March 2 to March 9, 2009 Many Trips

March 2, 2009 Stan; What great day and a record setting one: 3 lectures, 1 museum, and 1 concert and we still had time to eat.

After morning lectures at Pardes, we took #21 bus to the Herzl Museum on the bottom of Mt Herzl. One follows Herzl life from one stage to another as one goes from one room to another. Also displayed his is complete library transported from Vienna. They also recreate in smaller scale the Basel venue of the first of several International Zionist convention where an actor on film delivers some of his speeches. The tour ends with a wonderful travel log thru current Israel showing an amazing landscape and diversity. Most moving! Without his vision it is hard to see how Israel would come into being after only 50 years from his dream and goal. On the National Cemetery above, Herzl has the most prominent burial site. His whole family is also buried here along with a memorial to his daughter killed in the Holocaust. Next is Jabotinsky as the second most prominent tomb followed by Rabin , then all the Prime Ministers of the early period and key Zionist Presidents. We also visited the soldiers graves from1949 thru 1973 wars. Very emotional experience there.

Took #13 bus to Jerusalem Theater for concert by Meitar Ensemble , piano, clarinet, bassoon, violin, & cello and 2 soloists playing modern music by Steinberg ( ‘Magregot Hanistar’) and Seroussi ( ‘The Yearning of a Duck’, 2008 premiere). This Monday 5pm series always has at least one Israeli composer and today all 4 pieces were by Israelis. Very interesting and unique.

We walked home, eat, and went to David Hartman’s lecture on Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan and his unsuccessful attempt to change 20th Century Judaism in America. Hartman tried to do the same with orthodoxy





March 3, Tuesday Stan: Concert at Jerusalem Music Center for choral acapella group named the Prophets for the Perfect Fifth. Wonderful music from 5 singers in an interesting venue in Yemin Moshe area. This community was one of the first built outside of the Old City in 1880’s for working people. It turned very bad over time, was neglected for a long time, and then restored after 1967 to the incredible quaint homes with no streets just stone walkways with incredible views of the Old City just across the valley.

March 4 , Wednesday, Roberta: Trip to Bibleland Museum
Just as the Jewish people has had a major influence on the world, so have other cultures influenced us. A huge museum, The Bibleland Museum, documents cultures and records of ancient peoples of the area of modern Israel and the Middle East. I have to admit I thought "Bibleland" would be a theme park for families where you could ride chariots, view David slaying Goliath, etc. But it is nothing of the sort.

There were twenty rooms, each dedicated to either a time period or a non-Jewish culture. Two findings intrigued me. One was a picture from very early, pre-Abraham Egypt showing two grown men being circumcised.

The second was an exhibit of ancient seals with references to the Canaanite period about 6000 years ago. The seals were cylinders about the size of a large modern postage stamp rolled up. One rolled the cylinder on wet clay (like a rolling pin without handles). This established the authenticity of the document, which had been written on a clay tablet or an urn containing wine or food. So the reference in Genesis 38:18 when Judah gives his seal, cord, and staff to Tamar refers to his pledge or word and identifies him.

People who did not have seals gave their word by placing fringes of their wearing apparel on the tablet or document, like placing the fringes of the talit on the Torah on the spots where the Torah reading will begin and again when it ends. The particular details of the fringe also served to identify a particular people (like a national costume). The blue thread on the talit was prescribed by Moses as an identification of the Jewish people by their clothing. (I don't have the exact reference--somewhere in Exodus)

We never lived in a vacuum.




Stan: went to concert at YMCA of same group heard yesterday this time with a musical accompaniment. This YMCA is a famous 1920’s building which was a pioneer in construction style and location outside the Old City. The concert hall was very beautiful with great acoustics. Roberta: Singing was in the renaissance style in Hebrew Latin, Italian and Ladino. The quintet consisted of two counter tenors, two tenors, and a bass—all had wonderful voices. They sang in two choirs from the back and front of the hall with a spectacular sound. Among the composers were Gabrielli, Monteverdi, Rossi, and Carlo Grossi. The latter two used Hebrew texts from the Hebrew prayer book and from psalms in a renaissance style which I usually associate with Latin texts.. A lively encore of “Had Gadyo” in Ladino ended a wonderful and unusual program.

March 5, Thursday evening , Roberta: Our 4th straight night of concerts! This was a program entirely of Ladino songs—Ladino is Spanish of the renaissance era with some Hebrew thrown in. The music sounds romantic and passionate. The ensemble was fabulous, especially the two singers, Ofer Klaf and Esti Kenan. The instrumentalists were excellent and included a woman who played the “ethnic cello” which is a cello-like stringed instrument with many string pegs—it is difficult to describe because I was too far away to see in more detail. Jerusalem is a city of music.

March 5, Thursday. Stan: Trip to Land of the Philistine Boarded with Judea in the time of Joshua, the Prophets, and Samson.

Pardes arranged this day trip with Shulie Mishkin as guide. We traveled southwest from Jerusalem to Tel Bet Shemish where the tribe of Dan fought against this Canaanite city, which was originally founded in 1500 BCE and destroyed 100 years later by a lawless tribe of Ipirus—whether these became Hebrews is controversial. There is an ancient clay tablet which records a plea from the king of this city to the Egyptian king asking for help to repel these wild invaders. (from Roberta: The Egyptian king seems to have put it in the ancient equivalent of a circular file.) By 900 BCE the city was Jewish and functioned as a fortress/border town against the Philistines who wanted to expand from the coast inland. Samuel 1:4 describes a large battle against the Philistines in the valley around Bet Shemesh where Samuel brought the Arc of the Covenant from Shiloh to the battlefield. Unfortunately the Philistines won the battle and captured the Arc. Mysteriously the Philistine god, Dagon, fell and broke causing the Philistines to test the power of the Arc of the Covenant by tying it to nursing cows and letting them loose. If they returned to the cart carrying the Arc to the Israelites instead of their calves, they would know the power of the Arc. In Samuel 2: 13, the Arc was carried into Bet Shemesh and the people rejoiced.

Saul and later Samson fought the Philistines here. In 701 BCE the Assyrians conquered and destroyed the city, which was rebuilt only in the last fifty years.

Next we traveled to Tel Tsafit, a huge capitol Philistine city in the time of King David. David hid from King Saul here.

We then traveled to Tel Lachish, a major city bordering the Philistine land and the second most important city in the Kingdom of Judea. You can see the attack ramp the Assyrians constructed with 13,000 tons of stones in 705-701 BCE. The ramp is very similar to the one constructed by the Romans at Masada 770 years later, although slightly smaller. Pictures of this battle were found in the ruins of Ninevah. After the Assyrian destruction, the Jews returned and rebuilt the city.

One hundred and fifty years later, the Babylonians attacked the area. In the “Room of the Letters” archeologists discovered a piece of pottery saying, “we can’t find the lights of Azekah and hope to see the lights of Lachish.” Of the four city on this side of Judea , only Lachish survived after the destruction of Azekah, but soon fell to the mighty Babylonians and their torch lights of Lachish were no more.

Roberta: What happened to the Philistines? The Philistines, originally from Cyprus and other Greek islands, immigrated to the coast of Gaza and Israel sometime after the time of Moses. Their culture seems to have been warlike and they were able to conquer lands far inland. They were a very adaptive people according to the leader of our trip. They took on many aspects of cultures who conquered them, ie their pottery changed from a Greek to a Canaanite style. This guide felt they were so adaptable that they simply became part of the conquering Canaanites, Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians. They were probably not identifiable as a people from the time of the Babylonian conquest (about 550 BCE).

When the Romans defeated Bar Kochba in 136 CE., they were so angry about revolt that they determined those areas which revolted, i.e. Judea, Samaria, Israel, Syria, would be eliminated forever, literally wiped off the map. They named the area Syria-Palestina, the latter being the Roman name for Philistines, as a major insult to the remaining Jews. Thus the name Palestine was born—named after an already extinct culture. The name stayed through the ownership of the Ottoman Empire and through the British mandate. Oddly enough, anyone born in the area whether Jew, Christian , or Muslim was legally a Palestinian. The Jewish Brigade in the British Army of World War II was named the Palestinian Brigade although it had only Jews from then Palestine. When Israel became a state in 1948, the leaders did not want to keep a name imposed by an enemy and named after a former enemy; So they chose the name Israel. Yassar Arafat who was born in Egypt (not Palestine) decided to use the term Palestinian so that the world would think only the Arab Muslim Palestinians were the true historical owners of Israel—it was a brilliant public relations move.

March 9 , Monday, Stan: We went to Kfar Saba a city of 400,000 about 20 miles north of Tel Aviv by taking the #437 bus to Haifa and exiting at Ra’anana, the adjacent city bus terminal. We visited Dina and Zvika, old friends of Roberta’s friend Sonia both Sabras and musicians. They live in lovely home with a great garden. Kfar Saba was originally a town for Yemenite immigrants in 1949. Since then the town has grown tremendously, the Yemenites have developed and their homes have gone thru modernization so that the town looks great and of course has many high rise apartment buildings as every city in Israel. Dina played beautiful piano pieces by Schumann, Bach, Chopin, and Mozart.

From there we took the train to B’nai Brak and got lost walking toward B’nai Brak and were rescued by taking a cab to 28 Rav Kook home of Joe and Mazel Resnick, a first cousin of my mother, once removed. Their grandson Miro and beautiful wife Mo and new very cute and sweet son were there. After homemade humantashen and other pastries made by Mazel we left for Tel Aviv. We took #62 bus to Dizengoff street. We walked toward the sea and walked north to the edge of the boardwalk several miles to Benny The Fisherman restaurant at the old harbor. We had a wonderful salad dinner and then walked 3 miles to Arlozorov bus terminal for #480 bus to Jerusalem