Jerusalem Light Festival - part one

We were able to do the White route and the Red route, then get back to Tel Aviv for the night.

These are all lampshades that were decorated by children

The aleph is a high-def projection (this is just one scene in a sequence).

Projection on a wall

Very cool 3-D projection.  We all got 3-D glasses.

The butterflies flew around in these silhouettes.

Outside of the old city wall, near Jaffa Gate

View walking back to Jaffa Gate.

City wall on the left, sidewalk down to Jaffa Gate on the right.

There will be another installment, because I'm going back to go on the Green Route, down to the Damascus Gate.

Ghetto Fighters' Museum

We went up to Akko to go to the Ghetto Fighters' Museum (בית לוחמי הגיטאות).  It was a simple train ride to Akko, and a local 271 bus (NIS 6.60 = $1.75) out to the museum.  It has a beautiful view of the Galilee and it's a terrific museum.

View to the east of the green Galilee

Har Gamla, at the edge of the Golan Heights

The museum has specific collections about the Holocaust, hiding Jews, and Jewish resistance.  Downstairs, there's a big room with black walls on two sides that contain artifacts.  You can turn on lights for the boxes and get more information on them.  One of the other sides has a very big projection screen, with this playing on it continuously.  I was very taken with this artistic expression:  it's most similar to the outside exhibit at Yad vShem that has a stone canyon with city names, called Valley of the Communities.  My little video is just a tiny overview, please imagine being overwhelmed by the floating letters.  Any town name takes 10 seconds to form, but only 1 second to be dispersed.

Dead Sea (הים המלח) day holiday

We went to the Dead Sea for the day, and carried off a transportation coup (if I do say so myself).  There's a direct bus (Egged #421) from Tel Aviv (Savidor station), but you need to have reservations, which I had made.  Picking up the tickets was surprisingly easy.  We actually had reserved seats (5&6).  The bus went through Jerusalem, and went south near Jericho and along the Dead Sea.  There was a road washout between Jericho and Ein Gedi, but we didn't need a detour, just had to wait because of one lane of traffic for a few miles.  Of course, the bus wound through Ein Gedi and Masada before it got to the hotels and beach at Ein Bokek (עין בוקק).  I learned that the opera performances are on the Dead Sea side of Masada, which would make it an accessible performance for me (some day).

We took advantage of the nice public beach which I used last year with Anna F.  The weather was cool for the Dead Sea in June (37C), but it was just fine.  The return bus #421 left at 1400, so I had only purchase one-way tickets.  We were able to take advantage of a much later bus (1830) that would return to Beer Sheva (Egged #384).  That goes up the steep side of the mountains and through Arad.  I had forgotten that the bus would talk us past Ben Gurion University and my old apartment.  So then we picked up the train to Tel Aviv, and got home.

Museums and Yafo

My friend Sheila came to visit, so we went to the Hagana museum and Irgun museum (both in Tel Aviv), then walked to Old Yafo.

Some nifty shopping was done, and I swapped out the stones for my Yemenite earrings, so look out!

Shabbat in Givat Zeev

I got to spend shabbat at Rabbi and Margalit Friedman's in Givat Zeev.  There were a number of people over for dinner from Bridges for Peace.  It was a nice quiet shabbat, and Rabbi Friedman did a short study on the parashah.

Tourist day

My Hebrew teacher recommended that I go to the original Tel Aviv city hall, and Rubin's house.  They are very close together, and close to my apartment.  The heat has passed, so today was a good day to be outside.  The city hall building (בית העיר) is very pretty, and has lots of photos and memorabilia from Tel Aviv's early days.

I went to the Rubin museum which has a number of his paintings and wood cuts, photos of his life and career, and his studio.  He was the first ambassador to Romania from Israel, as well as capturing life in modern Israel's early days.

And on a culinary note, I needed to buy my second bottle of olive oil today (first one was small, but still!).

It's hot in Israel

Temperatures on 5/27/2015 in Fahrenheit

I didn't expect to be blogging about the weather, but when the American Consulate sends out an alert because it's so hot, I guess I can comment, too.  They forecast a high of 113F in Tel Aviv, but it only got up to a humid 102.  I planned my day accordingly.

I reluctantly made a trip to the infamous Supersal grocery store to buy a few things I couldn't find at the shuk.  Walked all the way up there because it was still temperate at 0800.  Much to my surprise, the store wasn't crowded and was very calm.  They didn't even have a security guard at the door.  It was like going to HyVee.  I worked my list, heard no yelling, saw no line-cutting, paid for my bag of goods, and walked back.  Why was each trip to the store in Beer Sheva a candidate for counseling?  I sure don't know.

I met my Hebrew teacher's sister, Gal, by the shuk to give her something.  We picked up her daughter from preschool, and walked around a little.  I bought some sunscreen, pulled my big drapes on the west window, stayed in for the hot afternoon.  I didn't want to get dehydrated or sick from the heat.  Today was the bad day, it is forecast to be back to normal by Friday.  And there's a chance of showers: