Headed home

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May 10, 2012 Haifa/Jerusalem



Haifa is a beautiful little city built on a small peninsula in northern Israel. It has a busy port and is known for the large number of high tech/computer companies doing business here. One of the first things I noticed was a small passenger ship tied up next to the military side of the port. I recognized it as a Turkish vessel that was in the news recently when it was attacked by the Israeli navy when it attempted to break the blockade of Gaza to the south though no one has pointed this out. I was soon to find out that there are many things in Israel that are not talked or scrupulously ignored even when in plain sight.



Today we took a long bus ride to visit Jerusalem. We stopped at the holocaust museum at Vad Yashem. This incredibly beautiful and moving memorial sits on a forested hilltop just outside the city. I don’t know how anyone could see something like this and not be shaken to the core by seeing the horrifying evidence of such unimaginable loss. One of the most moving experience for me came when I stood in a large room, dimly lit by a single flame with the names of concentration camps from around Europe written on the floor; Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Treblinka, Babi Yar, etc. It was in these camps that 6 million men, women and children were murdered during the Second World War. There may have been other visitors in that room with me when I was there, but I don’t remember anyone around me. I felt like the only living being in a void where once 6 million stood. I walked from there to an even more moving memorial to the more than 1 million children who were killed. A visitor to this area walks through a darkened room along a twisting path lit only with tiny candles that appear to swirl above and all around as two voices read the names of children who were lost giving their ages, and where they came from. I don’t remember the specific names but it went something like this: “Abraham Steinberg, age 11, Czechoslovakia; Anna Pavlovskaya, age 8, Poland” and on and on. Words cannot describe the feeling.



But life goes on. I stood looking at the beauty of the ageless hills that surround Jerusalem, and could feel the power of the human spirit to over come even the most awful tragedies. The Jews have clearly prospered in this country. It is a modern, westernized, and vital nation that we are told is the only real democracy in the Mideast. I saw beautifully maintained farms, high tech industrial zones, massive housing projects and miles of gorgeous beaches. But I also saw and experienced some things that gave me pause. It is hard for me to know how to put it, but in essence I get the feeling that in their relations with the Palestinians, the Jews in this country are in some respects adopting some of the same tactics the Nazis used against them 75 years ago. I don’t mean to say that they are in any sense as murderous as the Nazis, but all you have to do is look around Israel to see hundreds of thousands of Palestinians cooped up in walled compounds and treated like second class citizens or worse.



Our guide to the walled part of old Jerusalem was an example of the Zionist point of view. He focused almost entirely on the government version of all the atrocities committed by the Jordanians and other Arab countries. He mentioned several times that God promised that the Jews were to have all of the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. To him there is no occupied West Bank area. He said that Muslims have absolutely no rightful claim to anything in Jerusalem, and to hear him talk, Christians have little claim to it as well. God gave this land to the Jews and that is that. Not one mention was made of the plight of the Palestinian people, nor would he even acknowledge their existence.



Now you might say that maybe this was only the opinion of one man, but I got a similar feeling everywhere I went. People just don’t talk about certain subjects in this country. I had the feeling that I needed to look around me to see who was listening before I asked certain questions. The highway from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is actually a narrow corridor that runs through areas that are largely Palestinian. The Israelis have erected huge cement walls all along the road ostensibly to help keep the highway safe from snipers and terrorists from attacking traffic. It is a creepy feeling. I understand the need for safety but what I don’t understand is how the Jews expect to live in a country where a huge number of people have to be contained behind walls. In the end it makes me wonder who is walling who in. The military presence is overwhelming. Soldiers with machine guns are everywhere. We just happened to be at the Wailing Wall at the same time as several hundred military recruits were having some sort of graduation ceremony. Every single one of them carried a machine gun.



May 11, 2012. Today Bill and I took a train from Haifa to Tel Aviv to attend the opera. Orpheus and Eurydice by Gluck was playing at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center. The opera house is actually part of the beautiful, modern Golda Maier Center for the Arts in the center of the city. It was a wonderful performance and played to a packed house. This was a Friday afternoon matinee because at sundown, just about everything in Israel shuts down for the Jewish Sabbath. I enjoyed walking around Tel Aviv and having coffee at a couple of lovely sidewalk cafes. Tel Aviv is a very cosmopolitan city and orthodox Judaism is less pervasive, but it is still very much a Jewish city.



May 12, 2012 The last day in Israel. We toured the ancient fortress at Acre a few miles south of the Lebanese border. The Crusaders once had a fort here. I wish I could have had more time to explore. Nautica left the port of Haifa in early afternoon and we are now on our way to Athens, the last leg of the journey.



May 154, 2012 Clear sky, beautiful Mediterranean spring. I am at Athens airport on my way home via Munich and Chicago.

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Photos

Acre
Mosque at ancient Acre near Haifa, Israel

Acre
diving cliff at the port of Acre

Jerusalem
view of the old city with golden Dome of the Rock at the center

Wailing Wall
heavy military presence at the Wailing Wall. It looked like some sort of military graduation. Every soldier had a machine gun.

Wailing wall
View of the Wailing Wall in the old city of Jerusalem

Jerusalem
Jenohn at the Wailing Wall