Rabbi of Temple Beth El

Wednesday, January 2, 2008 – The Flights Home

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 13:28:00 +0000

We arrived back into Madison mid-afternoon on Thursday, January 3. Our flights back to Madison seemed long, but were uneventful and mostly easy. Each of us is exhausted, yet thrilled to have been part of this monumental journey and pilgrimage to Israel. We will be reflecting on our journey over the next days and weeks, and we’re only beginning to make sense of what we experienced and learned there. Yet we feel that we are now emissaries who can relate more of the substance of Israel to our friends and family members, and try to relate to them the constant struggle she feels as she searches for the right pathway to peace.

Joanna Berke and Rabbi Jonathan Biatch, your bloggers and travelers

Wednesday, January 2, 2008 – Preparations for the Journey Home

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 13:26:00 +0000

We returned to the hotel for some packing or, for those who had gotten a jump on their packing the night before, for a final shopping trip to the Old City or Ben Yehudah street in West Jerusalem.

We boarded the bus and drove to the Haas Promenade, an outlook directly south of the Old City of Jerusalem from which, in the growing twilight of the day, we could see all of the city as it has grown and as it inspires today the fervor of three world religions. From there, we went to a delicious dinner at the Olive and Fish Restaurant, and then on to the airport for our 11:25 PM departure.

If, by the way, you wish to have an account of the security inspections and interrogations that we underwent before we departed Israel on Wednesday night, we are pretty certain that any one of us could give you a question-by-question description. Suffice to say that we felt very secure in boarding a place in Tel-Aviv.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008 – The Memory of Israel’s Founders

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 13:24:00 +0000

Our last tour this day was an excursion to the Israeli Military Cemetery on Mount Herzl. We visited the graves of Itzhak and Leah Rabin, Golda Meir, and the other Prime Ministers, presidents, and speakers of the Knesset who are buried there. (Menachem Begin and David ben Gurion requested to be buried elsewhere, and the State complied with their wishes. We also saw the burial site of Theodor Herzl, the one who is credited with pushing for the establishment of a Jewish state in Israel.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008 – Yad Vashem

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 13:11:00 +0000

A hand and a name – the translation of the name of Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Authority. This was our first and only stop for today, and perhaps a fitting end for our journey in Israel. This institution has as its goal the archiving of the victims of the Holocaust, and in so doing, has created a large and moving set of exhibits that are interactive and inspiring. From the initial entry into its museum (where no photos were permitted, unfortunately), we knew we were in a special place.

The Holocaust is, perhaps, THE defining event in the life of the Jewish state, as Israel’s creation was accelerated by the horrifying events of WWII, where six million Jews were systematically killed, along with five million other innocents.

First we toured the museum which told the story of the Jews of Europe, who were degraded and dehumanized by the growing Nazi machine. From the imposition of disabilities to the herding of Jews into ghettos, and then into cattle cars destined for death camps, the museum documents the horrible story of the deaths of six million of our family members.

We then went to sit together in the synagogue of Yad Vashem, where we learned a bit more about the heroism of one particular Jew who, under threat of death, preserved the dignity and importance of the Jewish New Year by copying onto a paper cement bag the words of the High Holy Day prayerbook, so that he and his fellow prisoners could worship in the camp where they were imprisoned.

Walking down the Avenue of the Righteous, we saw names the like of Raoul Wallenberg and Ichiro Sugihara, those non-Jews who are memorialized for their heroic saving of Jewish lives through their defiance of Nazi laws.

Finally we arrived to the Valley of the Communities, large granite and sandstone sentinels upon which, over a vast complex of valleys and cliffs, lovingly preserves the names of the shtetls that were destroyed in the Holocaust. We held a service of memory in the name of the Six Million who perished in the sanctification of God’s name.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008 – Independence Hall at night

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 03:27:00 +0000

Tuesday, January 1, 2008 – Independence Hall at night

Independence Hall is the site of the signing of the Declaration of Independence signed by 27 members of the Jewish coordinating council. You may be familiar with this photo that is made famous in books and articles, but to sit in this place of history was truly inspiring as we learned about Herzl, his mania-like passion for the establishing of the state of Israel, and how some of the signatories of the declaration had to sign it later as they were trapped in Jerusalem by the Jordanian blockade of the city.

We left Tel-Aviv at about 9:15, and arrived home very late, too late for us to post that night. So too the next night, so this post is actually written after our arrival back into the United States. More on the next day’s activities in the next post.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008 – Dinner at Maganda in the Yemenite Quarter

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 03:25:00 +0000

Tuesday, January 1, 2008 – Dinner at Maganda in the Yemenite Quarter

We had dinner at Maganda Restaurant in the Yemenite Quarter, just a three or four block walk from the Carmel Market. We were stuffed with multiple salad courses, lamb and chicken kabobs, and coffee and baklava for dessert. Wine also came with our meal. We were stuffed, but not too full to head on then to Independence Hall.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008 – Shopping in the Carmel Market

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 03:22:00 +0000

Tuesday, January 1, 2008 – Shopping in the Carmel Market
As if we had not had enough time to shop, Daphna let us loose in the open air Carmel Market, a Jewish market in the southern part of Tel-Aviv. For two hours, we bought and bargained our way through about four square blocks of shops and artist street fairs, and we saw some amazing sights along the way.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008 – Tel-Aviv – Jaffa

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 03:20:00 +0000

Tuesday, January 1, 2008 – Tel-Aviv – Jaffa

Our journey took us to Tel-Aviv / Yafo (Jaffa), the largest (geographically speaking, at least) city in Israel. We headed into Jaffa with rush hour traffic, to visit the old port city. Our guide Daphna mentioned that they had just uncovered part of the old Byzantine port (within the last ten days), so the archeological finds are going to be expansive here as time goes by.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008 – Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salaam

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 03:19:00 +0000

Tuesday, January 1, 2008 – Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salaam

Neve Shalom means ‘oasis of peace.’ It is a village located near Latrun the site of a famous battle of the 1948 Independence War, and is actually built upon a site of the abandoned Arab village Deir Yassin. (Read history of the pre-independence days to learn of the significance of that name.) Neve Shalom started in 1979 as an experiment in communal living of Arabs and Jews in Israel. Intended to be a community of 150 families, it still has only about 50 residents, one-third of whom work in the community (see below), and the other two-thirds work in conventional jobs in near-by cities.

Neve Shalom’s primary work has been on Jewish-Arab cooperation and coexistence, through programs for high school and adult populations in Israel. The subjects range from language and holiday celebrations, and similar cross-cultural subjects, to conflict resolution and management of problems that appear in the diverse religious populations of Israel.

This visit proved to be quite controversial, for our presenter (a resident of the community since 1984) suggested strongly, and then confirmed definitely through the Q and A, that he would like there to be a completely secular society in Israel, that there should be no distinctions between Jew, Christian, and Muslim. The main question in our group, especially after hearing from Colonel Gruber earlier in the day, was why this Neve Shalom presenter was willing to remain in Israel, or what made it a special place to be in any case? Why did he not live in America?

This set of questions gave us much food for thought as we made our way to Tel-Aviv, the significant metropolis of Israel.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008 – Ammunition Hill

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 03:10:00 +0000

Tuesday, January 1, 2008 – Ammunition Hill

We departed the hotel for a 9 AM appointment at Ammunition Hill, a series of bunkers and ammunition depots originally built by the British during the time of the British Mandate, but then turned over to the Jordanians during the years of 1948-1967. This spot was located at the highest elevated point in the region, commanding a view of the surrounding hills and looking down into the Dead Sea Valley. Today there are high rise apartments overlooking this spot, but as our tour guide would say with some frequency, if we had come there in 1967, we’d only be able to do it riding on camels.

We watched a film on the military significance of this location during the Six-Day War, and then also met with Colonel Ben Tzion Gruber, a reserve colonel and computer consultant who spoke to us about the modern-day task of apprehending potential terrorists / suicide bombers before they strike. Using a sophisticated system of informants, night-vision airborne drone planes, and ingenuity, they have been able to arrest over 98% or more of terrorists before they strike. He showed a film depicting these methods using actual footage and real-time intelligence.

The Qumran Community and the Dead Sea Scrolls

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:38:00 +0000

The Dead Sea community was a social experiment that lasted only 15 years, yet represented one distinct sect of our people that lived each day with the notion that the messiah would arrive during their lifetime. No account is certain when they existed there, but it was between two thousand and 2,230 years ago. They wrote the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, which contained both Jewish and cultic materials.

New Year’s Night – St. Sylvester’s Day

New Year’s Eve is called “Sylvester, and is becoming more popular as a time to go out to dinner, have a party, and generally to relax and bring in the New Year. At this writing we are about three hours before the start of the New Year, but restaurants are full and many Israelis are celebrating. We will throw ourselves a party in about an hour, and then it’s off for another full day of touring tomorrow.

The Dead Sea -- Muddy the Waters!

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:36:00 +0000

As we said earlier, the Dead Sea is ten times as salty as our oceans, so the water is not potable. However, there seems to be some medicinal benefit that one can derive from bathing in the water, rubbing mud all over one’s body, and dipping in the hot spring near to the hotel. The rocks on the shoreline are very sharp, and Jennifer left some of her DNA on the beach there. Seriously, however, some people cut themselves but the salty nature of the water helped to keep the wounds clean enough so that they can make it home to create a proper bandage. Here are some photos of our experience there.

Monday, December 31 - First Stop – The Ahavah Factory at the Dead Sea

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:28:00 +0000

Masada was the last fortress holdout of Jews during the first Roman revolt in the year 70 CE. One thousand Jews had taken up residency there, yet the order came down from Rome that the city must be razed in order to put down the Jewish revolt. Yet when there seemed to be no alternative, the Jewish residents of Masada committed mass suicide rather than be taken into captivity. According to Patricia Litscher, regarding her trip on the cable car up the summit: “The experience of something so spiritual is worth it, so as to conquer one’s biggest fears. (It always helps to have a Rabbi in your back pocket.)”

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:27:00 +0000

While others went to shop, others visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the traditional location of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus. Each Christian denomination has assigned a certain place within the church building to the “the” place where, accdording to their tradition, the Crucifixion took place. This church was crowded with pilgrims, local celebrants, and normal tourists like ourselves.

We then returned to the Cardo for some additional shopping for those who had not had the chance before, then came back to the hotel for rest and evening activities.

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:24:00 +0000

Some of us shopped in the Cardo (the ‘heart’ of the walled city), and some of us visited the Southern Wall excavations that have recently been unearthed. It was at this location that pilgrims coming to Jerusalem would stop to purchase animals for sacrifice or to exchange money to make their payments of the half-shekel head tax that was paid each year. In the Davidson Archeological Center they showed us an interactive 3-D simulation of the Old City history.

The Western Wall Tunnels

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:19:00 +0000

Then we walked underneath the Muslim Quarter for a walk along the newly-excavated tunnel that abuts the entire length of the Western Wall of the Temple precinct. It was a warm, narrow, confining walk along the almost 300 meter perimeter wall. Above us was the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, and below us through Plexiglas floors we could see the original street outside the Wall from more than 2,000 years ago.

The sign here reads "danger, entry forbidden."

The Kotel – The Western Wall of the Temple

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:14:00 +0000

We walked through a security checkpoint and arrived to the Kotel Hamaaravi, the Western Wall of the second Temple precinct. As you may know, the Western Wall is only the wall that surrounded the Temple and not the Temple itself. To the west of the Wall is a plaza where tourists, worshippers, and others gather at every moment of each day. They approach the Wall, engage in meditation and prayer, leave notes in the Wall to be read by God, and offer Tzedakah to enable the religious authority at the Wall to perpetuate its synagogue. It can be said that it is the most holy locale in the Jewish religion.

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:09:00 +0000

Views of the Old City from French Hill and Hebrew University, the Mount of Olives
From the Knesset we traveled to French Hill where the Hebrew University is situated. We circled the city, ending up on the Mount of Olives for a view of both the OId and the New city of Jerusalem.

Sunday, December 30 -- The Knesset

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:06:00 +0000

We left the hotel on a busy Sunday morning, Sunday being the first day of the week here in Israel. Through snake-like morning traffic, we arrived at the entrance of the Knesset Building, the seat of Israel’s government. We were not permitted to photograph inside the building, so we have no photos of our own. We were led into the main hall of the Knesset, that is, the chamber where 120 members of Knesset decide policy and direction for the country. We sat in the VIP section, alongside the President’s box, and where many foreign dignitaries have sat. Our Russian-born guide explained about the seating locations of the Prime Minister and his cabinet, the Coalition members and the opposition members. The president, in Israel, is only a figure-head, the Prime Minister being the leader of the country. The PM is not elected directly these days (There were experiments in the past few elections to do this, but they were not successful.) but rather is the leader of the party that gets the highest percentage of votes.
We also saw the Members’ Entrance, beautiful Chagall tapestries, and his mosaics that adorn the floor of a large ceremonial reception hall.

SHABBAT SHALOM AND SHAVUAH TOV!

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 18:19:00 +0000

We traveled to Jerusalem yesterday, and because today was Shabbat, we took the evening off. Here below are posts for yesterday and today (because today we saw wonderful things and participated in great activities), beginning with how we ended our day, at a wedding!

We went out to the veranda of our hotel and observed Havdalah in the colder temperatures that made themselves evident tonight. The veranda overlooked the south-western portion of the wall of the Old City, with its beautiful illumination and mosques with their characteristic green lights. With fondness for Shabbat, and reluctance to bid farewell to our celebration, we immediately adjourned to a . . .

Wedding Ceremony

Ken and Laura Felz wanted to renew their wedding vows, and did so here in the Holy City. With our group looking on, Rabbi Biatch helped them to renew the vows they took three years before, and everyone celebrated!

Free time to . . . walk, buy, relax, etc.

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 18:17:00 +0000

We had a fine lunch at an authentic Middle Eastern restaurant called Nafoura, just inside the Jaffa gate of the Old City. From there, some returned immediately to the hotel, some ventured down into the shuk (open air market) of the Old City. We bargained with the shop owners, sample sachlav (the thick, rose flavored beverage that is sold on the street), and saw and got jostled by every passerby in the vicinity.

Old City and David’s Tower Museum

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 18:15:00 +0000

Some slept in today and did not go to services, but we all met up at 12:30 this afternoon for a walk to the Old City of Jerusalem (the walled city), and a visit to the David’s Citadel Museum of the history of Jerusalem. From high atop the museum built into the Old City walls, we could see the quarters of the walled city (Christian, Muslim, Armenian, and Jewish), and get a sense of the enormity of the city, even though it does not encompass that much land. The Old City displayed its beauty for all to see, with its variegated colored rooftops, open air markets, satellite dishes (more viewers than cable), and the ever-present gold cupola of the Dome of the Rock.

HUC-JIR services and campus tour

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 18:13:00 +0000

Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) is originally an American institution, serving as an Israel-based anchor for American Reform Judaism in Israel. As a sponsor of archeological excavations in Aroer and Dan, HUC-JIR achieved a very high reputation for quality work, and the antiquities authority of the state of Israel has worked very closely with them since 1963. You can learn more about the work of HUC-JIR if you wish to see their website at www.huc.edu.

Shabbat morning services began at 9:30, led by the director of the Israeli cantorial program, Dr. Professor Eliyahu Schleifer, and the dean of the rabbinic program, Rabbi Na’aman Kelman. Jane Taves had one of three aliyot on the pulpit this morning.
After services and a lovely Kiddush and motzi, we briefly toured the HUC-JIR campus, seeing the library, the archeological center and the classroom building.

Shabbat at Kehilat Tzur Hadassah and home hospitality dinners

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 18:11:00 +0000

We rushed to freshen up from our long day, and then set out for Kehillat Tzur Hadassah (KTH), the small synagogue belonging to the Israeli Movement for Progressive Judaism with which we have established a special relationship, and with which we will be increasing the amount of contact between Israeli and American Jews.

Shabbat evening services and Kabbalat Shabbat lasted about 90 minutes, after which we divided our group into small 2’s, 3’s and a few 4’s, and were invited to dinner at homes of KTH members. It was a very enjoyable evening, as Galit, the ‘programs director’ of KTH, had asked about the professions of the group members and matched us up according to interests, professions, and other criteria. This was a two-hour experience, which made for a very late night, which is why we did not write yesterday evening.

Group members came away with a heightened understanding of the connection between American and Israeli Jews, and a great amount of enthusiasm for strengthening the connection between our two communities.

Arrival into Jerusalem

rabbi@templebethelmadison.org (Rabbi Jonathan Biatch) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 18:06:00 +0000

From Beit Shean, it was an easy (most of us were asleep, save for the driver, of course!) 80 minute drive to the outskirts of Jerusalem where we encountered traffic. Then within the city limits, it took us another fifteen minutes to travel the last three miles in pre-Shabbat traffic.
We assembled on the roof of the hotel for an arrival ceremony of new pilgrims to Jerusalem, and enjoyed a small ‘lechayim’ toast for our accomplishment.