian war injured and has state of the art neurosurgical and maxillofacial specialties, with 3D printers on the units for reconstruction. This hospital is 6 miles from the Lebanese border. Next was a visit to a kibbutz that sits on the Lebanese border. Very interesting and heart tugging story of its history. Now we are off to Tiberias. So tired from this hectic schedule I forget what we are seeing there.
Today we planted a tree in Galilee for the JNF, Tiberias, Capharnam/ Kfar Nahum (where Jesus preached) and a small town in the Golan where we went to a museum and then a whiskey distillery! In that area was also the golan winery and a brewery!
We also went to an Israeli (IDF) outpost on the Syrian border from the 1973 Yom Kippur war. We are right on the border with Syria, and yesterday we were right on the Lebanese border. This is not a traditional tour.
I am sure your perspective of the going ons in Israel/Middle East might change a bit.
Hold it… Are you still there for tomorrow’s election? That should be interesting.
Yes we are here for the elections. Leave early Wednesday. Will be interesting
And one of our group fell and injured herself at the last stop, so we had to go down this road with ridiculous hairpin turns and then along the Jordanian border, crossed over the river Jordan by the sea of Galilee (which they call Kinneret) tothe hospital.
Re your post #89… actually it sounds pretty standard to me! (And wonderful.). Glad you are getting such a wide view, although it sounds like you won’t have time for the southern end of the country (Beer Sheva, The Negev, and Eilat). You’ll have to plan a revisit!!
@jym626 Enjoying your updates. When you get back, check out Shtisel on Netflix. It is the story of a father and son in an ultraorthodox neighborhood with an emphasis on relationships. In Hebrew and Yiddish with English subtitles.
@janjmom - our tour is kinda heavy on the military stuff, and going to the outpost that was overrun in the 73 war was, per the son of our tour guide, not a typical stop. Nor was the whiskey distillery 
Today is Election Day. We will be heading to Nazareth and a Baha’i garden. Zvat is apparently having too much construction so we will miss it.
Went to Nazareth and the beautiful Baha’i gardens in Haifa and am now at the shore (very crowded as Election Day is a holiday). Waiting for election results - but it’s all in Hebrew!
You can get English language news from Israel at https://news.google.com/?hl=en-IL&gl=IL&ceid=IL:en .
There is a station from Paris broadcasting. Am watching at the hotel.
@jym626 it sounds like it was an amazing trip! You saw so much in a relatively short time. Thank you for sharing it with us. I was away and missed all the live updates but I’ve very much enjoyed catching up.
To anyone still reading here, I have a family member who is planning to work in Tel Aviv next year. I’ve checked out secrettelaviv on her behalf but if anyone has any tips for finding other Americans working in Israel, potential roommates (I think she gets corporate housing for the first month or two only), or ulpanim that would be good for meeting others, I’d love anything you’ve got. (She will not be an olah so I’m not sure how useful nefesh b’nefesh is.)