Bedouin Tents, Masada & Ein Gedi

Sunday, June 17

After breakfast and checking out of Leondardo Inn in Jerusalem, we went to Yad Vashem, which is the Holocaust Museum. The first thing we did was watch a video on one of the Holocaust survivors from a small community in Greece - Yad Vashem has a project where they would interview various survivors and take them back through their old hometowns, to the camps and other locations relevant to their personal journeys; it was a touching film, seeing this man describe how he lost his community, and met his future wife in the camps, and the family he was able to build.
Following that, we had a guided tour of the museum, stopping at notable information spots. The tour included a visit to the Children's Memorial, which was a dark hallway with five candles and mirrored walls so it looked like hundreds of stars were surrounding you. It was a lovely illusion. The trip ended with a visit to the Hall of Names, which has a conical ceiling containing photographs of Holocaust victims and bits from pages of testimony. The hall is surrounded by books which contain all the known names of the victims along with their pages of testimony.
I would have liked to have more time there, because there's so much more than the little bit we saw. But we had to leave - though should I ever return to Israel, I'll be sure to make another stop here.

After lunch, we visited went to Mount Herzl and the National Military Cemetary (which is actually across the woods from Yad Vashem). The soldiers travelling with us were dressed in their uniforms out of respect. Mount Herzl is named for Theodor Herzl, who was the founder of Zionism and advocated the need for a Jewish state (in fact, he died at age 44, 44 years before Israel became an independent state) - he is buried in his own special location near the entrance.
The cemetery houses the Presidents and Prime Ministers of Israel, as well as Knesset (parliament) speakers. We were told about Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin (a Prime Minister who was assassinated, and so he has a more unique gravestone as well). The Military Cemetary is another segment of Mount Herzl. We visited the grave of Michael Levin, an American who moved to Israel to fight in the Paratroopers Brigade in the Israel Defense Forces. He was a charismatic, friendly and outgoing guy who had a deep love of Israel and really wanted to be a part of the army. He was killed in action in Lebanon, which was a great loss to his friends, the army, and his family. Hundreds of people attended his funeral.
We also visited another grave, one that belonged to one of our soldiers - Ehood. I wish I could remember the name of the man, but Ehood grew up with him and told us his story. It was incredibly touching, and it really allowed us to connect with Ehood and the other soldiers.

We had a long bus drive south to the Judean Desert where we would camp for the night in Bedouin tents. We dropped off our bags and went back out to the front where there were a few lines of camels waiting for us (that is, about five to each line and they were tied together by ropes). Two people each got on a camel and we rode them for about ten minutes. It was actually a really fun experience.
Then we were ushered into a tent and Ami was up front with one of the owners of the area. Ami translated for this man who told us about Bedouin culture and hospitality. Following that, we had dinner in sort of a communal style. We had meat, rice, pitas and salad. It was really good.
We went back to our tent for a little music and conversation. The soldiers set up some improv games for us to do, which turned out to be hilarious.
There was an unexpected program, one not planned by Birthright. One of the Birthright participants, Evan, actually works for NASA and he offered to do a stargazing lecture. A good deal of people followed him out to the desert, all carrying spare mattresses from the tent. We lay down, watching the stars and listened to Evan talk about stars, suns and galaxies. It was another special moment for our group and we all really appreciated it.
Sleeping in the tents was surprisingly comfortable. We had plenty of mattresses and sleeping bags (though I had to make do with my towel and sweater to use as a pillow). The night was so warm, though I kept hearing about how chilly it could get.


Monday, June 18

First thing, we went to Masada. I was especially looking forward to this day. Masada is an ancient fortress that overlooks the Dead Sea. It is best known for the Jewish revolt in the Jewish-Roman War in the first century CE; the Romans had besieged about a thousand Jewish people there. The story goes that when the Romans finally broke through, they found all the buildings on fire and the inhabitants dead as a result of mass suicide.
Legacy aside, it was a really interesting place to tour. We climbed up first by the Roman Ramp, which was an easy walk and took about twenty minutes. Ami took us around, telling us about each room we visited, including the bathhouses (which has preserved paint on the walls), the synagogue and the rebels' final location. At the end, we walked down by the Snake Path, which took forty minutes and was a brutal walk in the heat of the sun. Downhill tends to be easier but this was just a long, plodding walk with only two shaded areas: one past the middle and the other at the bottom. We did get a recovery break at the lunch hall and gift shop, where we could sit and rest in a nice air-conditioned building.

We then went to the Ein Gedi spa where we could enjoy the Dead Sea. But before we did that, we had a Mifgash Summary. This is where we said goodbye to our soldiers (though they stayed long enough to enjoy the Sea with us) and some people said some really nice parting words for the soldiers. They also received gifts that we brought and Canadian flags that we all signed.
We ate lunch at the Spa (which was really boring cafeteria food - some people, including myself, were a little bitter that we hadn't eaten at the Masada food court instead, which had much better selection! We were told we had coupons to use at Ein Gedi, so we did that instead.) There was an option to dunk in the pool or take the shuttlebus to the Dead Sea (though the pool contained Dead Sea water as well.) I and a few others opted to go straight to the Sea. We took flip-flops and water shoes to wear because the sea floor is pure salt and very rough - it would be the worst place in the world to get a scrape!
The Dead Sea is 33% salt content, and about eight times saltier than normal ocean. It inhabits the lowest elevation on earth, being 423 metres below sea level. The high levels of salt makes it uninhabitable for any sea/animal life, hence the name.
It was kind of funny to float in there; I was just bobbing around most of the time. We did a quick black mud scrub (the mud sits in boxes, which you rub on yourself and then wash off with the nearby showers - supposed to be great for your skin.) Then we headed back to the bus and said goodbye once more to the soldiers.

We headed all the way to Eilat, Israel's southernmost city. We checked in at the Arcadia Hotel for the night. I went to bed early as I could, because we had a really early wake-up call the next morning - another hike! I will write about that in the next entry.