A Day in the Desert

This morning, my friend Mike, along with his wife Shara and daughter Daphne, for a trip down to Masada and the Dead Sea on a cold, overcast day. Thanks to construction delays and bad directions, we got significantly lost before finally making our way below sea level. As you drive to the Dead Sea, you find yourself in the Judean Hills. When people imagine what the land looked like when Abraham first came to Canaan, this is what we most often envision. Scattered along the hillsides are Bedouin encampments, essentially small shantytowns. Nearby you see young boys herding their goats and sheep. One anachronism I saw was this home, a shack of loose pieces of corrugated metal, with a satellite dish installed on the roof. I guess this Bedouin has his priorities!
Along the way we stopped at Qumran, near the shore of the Dead Sea. Qumran was the home of the ancient Essenes, an ascetic sect of Jews, who isolated themselves from the world in the caves in the area. They practiced a very different type of Judaism from what we know today. Most importantly, they were the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest surviving texts of the Bible, along with many other important texts as well. You can see one of the caves where the scrolls were found in the photo below, between Mike and me.

We next headed down to Masada, King Herod’s ancient fortress and the site of the zealots’ last stand against the Roman legions. When we arrived, I found that my friend Jon (who I met last night for drinks) was finishing up a tour, so he joined us for lunch at the base of the mountain. There are three ways to get to the top of Masada: the Roman Ramp side is a significant climb, but not too difficult, the Snake Path is a challenging, windy hike up the face of the mountain, or you can take a Cable Car. Given the weather and having a 4 year old with us, we opted for the Cable Car. We spent several hours on top of the mountain fortress, exploring the remarkable ruins. This was the first time I visited Masada in the cool winter. Normally, when one visits in the summer, you climb before sunrise, so you can get to the top and tour before it gets too hot. Since it was cool and overcast, this made for a very pleasant afternoon on the mountaintop. As we explored the ruins, we were also overcome several times by the natural beauty of the desert, and simultaneously the thunder of modernity, as fighter jets flew overhead patrolling the border every 20-30 minutes. We finally made it back down for a little break at the base camp.

We continued heading south and made a stop at a beach on the Dead Sea. Though it was definitely too cold for any but a few Europeans to go swimming, Shara did take a moment to dip her feet in the mineral-rich waters. As we stood at the lowest point on Earth, we could see how the drought is affecting the waters. In many places, the shoreline has receded several hundreds of feet. While this is partially due to Israel’s diversion of water for drinking and farming, the years’ long drought has taken its toll as well. Interestingly, though, several sections of road were partially flooded with waters flowing through the wadis, or dry river beds, swollen with water rushing down from yesterday’s rains.

Mike drove us to Beersheva for two meetings. First we visited his 86 year old cousin Shoshanna. Because she did not know how to tell us where she lived, I had the chance to practice my Hebrew several times while asking for directions. Several people I stopped told me they only spoke Russian, as Beersheva was one of the central locations for placing refugees from the former Soviet Union. We then met Mike’s friend Dani for dinner. Dani is a photographer on the staff of Ben-Gurion University, who lives in the old city of Beersheva, one of the only cities in Israel actually built by the Ottoman Turks. This neighborhood is undergoing a revitalization, as students and artists are turning this once neglected town into a trendy arts district. Over dinner, once again our conversation turned to politics. Dani is a far-left leaning liberal, who struggled with his vote in this election. In the end, the small party he supported did not garner enough votes to be included in the Knesset. Again though, he seemed to feel that a two-state solution, with Israel’s withdrawal from the majority of the West Bank, was the only path for peace. After a long day, we finally made it back to Jerusalem near midnight.

The headlines in Israel today focused on two matters. Of profoundly more importance was the meeting today between Tzipi Livni and Bibi Netanyahu. Netanyahu hoped to convince Livni to join him in a national unity government. If they formed one together with the Labor party, they would be able to work together without being held to the whims of the Religious Right or Radical Left parties. Interestingly, Kadima, Livni’s party wants her to join, though she continued to refuse it today. Ehud Barak of Labor wants to join the unity government, but his party will not allow it. However, all have agreed to talk more in a few days, and hopefully progress will be made.
The second story is tonight’s Oscars. The film “Waltz with Bashir” is nominated for Best Foreign Language film. If it should win, it would be the first Israeli film to earn an Academy Award. I imagine at the time you are reading this, you will already know the results.

Another long day tomorrow. The “pre-conference” begins with a trip the North, visiting the ruins of Beit Shearim and the ancient mosaics at Tzippori. We will also meet students participating in the EIE program, the Reform movement’s High School in Israel program, at Kibbutz Tzuba.