Touring Israel with a tour guide

#imagineIsraelTours #SimonOsterTourGuideIsrael The story of grapes in Israel From the spies carrying a single cluster so large it required two men to bear it (Numbers 13:23), to Jesus declaring "I am the true vine" (John 15:1), the grape is woven into Israel's story like no other fruit.  The Cluster of grapes Cave in Jerusalem -  Cave of the Eshkolot , an ancient 1st - 2nd century CE burial cave in Jerusalem from the Second Temple period  It served as a lavish tomb for a wealthy Jewish family The grape is one of the Seven Species that bless the Land (Deuteronomy 8:8).   A fruitful vine symbolised Israel at its best, while wild grapes spoke of disobedience (Isaiah 5, Jeremiah 2) Baskets with grapes in maon old synagogue mosaic, western negev Grapes appear in celebrations, in offerings & in acts of kindness eg when Ziba brought 100 clusters of raisins to sustain the exhausted King David in the wilderness (2 Samuel 16:1)   Israel's diverse climate, from...

#ImagineIsraelTours #SimonOsterTourGuideIsrael The Whale - in Israel's waters. The ancient port of Jaffa (Yafo) is where the prophet Jonah made a fateful decision. God commanded him to go to Nineveh & deliver a message of repentance. Instead, Jonah boarded a ship heading in the opposite direction - straight into a storm.  Well, according to the bible story, anyway! You know the rest: thrown overboard, swallowed by a "great fish" (often depicted as a whale) & after 3 days & nights in the deep, spit out onto dry land to fulfil his mission But here's what many don't know: whales are real visitors to Israel's shores. The image at the top is a Fin whale. Sperm Whales: The most frequently documented large whale species in Israeli waters, though sightings remain incredibly rare. An isolated, endangered population of a few hundred lives across the Eastern Mediterranean Cuvier's Beaked Whales: Also present in the deep-sea waters off Israel's coast, ...

#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...