April 29, 2003

Nazareth / Galilee

[Bethlehem, West Bank] JZ invited me to spend the weekend in Northern Israel. It felt good to get out of the West Bank for a while. I'm glad I can leave pretty much when I want. We rented a car and drove to the Lebanon border from the western side of Israel, then we drove back home to Bethlehem through the Jordan valley. I think you could drive around the entire country in a day. It's not very big.

The aqueduct at Caesarea. They have a new little restaurant there, but it doesn't have a bathroom.

We passed through the little artist's community of Ein Hod and through the Carmel Mountains. Ein Hod has an interesting story. It used to be a Palestinian village, but the residents fled during the 1948 war. They petitioned the government to allow them to return, but were denied under the Absentee Property Act. (The Absentee Property Act was passed by Israel in 1950 and said that land belonging to anyone who had left during the war was state property.) The Israelis living there now sure made it into a nice artist's community. There were a lot of hip little shops in those old Palestinian homes. We went to a museum, where JZ was reprimanded for eating an apple too close to the photographic exhibits. Eating an apple there felt right, since we might have been in an old kitchen. I think the original occupants would have been a bit more hospitable, and would have even offered us an apple or olive or date or fig. We left and ended up on the most northerly point on Israel's Mediterranean coast, Rosh HaNiqra. At this point we were closer to Beirut than Jerusalem. Here, the sea has cut caves into the cliffs, and visitors can walk through them. The water was really rough and really pounded through the caves. The roar of the water was so great that you had to scream to be heard. It was pretty exciting and, to be honest, a little scary.

We spent the night at the monastery in Tabgha -- the site where Jesus multiplied the loaves and fish. I think I got a bad fish for dinner at a nearby restaurant. I was sick all night. You know how loud an industrial strength toilet flush is in a dead silent monastery at 2am (and 3am and 4am)? Man, I was embarrassed to show my face at the morning service. I must have woken the entire monastery about half a dozen times. No one complained, but one monk asked if I was feeling OK.

In Kufr Kanna, the Cana of Galilee, the site of the wedding feast where Jesus turned water into wine. Churches here claim to have the original jars that held the wine. They were empty now though. But can you imagine having a bottle of that wedding wine? That must have been the best wine ever made. I'll bet that would be worth some money today.

The Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, the largest church in the Middle East.
The church is built around the Grotto of the Annunciation, the site where the angel Gabriel told Mary that she was to be the mother of Jesus. Lots of things in the Holy Land happened in Grottos (caves).