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Israel Trip Reflections
It is hard to believe that it has been 40 years since I spent a month on the shores of the Galilee at Kibbutz Ha On. In 1970, Kibbutzim were a welcome rest stop for young, weary travelers from such places as Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, America—people who needed regular meals and a chance to earn a few dollars a day to continue their journeys. My two friends and I were at 17, the youngest volunteers on Ha On, and probably the only ones whose parents paid for our trips. During that month of July, I tasted my first fig fresh from the tree, washed nicotine stains from cotton weeds off my hands at the edge of the Kineret, ate my first falafel dripping with Tahini sauce on a visit to Tiberias to visit a busted Bronx boy in the local prison, worked with the French Moroccan Jewish women in the kitchen, and fell briefly in love while under the romantic spell of a Kibbutz wedding.
Fast forward to July 2010 and my second trip to Israel—a whirlwind itinerary that I had nothing to do with planning. All we had to do was show up ready for anything. The “we” was my dear friend, Colette Brooks, Chief Imagination Officer of Big Imagination Group, an innovative marketing boutique. Our host and companion was David Lonner, founder and President of Oasis Media Group and passionate lover of Israel. David has been hosting intimate travel groups to Israel for the past several years, hoping to inspire in others their own deep relationship with the country. Our guide, hired for us by Da’at Travel Agency, was Yossef Idan. Yossef is a seventh generation Sabra whose personality and skills are an alchemical mixture of historian, scholar, student, “rabbi,” military leader and soul-brother.
Upon our arrival in Jerusalem, we met up with Yossef for the first time on the Haas Promenade overlooking the Old City in the early evening. Yossef wasted no time getting us into the spirit of the city and the country. He poured grape juice into tiny cups and shared a blessing in Hebrew, then encouraged us to feel the light and the stories of the city and its history. I was taken with a Jewish family and an Arab family picnicking side-by-side with multi-generations of family members enjoying the cooling off of the day and the spectrum of magic hour colors from cobalt to gold.
David and Yossef introduced Colette and me to an Israel that resonates with ancient history and vibrates with modernity, evokes pain, passion and a joie de vivre, an Israel that looks you in the eye and demands to be reckoned with. What surprised me during the densely packed visit was how personally I connected to the complexities of the country, its history, its people, the landscapes, the creativity.
Our itinerary ran the gamut.
We trudged ankle deep in clear spring water through ancient aqueducts outside the Old City following behind a group of American teens chaperoned by a handful of Israeli teens. The only noticeable differences between the young people were the machine guns casually slung over the back’s of the young Israeli women soldiers. An odd image of children protecting children.
In Jerusalem, we were the Shabbat dinner guests of a Moroccan Jewish family, Eli and Perla Ohayon, the parents of David’s friend, filmmaker Michele Ohayon. The flavors, spices, and array of dishes made for certainly the most exotic Shabbat feast I’ve ever experienced. But what moved me most were the people around the table. Love and respect was palpable. To witness an 80-year-old father laughingly and lovingly kiss his forty year old son (a father, himself, of three sons) on his forehead brought a sting of emotion to my heart that was a prologue to so many moments of emotional and intellectual awakenings during the trip. During an audience with Knesset member Nachmon Shai, a man not particularly given to romancing the issues, I felt for the first time that Israel’s very existence, certainly as a Jewish state, is truly at risk. Naïve of me, you must think, that it’s only now that I realize the dire critical nature of what’s at stake. I ask myself (now that I’ve returned to America), is it because I am Jewish? Is it because the State of Israel was designed to welcome Jews with open arms simply because we are members of this particular tribe? I don’t think there’s a way for me to truly be able to answer that question, so I will let it marinate and take time to find an answer--if one is to be found.
We visited Yemin Orde, a safe haven for high school age Jewish Ethiopian and Russian refugees that heals and educates their minds, bodies and souls. I saw how this oasis on a hilltop embraces them. It further made my heart and mind open to the necessity of a home for Jewish people cast aside and cast out by their former homelands. Yemin Orde resonates with love: the staff for their work, the young people for each other and their new home and life. I wanted to stay, to get to know the young people, hear their stories, contribute to their journeys. Yemin Orde is a place that will beckon me back to Israel sooner than later.
We climbed the Snake Path to the crown of Masada during the mid-morning heat, stopping periodically for water and a shot of history, courtesy of Yossef. All experienced a sense of accomplishment upon reaching the top and turning around to take in the vast desert surrounding Masada and the marked areas where the Romans camped to ready for battling the Jews – a battle that never happened as the Jews chose to die at their own hand rather than be enslaved, tortured or murdered by the Romans.
We floated in the dense aqua Dead Sea midday and slathered Dead Sea mud on our faces. We hiked in Ein Gedi, were amazed by the herd of ibex scaling the cliffside and finally cooled off under a luxurious waterfall. On the roads to and from Jerusalem one can spot Bedouin camps alongside the modern highways, probably as they’ve been camped for centuries, the only difference being the corrugated sheet metal shelters and, of course, the roads. People say that in LA you can surf in the morning and ski in the afternoon – what Israel offers in a range of activities in one day more than rivals anything LA can boast.
Speaking of surfing, Colette and I are both surfers and as we watched the corduroy lines of waves breaking from our hotel overlooking the Mediterranean, we committed to getting hold of a couple of boards and getting a few waves. We didn’t ultimately get to surf-- instead we crammed in a trip to Caesarea and ran out of time. The only bummer of the trip is that we didn’t surf.
While religion was not a focus for our trip, what I’ve always loved about Judaism is the invitation to question and debate. With that in mind, David Lonner introduced us to Rabbi Daniel Landes of the Pardes Institute where we had the opportunity to debate the meanings of a Talmudic story about a tzizit wearing man and the courtesan he engages.
Meals were amazing. I remembered from working on the Kibbutz all those years ago how much I loved the fresh tomato and cucumber, homemade yogurt, tahini and crisp salads. The breakfast buffet at the Mamilla in Jerusalem was a Middle Eastern feast fit for any king or queen. I’ve already gushed about our Moroccan Shabbat. The outdoor restaurants along the sea or in old Jaffa were exceptional both for the food, the ambiance and the people watching. Our dinner companions were some of the hippest, brightest and most fun creative talent living in Tel Aviv. We dined in a tiny garden next to the original home of the Bezalel Art Academy with one of Jerusalem’s most successful businessmen and dedicated arts philanthropists who introduced us to James S. Snyder, the director of the newly transformed Israeli Museum. The pièce de resistance of meals was a roadside stand on the way to Yossef’s moshav. Off in a cleared cluster of tall trees stands the carnival like brown wagon of a middle-aged Iraqi Jewish man named Duey who cooked us up meal of shakshouka, humus with homemade olive oil, tabuli, baba ghanoush, cooked salad, peppers, olives, pita…topped off with his wife’s homemade fig jam and a gorgeous mint tea. What I wouldn’t do for that lunch right now.
We sat in the living room of an Ethiopian grandmother who served us a traditional round loaf brown bread and coffee while she and another Ethiopian mother told us their stories, both Jewish refugees, both suffering the tragic losses of a grandchild and a child respectively to the Qassam rocket attacks from Gaza into their town of Sderot. The visit was followed by an interview with a psychologist who specializes in trauma and PTSD who works with children and adults in Sderot. Exponentially disturbing is that the treatment providers who live in Sderot also suffer trauma equal to their clients. Driving through the streets, we saw mural-covered bus stops that double as bomb shelters. It is beyond heartbreaking to hear the stories and look in the eyes of these women who are both victims and survivors and to know that across the border in Gaza are women with similar stories and suffering.
Throughout the trip my eye would catch a head-scarved Arab woman or a head- covered Orthodox Jewish woman. I ask myself why we women can’t sit together with mint tea or strong coffee sharing our traditional breads and sweets to share our stories across a table that crosses borders and connects our hearts and minds that governments and politics divide? Our trip was not about politics but the question, Why? repeats itself like a syncopated chant without end
I share with you some of these highlights and memories but having just reread this, I realize I forgot to include the day we had a personal tour through the Museum of the Jewish People, or Yossef’s most sensitive guidance through Yad Vashem, or the visit to the Wailing Wall where I left a prayer for my daughter, or setting off the alarm (!) to an art gallery in Neve Tzedek while trying to leave my daughter’s fine art photography calling cards in the door, and on and on and on.
Israel’s stories, colors, smells, its expanse of land and history, its complexities of emotions and politics, its energy of creativity and sheer perseverance are now part of me. And I feel a responsibility to pay a personal dividend for this investment I’ve banked in my soul.
Stephanie Allen recently retired from her position as Co-Executive Vice President of
Marketing at Fox Searchlight Pictures in Los Angeles to focus an MFA degree program
in Interdisciplinary Arts at Goddard College. Allen began her tenure at Fox Searchlight in
March 2000 as a Senior Vice President of Creative Advertising and spent ten successful
years with the company.
