(Published originally in the Jerusalem Post) I confess that, despite much reading, I am Kabbalah-challenged. I can’t tell my sephirot from my chakras, and all my gematria adds up wrong. But I stand in awe of the mystical explorations that emanated from the Galilee hilltop town of Safed, during the 16th century. As I wander […]

(Published originally in the Jerusalem Post) While recently wandering through the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, I looked into the book I had brought, and promptly burst out laughing. As my laughter echoed through that hushed and shadowy grandeur, a priest wrapped in pious thoughts frowned at me. My mistake was opening Mark Twain’s The […]

(Published originally in the Jerusalem Post) The masses of tourists flocking to Israel each year are largely Christians. Beyond Jerusalem, their main destinations are around the Kinneret, or the Sea of Galilee. The Christian sites of the Sea of Galilee are clustered near the northern end of the lake. One of the greatest magnets for […]

(Published originally in the Jerusalem Post) There’s something ghost-like about Tel Lachish. From the gravel access road it resembles the movie-set shell of a haunted mansion. A wall looms high and vivid in the northwest corner, bare of the dirt that covers the rest of the tel. It is probably part of the buttressed wall […]

(Published originally in the Jerusalem Post) I wish that the Nahalat Shiva neighborhood in central Jerusalem, right off Zion Square, was bigger. Because the tiny, 15-dunam area, extending from the main traffic artery of Jaffa Road in the north, to Hillel St and Independence Park in the south, has been renovated in a beautiful and […]

(Published originally in the Jerusalem Post) Recently, on a hot afternoon, I stood on a rocky slope divided into terraced fields, feeling drunk with tiredness and just wanting to curl up in some shade. Above me, on a patch of terraced field, a man in a tunic and draped head-covering guided and jerked a wooden […]

(Published originally in the Jerusalem Post)  

(Published originally in the Jerusalem Post) Everyday, thousands of cars on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway zoom past the junction of the road to Ashdod, passing the old British police fortress of Latrun, with a tank perched on a tower beside it. The tank monument is part of a museum and memorial to the armored corps of […]

(Published originally in the Jerusalem Post) How strange it was to travel through northern Israel during the recent Passover vacation. The combination of heavy rains, cold, dark clouds and threatening times(just before Hizbullah attacks escalated along the Lebanese border) kept people away even during this traditionally heavy traveling season [...]