Touring Israel with a tour guide

#ImagineIsraelTours   #SimonOsterTourGuideIsrael A Century of Hebrew Education: The Story of Jerusalem's Gymnasia Rehavia. On Keren Kayemet LeIsrael Street in Jerusalem's elegant Rehavia neighborhood stands a building that tells the story of a cultural revolution - & once again, proof (if it were needed) that Jews were living in the Land of Israel - or Mandatory Palestine as it was then known - long before 1948. The Yitzhak Ben-Zvi Hebrew Gymnasium was founded in 1905 by a group of visionary intellectuals - including Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (later Israel's second president), Dr. Naftali & Hannah Weitz, Rachel Yanait & Yehoshua Barzilai, who decided to establish a modern Hebrew-secular educational framework for the young people of the Land. The radical innovation? Boys & girls studying together. In early 20th-century Jerusalem, that was nothing short of revolutionary! The building itself tells a story; inaugurated in 1929 after years of moving between temporary locat...

The dromedary (Camelus dromedarius) #ImagineIsraelTours #SimonOsterTourGuideIsrael This is the single-humped camel of the Middle East & the Horn of Africa, appearing in the Bible more than 40 times - the Hebrew word is gamal. Bereshit/Genesis alone uses it 24 times, always in connection with the Patriarchs: Abraham (12:16), Isaac, Jacob, Joseph (37:25). The stories place these events between 2000 - 1500 BCE. But archaeology tells a different story. Recent excavations in the Timna Valley discovered the earliest camel bones in Israel, dating to around 930 BCE. This was centuries after the Patriarchs would have lived. The excavators see this as evidence that the stories of Abraham, Joseph, Jacob, Esau were written or rewritten after this time. The hump stores up to 80 pounds of fat, metabolised into water & energy when food is scarce Camels eat almost any desert vegetation: dry grasses, thorny shrubs, halophytes (salt-loving plants). They forage 8 to 12 hours a day, taking only a ...

#imagineisraeltours #SimonOsterTourGuideIsrael Dates The date palm (Tamar in Hebrew) appears over 40 times in the Hebrew Bible, though the fruit itself is referred to only once: "Your stature is like that of the palm, your breasts like clusters of fruit" (Song of Songs 7:7). The Hebrew word d'vash usually means bee honey. Jewish tradition, including Rashi, interprets the "honey" referred to as one of 'the 7 species' (Deuteronomy 8:8) as date honey, a sweet syrup (silan) made by boiling then pressing the fruit The date was a staple food in biblical times. Eaten fresh, dried or pressed into cakes for travellers (1 Chronicles 16:3; 2 Samuel 6:19) Israel's hot, dry climate is perfect for date cultivation. The Jordan Valley, the Arava & the Dead Sea area are the primary growing zones The date harvest runs from late summer thr...

#ImagineIsraelTours #SimonOsterTourGuideIsrael Simon says: "Let's meet the Asiatic Lion (Panthera leo persica) The lion appears more than 150 times in the Hebrew Bible. Samson tore one apart with his bare hands at Timnah (Judges 14:5-6); David killed a lion - & a bear - to protect his flock (1 Samuel 17:34-36) The lion was the emblem of the tribe of Judah (Genesis/Bereshit 49:9); the first of the 4 living creatures in Ezekiel's vision had the face of a lion. The Asiatic lion once roamed the Levant from Turkey through Israel, east to Persia; the region's forests giving them cover. But they became extinct in Israel in the wild during the Middle Ages, due to habitat loss & hunting. Archaeologists found lion bones at Tel Hazor & Tel Megiddo, & attached is a drawing of a lion in the Sidonian cave in Beit Guvrin The Talmud lists 6 terms to describe a lion; each name captures a different stage of life or a human reaction to the animal. Rabbi Levi added gur ary...

#ImagineIsraelTours #SimonOsterTourGuideIsrael The catfish (Clarias gariepinus) Ein Afek Nature Reserve covers 660 dunams in the Acre Valley, east of Kiryat Bialik - & the swampy water is full of catfish! Catfish are bottom dwellers, preferring murky water, shallow pools & muddy bottoms - exactly what Ein Afek offers! They use their whiskers to feel their way through dark water, finding food by touch. Some species can even breathe air, a useful trick in low-oxygen swamp conditions! They are bottom feeders, eating invertebrates, small fish, insects, fallen leaves & algae. Mating: The female can lay tens of thousands of eggs at once. Males guard the eggs - some catfish even carry eggs in their mouths until they hatch. The Kashrut Question: Leviticus 11:9: anything in the water with both fins & scales is permitted. Anything without - catfish included - is forbidden. Catfish lack scales entirely. Fishing for catfish, at kibbutz Ein Gev They thrive in Ein Afek, which is uniq...

The crocus (Crocus hyemalis) #SimonOsterTourGuideIsrael #ImagineIsraelTours Isaiah 35:1 says the desert will "blossom like the crocus" In a couple of months that verse will be in my mind when I'm leading tours that I'm booking currently, for visitors planning to come & tour across northern Israel, after Rosh Hashanah. This crocus starts blooming after the first rains, usually October to November. We find it in the Galilee, the Golan & parts of the Sharon plain- growing right out of rocky hillsides with no leaves, just the flower pushing straight up from the ground! Different species bloom at slightly different times. Some start as early as September at higher elevations, others continue through December . The flowers range from white & lilac to purple, with bright yellow stamens in the centre The crocus is connected to saffron (Crocus sativus), which is mentioned in Song of Solomon 4:14. Saffron comes from the dried stigmas of the flower & has been use...

#ImagineIsraelTours #SimonOsterTourGuideIsrael The pomegranate (Punica granatum) one of the Seven Species of the Land of Israel (Devarim / Deuteronomy 8:8) Its fruits & flowering branches have inspired poets & artists for millennia. As it says in the Song of Songs: "I went down to the grove of nut trees… to see if the vines had budded, if the pomegranates were in bloom" (Song of Songs 6:11) Flowering: Spring (April–May). Showy, crimson, trumpet-shaped flowers Fruiting: Ripens late summer to autumn (August–October) Uses: Eaten fresh, juiced, used in cooking (e.g., fesenjan) & made into molasses for savoury dishes. The seeds (arils) can also be added to salads & desserts The pomegranate (rimon in Hebrew) can be found in the mosaic detail in the images from a 6th-century BCE Byzantine palace in Caesarea, showing a pomegranate tree, & also a dog resting beside a pomegranate tree. It decorated the grand atrium of a palace complex just outside the city walls. Th...