Elijah's Cave

We went to see Elijah's Cave, one of the few religious sites in Haifa. Nestled at the foot of Mount Carmel, next to the sea, it is in this cave that the Prophet Elijah came to pray before challenging the prophets of Baal and calling down fire from heaven. This cave is also said to be where the Prophet Elijah lived in hiding while fleeing from the wrath of King Ahab and his wife, Jezebel.

Like Elijah himself, the cave has been sacred to Christians, Druze and Muslims as well as Jews, and one wall inside is covered with ancient Greek inscriptions, and as well as some in Hebrew. Today the cave has become a synagogue of sorts, with an Ark hewn into the front wall for the Torah, a mechitza down the middle (separating the men from the women) and many spaces in the ceiling and walls where visitors insert prayer notes, like at the Kotel.

A courtyard outside the cave has several memorial altars where you can light candles, strangely like a Catholic church, and I decided to light in memory of Sasha, whose Hebrew name is Eliyahu (Elijah), so it seemed appropriate.

Yarden Winery - a Parent's Perspective

Avery's post (immediately below) does a very nice job describing the process at the winery, but the highlight of the visit was the wine tasting. Yarden uses its own name for its premium wines and has won a great many awards since it opened in 1982 - on the heels of the official (but not quite complete) annexation of the Golan Heights into Israel. The middle-priced labels use the Gamla name, while the relatively less expensive table wines use the name Golan.

Many within Israel suggest that Yarden transformed the Israeli wine industry, pushing all the other wineries to improve their quality. As a result, there are a tremendous number of high quality wines available, ranging in price from under $10.00 to well over $75.00 in the local grocery stores.

As a special treat, the Yarden Vintner brought out a bottle of the 2005 Yarden Cabernet Sauvignon which had just received the top prize in a French wine competition.

Both Noah and Avery were served tastings along with the others on the tour. Avery was not impressed by the wines, and really did not like the complex taste of the award winning wines.

Noah shared some of Avery's attitude regarding the Cabernet Sauvignon , but enjoyed the Golan "ice wine" traditionally made by allowing the grapes to remain on the vine and freeze until harvested in February. Israel has no winter freeze, so Yarden picks the grapes and stores them frozen, resulting in a very sweet, thick dessert wine.



Noah has quickly developed a sophisticated palate, though I think that the similarities between Ice Wine and Grape Juice are sufficient to keep him off the alcohol at least until his bar mitzvah. Avery has learned to appreciate Coke Zero and I can happily report he will be staying away from the red wines for a long time to come.

Cheers,
Jon

Yarden Winery (by Avery)

On Sunday, we went to a winemaking company, called Yarden, in the Golan Heights. We learned about the process used to make wine, and then we tasted various types of wine.

The first step in making wine is the crushing of the grapes. We were not able to see any grape-crushing, because we were in between harvesting times. After the juice is extracted, it is placed in giant steel barrels to ferment. After the first fermentation, the wine is cleaned and placed into air-tight oak barrels.

Inside the building containing the oak barrels, the air was chilled to near freezing. We saw rows and rows of barrels, stacked upon each other, stretching all the way to the ceiling. A man on the floor was transferring wine from one barrel to another, and a different man was driving a forklift, stacking the barrels.

After fermenting and aging (anywhere between a few months and twenty years), the wine is poured out of the barrels. The wine is tasted and blended, until the wanted taste is acquired. The wine is filtered once more, and bottled.

The bottling process is completely automated, with a machine that fills the bottles, a machine that corks them, a machine that labels them, a machine that packages them, a machine that stacks the boxes, and a machine that wraps the boxes together. It was very cool watching all the machines working in unison (for the most part).

After our tour of the factory, our guide brought out a cart with different wine bottles on it. We finished the day with a tasting of some of their wines. My parents liked the wines, although I did not like most of them.

Our trip to the Yarden wine company in the Golan Heights was interesting. We saw how wine is made, and then we went to a wine tasting. It was very fun.

Tzefat (Safed)

This past Sunday, we went to Tzefat, or Safed, the highest city in the Galilee. (It is located next to Mt. Meron in the Golan Heights, the highest point in Israel.)

Safed rose to fame in the 16th century as a center of Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism. After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, many rabbis found their way to Israel, although they were not permitted to go to Jerusalem. These rabbis included Isaac Luria (teacher of the Zohar, the original book of the Kabbalah) and Joseph Caro (author of the Shulchan Aruch, the Code of Jewish Law, written in Safed). The beautiful hymn "L'chah Dodi," sung on Friday night to welcome the Sabbath, was written in Safed: standing in the courtyard of the Ari Ashkenazi Synagogue, the rabbis could look out to the west, see the sun setting over Mt. Meron, and know exactly when Shabbat was coming.

Safed has many beautiful synagogues, both old and new, and is known for its Artist's Quarter. In fact, we met famous microcalligrapher Leon Azoulay, whose seriograph "Bereshit" adorns our dining room. We now are proud to own his "Bamidbar" as well.

Akko

On Monday, we went to the ancient city of Akko (Acre in English), about 30 minutes north of Haifa by train. Akko is a very strategic port that has been ruled by Canaanites, Phoenicians, Alexander the Great, the Greeks, the Romans, the Crusaders, Saladin -- even Napoleon tried to capture it but failed.

Today, the remains of the citadel of Akko are from the original Ottoman fortification, built on the foundation of the older Crusader Hospitaller citadel. The citadel was part of the city's defensive formation, reinforcing the northern wall. During the 20th century the citadel was used mainly as a prison and as the site for a gallows. During the British mandate period, activists of Jewish Zionist resistance movements were held prisoner there; some were executed there. This was the basis for Leon Uris' book "Exodus."

These still remain in the citadel of Akko, and we walked through most of them:

• Ottoman fortifications (including a tower and moat)
• The Acre Old City Visitor Center, built right into the ancient walls
• The "enchanted garden": a garden planted in keeping with the historical description of the Crusader garden that existed there
• British prison and the gallows
• A museum and memorial to the Jewish resistance fighters executed during the British Mandate
  
• Prison cell of Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Bahá'í Faith
• Knights' Halls, including a dungeon and a refectory
• The Templars Tunnels, used as escape routes in times of war

Akko also has many mosques, walled plazas built by the sultans, Arab souks, and a beautiful little synagogue named after the Italian sage Rabbi Moshe Haim Luzatto, known by his acronym the Ramhal, who arrived in Akko in 1743. He was a student of the Kabbala, very controversial in his time (he was chased out of many cities because of his teachings), who has since become very revered for his brilliant writings. The shul features an underground bima (which the caretaker very kindly let the boys climb down into), as well as as an original Torah scroll written by the Ramhal in pomegranate juice on deerskin -- it took him a year to write it, working 8 hours a day. You can see the dark scrolls in the photo below. The shul was fascinating -- one of the highlights of our trip.

The Technion -- blog by Avery

We went to the Israel Institute of Technology, known as the Technion, on Monday. The Technion was founded in 1912 by the German-Jewish fund Ezrah. The Technion was one of only two universities in Ottoman Palestine, the other being the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, founded in 1907. The Technion opened in 1924, after a long debate about whether to use German or Modern Hebrew as the language of instruction. However, after World War I and the decline of Germany's power, Hebrew was adopted. The first class was made up of sixteen students, majoring in architecture and civil engineering.

The Technion awarded its first PhD in 1953, for electrical engineering. Until the opening of the engineering school in Ben Gurion University in the early 1970's, the Technion was the only university in Israel offering engineering degrees. The Technion now offers courses in eighteen areas, including electrical engineering, biotechnology, mathematics, and urban planning, among others.

While at the Technion, we learned about their close connection with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. Rafael is the main developer of Israeli weapons and military technology. It has developed unmanned military airplanes and tanks. It has also developed the most accurate anti-ballistic missile in use today. Most of Rafael's engineers and faculty are Technion graduates, and the Technion and Rafael exchange research and work on each other's advances.

The Technion started as a small school in a small country. One of the things that helped jumpstart the Technion's popularity was Albert Einstein's involvement. After he visited the Technion in 1923, Einstein founded the first Technion Society, in Germany. There are now Technion Societies in seventeen countries, including the United States and the Netherlands. “Israel can win the battle for survival only by developing expert knowledge in technology,” is one of Einstein's most famous statements.

Visiting the Technion was both fun and interesting. We learned about the history of the school, the school's interaction with the military through Rafael, and the Technion Society, founded by Einstein. I would like to go back.

The Grand Canyon

While Jon was lecturing in Jerusalem today, the boys and I went to the Grand Canyon (yes, you read that correctly). The Grand Canyon is the largest mall in Israel, and luckily for us, it's located in Haifa, about 15 minutes away by bus. The name is a cute play on words: "kenyon" is the Hebrew word for mall, the mall is pretty grand, and it's actually located at the bottom of a canyon, although it doesn't quite live up to its American namesake. There are close to 200 shops and kiosks, a food court and restaurants, movie theatres, and even a little amusement park, so it's like having our own little Mall of America right here in Israel.

First we had lunch at the food court. I couldn't decide between kosher Chinese, kosher Japanese, or kosher burgers (I love it here!) and decided to go with the Chinese. The boys wanted pizza from Sbarro's. Yes, we traveled 6000 miles so they could eat the same food they get at the mall at home (although of course they don't offer sausage or pepperoni here. You can, however, get corn and olive pizza if you want.).

We did some shopping and then we went to the movies ("Monsters vs Aliens," in English with Hebrew subtitles). The funniest part of the movie was the intermission halfway through -- a 5-minute break followed by very loud bells warning the audience that the movie was starting again. Apparently this is typical in Israel, because we could hear it happening in the other theatres.

After the movie, we stopped at the supermarket on the first level (MOA could use one of those), and then caught the bus home. Another fun day in Israeli paradise for the Garons.