We got a day off every Friday from about 11 am to Sunday morning at 3 am. My roommates and I would use this time to travel around Israel.
I mostly remember the three of us going to Jerusalem. The first time we went there, was before they even took us to the kibbutz. We landed in Tel Aviv, and they took us by bus, late in the night, to a place right outside the old city of Jerusalem. Have I mentioned that I was naive, and had no idea about anything, including Israel or Jerusalem??? Well, I was. I guess one of my 2 friends knew about it, and decided the first afternoon we were there, we needed to go for a walk to the Old City. Well, I didn't really tune into the city right away. It was more like we had an very unusual experience straight off.
We got into the Old City, and we meet this guy right away, an American who says he is a free lance reporter. He tells us that he is supposed to meet these two Arab guys right now for an interview, and do we want to come. We say ok. I mean we are like in the old City 5 minutes when this happens. He says ok, but whatever you do, don't tell them you are Jewish, say you are Christian.
So we go with him, to some back alley, and there the guys are. This is for real. Well the reporter starts talking to the one, he is saying how unfair Israel is treating Arabs and not giving them rights. Well, I start talking to the other one. He asks me right away, if I am Jewish. I say no, I am Christian. He accepts that, and then he asks me out on a date for dinner. I say no, it is all very awkward. Luckily, the interview ended soon and we got to go.
I think we went back the next day and walked around the Arab market looking at all the exotic stuff for sale. This was the Arab Market in the Old City of Jerusalem. being as ignorant as I was, I had no idea of the history, and how a few short years before it had still been Jordon. This was 1971. There were tons of embroidered dresses, and I liked that. We didn't know that in the Arab culture any woman walking around by herself, uncovered as we were, was considered a whore. My one friend and I were busy looking at dresses. Suddenly our other friend appeared very upset. The shop keeper had pulled her into the closet, and was trying to molest her. She thankfully got away. We were much more careful after that.
We went back to Jerusalem a bunch of times while we were at the kibbutz. I did finally tune into how awesome the Old City was. The massive wall around it is ancient as well as the buildings inside. We went to the Wailing Wall, the most sacred place for the Jews. We went to the markets alot.
We always went to Jerusalem on Friday, and Friday evening is Shabbat. They would close the place down for Shabbat in the New City, which was where we would stay. So you had to get there in time. One time we didn't, and our chance to get a room was over. We were stranded in Jerusalem without a room. We couldn't go back to the kibbutz, the buses stop running too. We were standing there, not knowing what to do, when we see these two American guys standing there, looking as lost as us. We talk to them and they are in the same dilemma. So we decide to all try to find somewhere to stay together. We start walking around and very soon meet a man named Abram. He says he has a room for us. We go, and the place is awful, but it is a place. He takes our money and leaves. We all stayed in the same room, it was so creepy. Lucky for us girls the guys were there. In the middle of the night, in bust these drunk Moroccan guys who only speak French. One of the American guys spoke French. He said they wanted all our money. This was Israel, where people bargain. I say, tell them we will give them 2 shekels each, or something like that. They said ok, we give them the money and they leave. We heard them downstairs by the doorway the rest of the night. We were scared, stayed up all night and left at first light. We decided to go tell the police. The policeman said, show me this place. When he got there he laughed and said, do you know what this is? This is a condemned whore house.
Another interesting story is one of my two friends was a staunch Woman's Libber. We were hungry and went to a place with an Arab man selling falafel and other items with meat. There was big rotisserie with meat going around. My friend said I want one with that. The man said that is only for men. After a huge argument he actually sold it to her. I was much surprised.
We also went down to Eliat on the Red Sea. It is very hot, there were no trees at the time. Just tall red mountains, and gorgeous blue sea. There was nothing there in 1971. I guess now it is a tourist town. We took a bus, and it dropped us off at the beach. The bus was full of young people. At the beach was a shack selling coca cola. We all just slept on the beach. It was so beautiful. The sea was amazing.
The last few weeks we were there, the program took us on a tour. We went back to Eliat, then to Jerusalem. We visited the Mt of Olives. We went to the Dead Sea, which is incredible because you float like a cork. This was August, and it is the lowest place below sea level on the earth and VERY hot. Then the next hour, they took us to Ein Gedi. The tour guide did not say where we were going. Ein Gedi is an oasis, where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls. We started walking in that heat, going up hill. Ever so slowly, little streams appeared out of no where with fresh water. As we kept walking up the hill, the streams got bigger and more vkept appearing. Finally we ended up at Ein Gedi. It is a big pool in a grotto. There were waterfalls everywhere, that we could slide down. And there must have been hot springs, because some were hot and some were cold. I didn't want to ever leave. It was so nice being in all that fresh water!
We also went to Masada. That place was intense. It was in the middle of the day in August. So hot and dry. We had to walk up this long, steep, path to the top. There were sunken tile pools up there. The air was so hot, you could see it in waves.
We went to Bethlehem also. That was very interesting. We went to where they claim Jesus was born. We had to bend down and kind of crawl through this little door that opened into a big, open church like place that was covered completely with old paintings of the nativity scene. I guess 3 different Christian Religions claim the place.
I had 2 crazy experiences on that tour. One was in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Old City is surrounded by an ancient wall. The water supply to the city in those times was outside the wall. To get it, they chiseled a tunnel, by hand, through a section of the wall, for the water to come inside the city. It was done this way to keep the city safe. You can actually walk through this tunnel now. It is the width and height of one man, the ones who did the chiseling.
Our tour guide announced that we were going to do this, and said if anyone had claustrophobia not to come. I wouldn't say exactly that I had that, but it just didn't sound that inviting. I said I didn't want to go. Well for some reason he felt compelled to talk me into it, so I went. My mistake, I was the first one in the line to go. It was a long walk, through water up to our waists. I am not sure how long it took, but it seemed like at least 20 minutes or more, surrounded by rock. We finally got to the other side, and there were a few steps up to the opening. I started up the steps, and thought " I am in trouble now". There was a huge group of little street kids there. For some reason I felt apprehension and I was right. I got to the top of the steps, and the kids all jumped me, and I landed in a shallow pool of water. I was flat on my back, and they were swarming all over me like flies over a piece of meat, grabbing my body parts, including my private parts. I was flailing my arm, trying to get them off of me, trying to keep my head above the water, and trying to yell for help. No one in the group heard me, and they were all oblivious to what was happening to me. Finally, I broke away, and got out of the water shaking. No one was aware of what I was going through. I told the tour guide, and he felt terrible for talking me into it. He was a very nice man. After I got up, I saw some of these kids smoking cigarettes. They must have been from ages 5-10. I felt very sad for them. I wouldn't recommend going through the tunnel.
The other weird experience was in Jericho. It is another one of these very below sea level places, it was August and it was HOT. We got off the bus, and there was nothing there but a Arab man with a cart selling Coca Cola on ice. We all hightailed it over there to him to get something to cool off. This college tour I was on had about 18 woman and 2 guys. One of the 2 guys thought he was being funny, and so he says to the Coca Cola man " I'll sell you anyone of these girls for a sheep and a goat". Well this guy thought he was serious. He starts looking around at us all. He probably thought he had died and gone to heaven. He looks around, comes up to me, strokes my cheek and says " I'll take this one, she's dark". I was dark, from a summer of weeding cotton in the fields of the Negev Desert. I knew this guy wasn't kidding and I got scared. I never did see the ruins of Jericho. I took off to the bus, got on, and went and sat way in the back, and waited for the group to come back.
My very last day in Israel I went to Jerusalem by myself. I was walking around the Old City, when I felt a constant pinching on my butt. I turned around and it was a man following me down the street, pinching my butt. I yelled at him and he ran away. I somehow wandered into a huge church by myself. It turns out it was The Church of the Holy Sepulchre. There was this monk swinging an incense burner and he says to me, "come, come". I follow him. This place was huge, dark, and kind of bizarre. The wall were plastered with old painting of Christian nature. We get to this old stone tomb and he points and says " Jesus, Jesus". OK..... Then he says "come, come" some more, and he takes me to this glass window with objects behind it. There is what looks like a human skull and he points and says " Adam, Adam". That is when I cleared out of there. It was all to strange for me.
Later as I was wandering around, trying to buy a camel leather hassock, I met a nice fellow American guy who was my age, trying to buy one too. It turns out he was from Long Island, and had been in Israel for a while and knew his way around. So we spent the rest of the day, with him guiding me around. He took me to what some people considered the Last Supper Room. It was up a flight of steps, and was just a narrow empty room. We also each bought a beautiful Sterling Silver and Crystal Honey dish, for Rosh Hashanna, for our mothers in the New City. It was a shop just loaded with items, and it was run by an old couple from the old country in Europe. it was only 5 dollars, and I have it, and cherish it as a family heirloom.
That was my last day in Israel. I took a bus to the airport and spent the night playing cards with a guy who was waiting for his flight too.
Well, my father's plan worked. I only smoked pot once when I was there! Actually, I am very thankful to my father for sending me there. I was young and oblivious at the time to what Israel meant to my people, and what Judaism meant to me. I was just a teenager working on a farm, wandering around a foreign land. but now, as a 58 year old woman with more understanding (thank God), the experience means very much to me. Now, I understand all the places I was, and their deeper meanings. I am thankful to have seen old Israel. It had only been a new country for 23 years when I was there. I am thankful to have lived in the old kibbutz system, that has for the most part died away. My daughter spent 9 months there, a few years ago, and I was very thankful that I had been at the places she would tell me about, and there weren't just empty words to me. I am very thankful to my father, for sending me to the Holy Land, the land of my people and religion. It has added meaning to my life, maybe not as much then, as it has now, in more recent years.
copyright 2010 © Stacey Bander. Please contact for any reuse.
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