As part of the Fulbright excursion, we took a jeep ride through the Negev desert, guided by Bedouins.  We will never again look at a desert landscape and think that it is barren. The Bedouins make use of EVERYTHING in the desert.  They can find water in the most inhospitable environment and they make use of every plant and animal. They even use animal scat as fuel for fires (it is so dry in the desert that the poop is dehydrated and has no odor.)  Our driver’s name was Jabber. He did not speak any English, but he was so passionate about the desert and the Bedouin way of life, that he had no difficulty communicating with us (it also helped that we had someone to translate his Hebrew.) Even if we hadn’t had a translator we would have understood most of what he was saying because he was so animated (while he was driving!)  The photos below pretty much say it all.

View from a mountain top overlooking the Dead Sea.  Just a few minutes ago we were driving on that road down there.  Now we are on top getting ready to head into the desert.

Another view from the top, about to enter the Negev desert.  Below you can see I-90, a major N/S road through Israel and the West Bank.

Getting ready to head into the desert.  One jeep was open-air, two were covered and one was air-conditioned.  We rode in one of the covered jeeps – the best choice in our opinion. Riding in the open would have been too hot and sunny, and riding in an air-conditioned jeep would have prevented us from hearing and smelling the desert.

Our driver.  He was very smart and a lot of fun.  The more we egged him on the more he gave us some thrill rides, i.e. up a steep mountain and stopping just before we headed down the other side!

Desert landscape – early morning sun.

More of the Negev.  A few hours later.  Early afternoon lighting.

The Fulbright group.

Some of the driving was not for the faint of heart. But the views were amazing – unlike anything we had ever seen before. A small number of folks were afraid of heights or had motion-sickness and I don’t think they had as good a time as the rest of us.

Water cisterns built by the Bedouin.  The hole under the cistern taps into a natural spring and the trough on the top traps rainwater for herds of goats and sheep.

Lunch stop!

The black ridge that runs through the middle of this photo is a shale deposit.  We saw many shale fields in the Negev.  Likely oil underneath the ground.

One of our guides showing us how you can use a plant to wash your hands.

On the way out of the desert and back down to the Dead Sea, we saw this wild male Ibex goat.

A Dead Sea sink hole.  There are thousands of them along the banks and they are very dangerous. The sink holes have formed because Israel and Jordan are diverting water that used to flow into the Dead Sea from the Jordan river. As the Dead Sea recedes, rainwater washes down from the surrounding mountains and dissolves the age-old salt and mineral deposits that line the banks. This opens up large underground caves which are dangerous because in many places the earth still looks normal on top until some unsuspecting hiker steps on it or drives over it.

Tues, Oct 16th.  We attended a Fulbright orientation meeting at the United States – Israel Education Foundation (USIEF) office in Tel Aviv were we met the United States Ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro.  Ambassadors can be either career foreign service officers (FSO) or political appointees. Shapiro is the later; appointed by Obama.  He was impressive – he spoke at length extemporaneously, graciously acknowledged the Fulbright staff by name, and spoke passionately about the U.S. need for a Jewish, democratic, secure, State of Israel.  I was so impressed that I’m going to put his picture in our blog:

U.S. Ambassador to Israel.  His actual title is “Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary.”  Check it out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Ambassador_to_Israel

After the Ambassador, we heard security briefings, travel warnings, etc. from State Department Security Officers.  After a nice lunch, we headed out on a Fulbright-sponsored excursion with approximately 20 other Fulbrighters and Judy Stavsky, the Fulbright Deputy Director.  The group was a mix of faculty (~5), post-docs (~10) and graduate students.  We visited the Ein Gedi Botantical Garden and had a jeep ride through the Negev desert with Bedouins!  More on that in the next post.

Sunday, Oct 14th. Today we visited the Israel Guide Dog school. As some of you know, we are pretty passionate about our volunteer work raising puppies for Guiding Eyes for the Blind in New York so it was only natural for us to visit the guide dog school outside Tel Aviv.  The school was founded in 1991 by Noach Braun to help blind people in Israel achieve independence and mobility through the use of guide dogs.  They provide dogs free of charge to those who need them.

They have a lovely, well-organized, peaceful campus.  We spent time talking with Noach, and his wife Orna. They are very passionate about helping the blind and visually impaired in Israel and clearly love their dogs.

They breed and train mostly Labrador retrievers, and a small number of German Shepherds and lab/Golden Retriever crosses.

Their kennels are spotless! They keep 2-3 dogs to a run because dogs are happier if they have a kennel mate to play and sleep with!

This is the training course where they train the dogs to help people avoid obstacles high and low!

This is another training area and also where they let the dogs out to play and run.

This is the community run that connects all of the kennels together. This is where the dogs are let out numerous times a day to interact with other dogs and people.  It’s pretty warm year round near Tel Aviv, so they have a tarp over the top to filter out the sunlight.

All of the dogs were happy and relaxed.

A view of the kennels from the outside.

The entrance to their on-site veterinary clinic.

This is me and Marty with Orna Braun, co/founder, Puppy, Breeding and Kennel Manager.  And that is “Daria” a yellow lab brood from Guiding Eyes for the Blind in NY (Guide dog schools often trade breeding dogs to enrich and improve their gene pools.)

Marty’s son Todd, visited us from Thursday, Oct 4th until Friday Oct 12th.  We had a GREAT time with him. We didn’t take as many pictures as we usually do, but here is the rundown on all that we did:

Thurs 10/4 – Todd arrived mid-day and in the evening we had dinner at the Jerusalem Botanical Garden followed by a concert by the Jerusalem Symphony orchestra.

Fri 10/5 – wine tasting (at 9AM!), followed by breakfast in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, right across from the Cardo (old, excavated Roman road from the first century CE).  We all had Shakshouka, a delicious dish of poached eggs and cheese cooked over spiced tomatoes and peppers.  Then we walked all through the Old City, visited the Artist Colony and had dinner at Adom on Feingold Street.

Sat 10/6 – Todd and Marty went to morning services, then we all went to Nataf, an Isreali settlement in the Judean Hills for brunch at Rama’s Kitchen, followed by a concert at the Abu Ghosh music festival.

Sun 10/7 – we had a lovely day, capped off by a very nice dinner with Todd’s friend, Itzik’s family.  The food was delicious and the family was so very warm and gracious.  They have a beautiful home and we ate outside on their terrace in their spacious and lovely sukkah!

During the week, Marty and Todd visited Ein Karem (where John the Baptist was born and lived).  They also visited Ben Gurion University, the Air Force Museum, the Bedouin suk and the Negev Independence Memorial in Beer Sheba, rode the bikes up to Mount Herzl and around Jerusalem.

Todd is fluent in Hebrew, having spent at least two years living in Israel in his younger days. Among many things, he told us about Thursday night Challah/bakery tours, taught us how to prevent the shopkeepers from pushing us around, and showed us how to figure out the difference between cottage cheese, yogurt, sour creme and Bulgarian cheese in the dairy case at the grocery store!

Marty and Todd at the kotel (Western Wall)

Abu Ghosh concert (we didn’t know Todd didn’t like Opera!)

Sunday, Sept 30th.  We loved the wine (Odem Mountain Winery Volcanic Cabernet Sauvignon 2008)  so much at dinner last night that today we drove to the Golan Heights to visit Odem Mountain Winery. The owner was a very nice guy and who knew a lot about wine. We bought another case of wine!  I hope we can bring some of it back with us.

Marty with Yishay Alfasi. Yishay owns Odem Mountain Winery along with his father and brother. Their flagship wine carries the Alfasi label.)

After driving around the Golan Heights, we also drove to a Druze village (Majdal Shams).  The city is right near the Syrian border and the inhabitants are considered Syrian citizens by the Syrian authorities. Syrian universities are open to them free of charge.  They are also considered permanent residents by Israel and could elect to become citizens although only ~10% have done so, but all can travel freely through the county and study at Israeli universities. Israeli state services are freely available to them such as the Kupat Holim health insurance.

After Majdal Shams, we drove back to Sfat in the Galilee where we briefly checked out the artist colony high on the mountain.  We didn’t have much time as everything was closing for Sukkot so we’ll have to go back.  You can check out more details on Sfat here.  As with most phonetic translations of Hebrew names, there are various spellings of Sfat, i.e. Safed, Tzfat, Safat, etc.

Saturday, Sept 29th.  Today we visited Rosh Pina, a small town and artist colony in the north of Israel, in the Upper Galilee on the eastern slopes of Mount Kna’anin.  Rosh Pina was settled in 1882 by Romanian Jews.  At the time, the area was part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Rosh Pina is one of the oldest Zionist settlements in Israel and literally means “cornerstone.”  The early Romanians, determined to build a village from which they could eek out a living, named the village from Psalms 118:22 “The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.”  The original 30 families derived their livelihood from the production of silkworms using mulberry trees donated by the philanthropist Baron Edmond de Rothschild.  However, lacking a source of edible agriculture, the community did not survive and was abandoned for many years.  Recently it has become a thriving tourist town with lovely, extensive, terraced gardens containing the original mulberry trees.
We stayed overnight at Ahuzat Hameiri, a lovely mansion that has been in the Hameiri family since it was built in the late 1880s (photos below).  We had a lovely dinner at Auberge Shulamit. The food was delicious and the wine (Odem Mountain Winery) that the next day we drove to the Golan Heights to visit the winery!

Hamerei Mansion where we stayed overnight at Rosh Pina

Entrance to our room at Hamerei

The jacuzzi in our room!

Our room!  Check out all of the stained glass!

The private terrace outside our room – all for us!

Rosh Pina is filled with paving stones and buildings made out of stone, similar to the “Jerusalem” stone found in Jerusalem.  For my geo friends, Jerusalem stone is limestone but with a very characteristic pale color.  I’m not sure if the stone in Rosh Pina is also a form of limestone, but I’ll bet it is.

Breakfast was on a lovely terrace overlooking the valley.