Once again, it's been a very busy past two weeks. After my last post, Ashdod was enveloped in one of the worst storms I have witnessed in awhile. The rain wasn't particularly too bad, the occasional torrential downpour for an hour or so, but not constant rain like Vancouver. What was really shocking and terrible was the wind. I have never seen winds of this caliber in a city environment! They were strong enough to extend my walking time to school a full 10 minutes (pushing me back while I walked on the sidewalk) and the wind caused property damage to the villa, knocking down our entire fence outside and destroying a few chairs, not to mention sweeping away any clothes that anyone was silly enough to leave outside on the line (I lost a few socks...). The storm lasted for about three days, and now, thankfully, the weather has returned to normal, albeit a bit cooler. The average day temperature is in the early 20s while the night temperature drops to about 14 or 15 degrees Celsius.
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| View from the Golan Heights |
Last Wednesday, my group made a trip up to the North of Israel to take in some sights and enjoy some relaxing activities. We stopped at a few viewpoints, the first one being on the side of rolling hills on the border of Syria. The fences we stopped at blocked us off from the No Man's Land between the two borders, littered with land mines that no one wants to waste the resources to remove, and only affecting the occassional unfortunate cow! We then stopped at one of the coolest viewpoints in Israel at the Golan Heights. It overlooks surrounding countries, and has a direct Northern view of the mountains. Due to the weather from the storm and the drop in temperature, there was actually snow on the ground at the viewpoint and the mountains across from us looked spectacular, completely blanketed in white powder. I didn't imagine I would be able to throw snowballs in Israel, but I was proved wrong! In the afternoon, we made a relaxing trip to the Hamat Geder hot springs, natural hot springs stemming from the adjacent mountains. They were nice and comforting, a treat for sore joints and muscles from the previous week's army shenanigans, despite the fact that the smell was quite putrid, enveloping me and my companions with inescapable clouds of sulfur. However, I say, "Worth it for the relaxation!" The next morning, we took a trip to a kibbutz on the very Northern tip of Israel, high on a mountain overlooking a small Lebanese town which the Hezballah use as their headquarters from time to time. We had a guest speaker, an American-born man in his late 60s who was quite opinionated and right-wing. However, he was incredibly engaging to listen to, and honest about his outlooks and bias. He made me laugh on numerous occasions, perhaps not from comedy, but sheer shock at his matter-of-fact extreme statements. We then took a hike (when I say hike, I really mean stroll because there was no incline or anything resembling a challenge in the excursion) to the Banias waterfall. This was slightly disappointing for me, because everyone was so excited by their surroundings and the waterfall, but British Columbia offers forest trails and waterfalls that are a hundred times better. Nevertheless, the walk in the morning sun was refreshing and enjoyable.
Yesterday, my program took us on another day excursion to Jerusalem for a somber day of doom and gloom. We spent two and a half hours at Har Herzel, the most famous cemetery in Israel which sits on top of the mountain and is the final resting place of fallen soldiers, past prime-ministers and important figures in Israel's history such as Theodore Herz'l, Yitzhak Rabin, Chana Senesh, and Yonatan Netanyahu. The most interesting story we heard was about Yonatan Netanyahu, the brother of Israel's current prime-minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. He was the commander of a raid called Operation Entebbe/Operation Thunderbolt in 1976 after a flight on Air France from Tel-Aviv was hijacked by Palestinian terrorists and flown to Entebbe in Uganda where the Jewish passengers were held hostage. The IDF flew over 100 commandos to Uganda on a rescue mission, planning ther mission based on reliable intelligence they had received. They found out the exact car that the Ida Amin (the president of Uganda) drove, and replicated it in every way and flew it with them to Uganda. When they got off the plane, they drove right up to the gate of the building where the hostages were being held and weren't stopped the whole way there, due to the fact that the car was so convincing and the terrorists believed it held Ida Amin! This allowed them to to enter the building and rescue the hostages, sustaining very few casualties, except for one IDF casualty, Yonatan Netanyahu. This story seemed very incredible to me and I really enjoyed the other stories we heard in the cemetery, giving me an idea of the lives behind the seemingly endless rows of identical stones arranged on the ground in front of us. Our afternoon consisted of a trip to Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust Museum. Like last year on Birthright, I found this to be very hard to take, however, it was nice to not be part of a guided tour this time so I could go through the museum at my own pace and spend more or less time at different sections based on my preference. The videos displayed, containing first-hand accounts of the atrocities the survivors had endured were particularly hard for me to watch, and yet so captivating that it is hard not to stop and listen for a minute or two. I feel very honoured to be part of the last generation of individuals to meet and hear stories from actual Holocaust survivors and will fulfill my obligation to tell my kids about the Holocaust someday so they can know about and understand a uniquely horrifying segment of human history. There is no doubt for me that the Holocaust will be in the history books for at least the next millennium!
So that's it for now. As of last night, my friend Bianca from Vancouver is here and I am taking her all over the country over the next few days to give her a taste of Israel. I will fill you all in on our adventures sometime next week. Hope you're all doing great and happy holidays! It's weird to not be experiencing the onslaught of Christmas decorations, songs, and shoppers over here!
Ciao for now,
Max
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