AM HAYAM IN (or, On the Bus with Erez) by Diana Landau Cast of characters: UNTIL A FEW WEEKS AGO, most of us probably took for granted that Erez Pinhas (Abbago Travel) (funds permitting) we can fly all over the world to explore the past and present of alluring, far-off places. I can’t think of anywhere in the world Steve Berrick & Cindy Fox we could have had a richer travel experience than on our recent Israel Jane Dorval trip — so many thanks to Erez and the Am HaYam leaders (especially Yvonne Gunzburger Renate) who made it happen. And I hope I never again take for granted Judy Keller the privilege of being free to travel. Rebecca King Diana Landau (your reporter) Sunday afternoon, February 23. When Greg steered our car into Jane Dorval’s Eastham driveway—filled with luggage, travelers, and loved Lauren McCloud (Renate’s daughter) ones—it got real. Through a convoluted web of circumstances and more Kathy Shorr than one mitzvah, I was on my way to the Land of Israel with a lively, Carolyn & Len Solomon voluble, lovable group of Cape Codders from Am HaYam. Plus a huge Renate Wasserman bonus, girlpal Kathy Shorr as roommate. Paul Nimans (GalilEat) At the end of a smooth ride to Logan with Jane, daughter Becky, and

Driver Dan, we found a clutch of other AH’ers at the El Al bag drop,

where we were grilled mercilessly by cute, apparently teenage security “I was amazed by the changes since I personnel. Judy Keller, bless her, shepherded eight of us into the Air went to Israel in 1990. The country may France lounge, and that’s really all I want to remember until we landed have dramatically changed but the spirit in Tel Aviv many hours later. Erez had dispatched a van, and we perked and warmth I remembered are still there. up when we saw the pretty, comfortable Melody Hotel, just a hop from My commitment to my Jewish heritage the beach. We had one night there to start, two more when we circled was renewed, revitalized, and reinforced back to TA near the trip’s end. (All three hotels in the Atlas boutique by the trip. Perhaps the most special part chain featured inviting beds, nice staff, and over-the-top breakfasts.) was being a part of a group of friends who all experienced what makes Israel a After a scant hour to rest or stretch our legs on the beach, Erez appeared such special place.” to bundle us off in several taxis to old Jaffa, five minutes away. “Meet in —Judy front of Abouleàfia,” was the order, so we gazed hungrily at the and other treats on display at this venerable bakery while the cabs pulled “We had "the best" hummus in Tel Aviv, up. Inside a dim Turkish restaurant then for the first of countless "the best" hummus in , "the yummy meals, virtually all (we would find) built around the heart of best" hummus in Akko, etc. One day we hummus and . But so not like we knew these foods from the actually had 2 lunches so we wouldn't supermarket; we were hummus gourmands before long. (See Erez’s miss the hummus.” recipe below.) —Yvonne Day 2: We board our magic carpet for the tour, a plush Mercedes 14- “Kfar Masarek is the that sticks seater van. Our pilot, the fearless Kobi Abbergil, is a military pensioner with me, maybe because it felt like of awesome skill, threading Van through the narrowest alleys. Off up the remnants of the old life there remain. coast to Caesarea, where Herod the Great curried favor with his Roman You could feel the living history of the masters by building them a deepwater Mediterranean port with all the place. Benny grew up there, and so amenities. (A trip theme: how did Herod have time for all that building? knows the life of earlier times, like the Masada, the Second Temple, on and on.) Then an engrossing afternoon shoemaking building full of wooden at a foundational (1934) kibbutz, in western . lasts, and rows of old shoes and tools: Resident guide Benyamin Barak (Benny) took us around the campus and 1 though he didn’t work there, he had his narrated the community’s evolution, lived by him firsthand since the shoes made there for decades. He knew mid-1950s. Day’s end brought us to hotel #2, the picturesque Bay Club, what things mean, or meant. There was midway up ’s steep slopes. (Haifa’s once-lovely harbor, littered in him a feel of a worn-out body after with petrochemical plants, was less picturesque!) Thence to the delicious decades of hard work, but a soul that was Rola Levantine Kitchen. deep.” —Kathy A jam-packed Day 3 took us up and down the Galilee: to the Sindyanna women’s project in Kfar Kana (the biblical Cana), which trains Arab

women to work outside the home and helps local farmers; we assembled “I loved our lunch spread at the Alta our own batches of za’atar to bring home. Detouring to , a resort Dairy, especially the alfredo sauce on the town on the Sea of Galilee, we were welcomed to the Ron Hotel by broad noodles with mushrooms. You proprietor Mulah Amsalem, who was known to Renate. In a sign of think, I’ll just eat a little of this and a bit things to come, the place was empty, a big group of South Koreans of that. But I ate a lot of that pasta. I was having just cancelled. On to lunch, winding up into the brilliant green so surprised because I’d assumed goat Golan hills to the down-home Pelter Winery, where a bounteous lunch cheese was not going to be good. That and tastings were waiting. Onward and ever upward, catching glimpses was also where we saw the flock of noisy of Mt. Hermon on the Lebanon border, to the windswept overlook on rose-ringed parakeets in the trees, an Mt. Bental, a dormant volcano and onetime military outpost. From the invasive species but beautiful.” “observatory” (a series of paths leading to the viewpoint and the “Coffee —Steve Annan” café, hoho), we gazed out on a vast panorama: the various 1974 ceasefire lines, Syria, Lebanon, even south to Jordan. A high point indeed! “Zarafat’s house is always abuzz with the comings and goings of the family. A Day 4: Zigzagging around Galilee, first to the winding, hilly streets of the seamstress by profession, She now village Peki’in—home of “the holy coffeepot” (see photo), fresh- spends every day cooking and believes squeezed pomegranate juice, and a tiny ancient synagogue, created and that every dish that she produces should maintained for generations by the village’s one Jewish family. We got in be made from the raw ingredients grown just before a Bar Mitzvah started. Back toward the coast for lunch and a in her garden.” sermon on the virtues of goat milk at Alta Dairy, a high-end cheese- —Paul Nimans making operation at Kibbutz . On to Yirka (or Yarka): first to Erez’s favorite spice merchant so we could sniff and stock up. Then to the family home of a traditional Druze woman, where we all (even

Yvonne!) cooked dinner under Zarafat’s coaching. The fascinating Druze “I remember our drive to Jerusalem for people seem to encapsulate all that is amazing and confusing and and singing Jewish songs on contradictory about Israel today. the bus. It warmed my heart and made me feel connected to our group and the Friday signaled a shift: first back in time to Roman , the Jewish people.” gloriously restored port town of Akko (Acre) with its Crusader tunnels —Lauren and relics. But soon we left the north and drove to Jerusalem, on Shabbat eve, excitement building as we caught our first glimpses of the walls. Barely taking time to drop bags at the Harmony Hotel, we “The tour not only taught me Israeli headed out to catch sunset at the Western Wall. Despite the jostling history and culture but also strengthened crowds, it’s an overwhelming and rather private experience. I’ll leave it my sense of Jewishness. Over the ten at that: you’ve either been or most likely will go. Somehow, the perfect days I began to recognize that I didn't next thing was dinner at the south Jerusalem apartment of Dorraine have to worry about how I appeared to Weiss from Brooklyn, who made in 2008 and now hosts Airbnb strangers. Maybe it’s the difference guests (“Lovely Rooms in Jerusalem”), family, neighbors, and groups of between feeling Jewish-American rather travelers like us at her Shabbat table. Dorraine’s adorable grandson than American-Jewish. Being Jewish

2 becomes more important than American Jonathan and his two IDF buddies waited table, tales were told, small in my self-image. It makes me feel worlds discovered, cups raised, prayers said and sung. What more could braver, prouder being Jewish.” you want on a first night in Jerusalem? —Len On the Sabbath some rested, others explored in smaller cohorts, with “As soon as we crossed Sultan Suleiman group dining suspended for a few nights. Erez did make sure we visited Street at the Damascus Gate, it was clear another sweeping overlook (he loves overlooks!) and highlights of the we were entering an Arab old city: the Roman cardo, Mount Zion (by tradition the site of the Last neighborhood. Most of the women wore Supper), his other favorite spice traders (a seven-generation family headscarves. There was the same kinds of business), and a photo shop offering prints from glass negatives of Israel produce on the streets, crates of oranges, in the 1920s, made by an Armenian refugee whose grandson runs the a convenience store, a little pharmacy shop. where we bought some Advil. But it felt Sunday March 1, another day of sparkling skies and extreme contrasts: slightly more dilapidated. It's not that the marvels and dramas of Masada followed by a brisk dip in the Dead anyone looks particularly affluent, but it Sea 1500 feet below. (You can’t put your feet down in the water!) Time does feel like a society where people are didn’t permit hiking up Masada’s famous Snake Path so we took the living side-by-side, and also not quite tram, but some walked down from the summit to explore Herod’s equal.… But while they are at odds, palace. Wait, almost forgot another overlook! En route through the there is a curious feeling of equilibrium Judean desert of the West Bank, we pulled over to spy a Greek Orthodox that you feel -- at least in the monastery clinging to a remote cliff, like Anasazi dwellings in the neighborhoods I walked through. People Southwest. Only problem: we were set upon by Bedouins intent on are forced to mix on the streets and in the selling scarves. Perhaps not enough sales were made, as Len later markets and throughout the Old City, discovered his wallet missing. and you’re not always sure what's what. I liked that…. If the trip had wound down from there, it would have been enough. —Kathy Dayenu! Further marvels awaited us, though. Monday morning, in the

tour’s only scheduling glitch, we pulled up at Yad Veshem to discover it

was closed for the Israeli elections—a fact their website failed to note. “On my first visit to Israel in 1982, I was Making lemonade, we paid an unplanned but rewarding visit to the struck by the Herculean efforts of Israel Museum, home of the Dead Sea Scrolls and world-class collections everyone building the dream of the of fine art and cultural artifacts. Then drove to Jerusalem’s famous return to Israel. Today Israeli society has Mahane Yehuda market for lunch amid astounding displays of produce become a more complicated place than I and confections … and throngs of people shoulder to shoulder. (Imagine remembered, but no less vibrant or how deserted those passageways are today!) Later we headed in different robust. The energy, thought and careful directions, Erez taking some on a spooky descent into the ancient quarry planning that go in to building an Israel below the city wall. From there Kathy and I struck off northward into that includes not just Jews but also the East Jerusalem, where the Arab storefronts are slightly more rundown many Christian and Muslim and remnants of the British Mandate linger. There’s a pretty church you denominations is very alive. There is daily might find in an English market town. We regained the old city via the collaboration over not just the Damascus Gate and shopped till we dropped. mundane—garbage collection and restaurants—but also in education Tuesday March 3. I got up early and power-walked back to the old city (Sindyanna). You see conscious efforts to (just 15 minutes via pedestrian-only Jaffa Street), hoping to enter live and prosper, among some of the Temple Mount before the tour groups. It worked: for a quiet half-hour most different peoples on earth. It is just me, the Palestinian police, old ladies on chairs, kids walking to happening because it is G-d’s work.

3 We have been commanded, above all, to school, the inevitable cats. And the Dome of the Rock glistening in the respect all life. To making living together morning sun. Back at the hotel, everyone abuzz about elections here and in peace our common goal.” back home, and growing coronavirus concerns. All of the above put —Jane firmly into perspective by a few hours at Yad Veshem — another place that defies quick description. It both terrifies and lifts you up, somehow doing justice to the profoundly dark time it memorializes.

“In Yad Vashem the rooms narrowed to From Yad Veshem, we looked back eastward toward the eternally dead-end hallways, it seemed. After a contested city, then headed west toward Tel Aviv and the Israel of today. while I realized this was intentional, to Lunch at a funky vegetarian café in Abu Ghosh was prefaced by a stop at make you feel boxed in, as if there were Al-Yasmin—a storefront in a little strip mall where Kamel Hashlamon, a no way out, in keeping with the chef pal of Erez from East Jerusalem, uses traditional basalt millstones increasing devastation.” to grind sesame into “the best tahini in Israel” (says Ha’aretz). He uses it —Kathy to make the best halvah, too; Judy K was in halvah heaven. We partook

and purchased. “What I did not expect was to walk out of Yad Veshem and see Jerusalem in a We were happy to come back to the comfort and cheer of the Melody; whole new light. The city looked the many headed straight for the beach and made dinner from the ample same but felt completely different. I happy hour spread. On Wednesday—last day!—Erez led us through the could feel an ancient world around me: Carmel Market, through architecturally significant neighborhoods, and all the different people who had to the junction of Rothschild Blvd. and Herzl Street. There, in the 1920s, struggled for the land for thousands of a handful of Zionist settlers staked out a new town in the sand dunes just years. The pain and sorrow, but also the north of old Jaffa. Nearby we saw Independence Hall (closed for joy and celebration of generations upon renovation), where the heads of the Jewish communities in Palestine generations.” declared the state of Israel in May 1948. —Becky Each day of our journey brought new evidence of how complex, vibrant, and confounding that state is today. Just take our final home visit. At her “This trip showed me an Israel that I have comfortable villa in new Jaffa, Doris Hiffawi (the family name means “of never seen before in nearly a dozen Haifa”) served lunch, passed strong coffee with cardamom, made and previous visits. We saw , marketed by her family business, and regaled us with her story. Doris Jews, Arabs, Druze, Christians and other identifies as Palestinian Arab Israeli Christian (maybe not the right groups living and working together to order?). Her family history is one version of the Arab experience here: make each of their lives work. We went to rooted in Haifa for generations, uprooted to Lebanon after remote out-of-the-way villages and Independence, later returned to coastal Israel. Engaged by arrangement kibbutzim where ordinary people are before age 16, a mother by 18, ruled by her mother-in-law until her living ordinary lives that bear no forties, today Doris runs her own business hosting “seminars” for resemblance to the sharp divisions visitors from around the world—including recent guests Sarah Jessica politicians describe. We had amazing Parker and former U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter. Tall, meals in places I would never have dared striking, and a born performer, Doris speaks frankly about respecting yet set foot in by myself.” breaking with her own cultural traditions, and the challenges faced by —Renate non-Jews in a Jewish state.

Dinner-wise, Erez saved one of the best for last. Igra Rama (Aramaic: “What stands out for me is that there was “from high to low”) is one of Tel Aviv’s up-and-coming places, Erez told 10 days of togetherness, with us all us. It was a bit like one of those Brooklyn restaurants with a back trying our best to keep up with Renate.” garden, serving creative vegetarian and seafood dishes made with local —Yvonne

4 “Katya and I talked about her interest in ingredients — many from their own farm — and local wines. We were becoming a nurse or occupational joined at dinner by Lauren’s adopted Israeli daughter, Katya. therapist, or some related field. I told her about one of the students I tutor in And then Kobi took us to the airport. (We’d checked out in the morning Hebrew, a 12-year-old girl named Niev, but looped back to the hotel before dinner to change and repack—they and Katya wrote her a sweet note that were so accommodating.) Partway there, Kobi pulled over and Erez got ended, “Never give up!” She took a pin out to catch his train home to Rehovot. At Ben Gurion, we began the from her blouse—an award for her first parting of ways: most of us heading to the El Al gate, Carolyn and Len to year of military service—and asked me to their 24-hour odyssey by way of London. To my fellow passengers on the give it to Niev. When the pandemic is bus, to Kobi and Erez, to everyone who cooked for us, who gave us over, I will make sure Niev gets Katya's smiles and help in small ways and large … to Israel: toda and shalom! note and gift.” ### —Cindy Diana Landau is a freelance writer and editor. Earlier in her career she worked for book publishing firms and as catalog editor at Banana Republic. Freelance assignments include writing websites and book collaborations. Among the latter she produced and co-wrote Testimony: The Legacy of Schindler’s List and the USC Shoah Foundation, a 20th anniversary

commemorative about the Spielberg film. Kathy Shorr contributed to that book and to this piece.

Links to explore — since you can’t go to Abbago Travel: Culinary & Cultural Adventures Israel now, you can at least visit some www.abbagotravel.com of our destinations on the Web! Kfar Masaryk Tourism www.kefarmasaryktur.co.il

Sindyanna of Galilee https://www.sindyanna.com

GalilEat.com (our connection with Yarka and Zarafat) https://www.galileat.com

Pelter Winery www.pelter.co.il

Dorraine Gilbert Weiss https://www.jpost.com/In-Jerusalem/Features/Seeing-the-light “Lovely Rooms in Jerusalem” www.airbnb.com/rooms/7774346

Sea of Herbs/Jacob Almouaket (Jerusalem Old City) www.seaofherbs.com

Jaffa Stories & Coffee (Doris Hiffawi) https://www.jaffastoriesandcoffee.com/

Al Yasmin Tahini

5 https://www.haaretz.com/food/.premium.MAGAZINE-jerusalem-chef- offers-a-new-contender-for-the-best-tahini-in-israel-1.5730413 Erez recommended this tahini to order online: https://www.makoletonline.com/products/har-bracha-tahini-100-pure- sesame

Songfest from the balconies of Jerusalem and for some light in the current https://www.timesofisrael.com/stuck-at-home-jerusalem-neighbors-join-in- darkness! balcony-sing-a-long/

Erez’s hummus recipe HUMMUS

1½ pound small yellow chickpeas (look for the Bulgarian variety, weigh before soaking) 1 tsp of baking powder 2 cups of fine raw tahini ½ teaspoon salt ½ – ¾ cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice (to taste, I added ½ cup) 1 cup of tap water (add gradually and check for more)

The night before: Soak the chickpeas whole night in a large bowl with plenty of water. The next day, cook the chickpeas: Strain the chickpeas and rinse well several times. Transfer the berries to a large saucepan. Add the baking powder. Add tap water up to 5 inches above the chickpeas. Stir. Bring to a boil, without a lid, over a large fire. Remove the foam that comes up in the pot. Reduce heat and cook for three hours at a moderate boil, until the chickpeas are very tender and the texture is porridge. Stir occasionally to prevent adhesion to the bottom of the pot. Occasionally add water to the pot, as needed, so that throughout the cooking the water rises above the height of the chickpeas and protects them from dehydration. Make chickpeas: Drain the cooked grains well. Transfer to a food processor and grind continuously for 3–2 minutes. Add the tahini, salt and lemon juice and grind again for 2 minutes. Gradually add water, a little at a time, and grind again until the desired texture is obtained. At this point, when the hummus is hot, it should be relatively sparse (but still oily and non-liquid), as it cools down, it will become firmer. Serve in a plate with plenty of olive oil or fill in a soft, plump pita.

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