Journal 2004

When we arrived in Israel's Tel Aviv Airport, we waited for Customs, and though they questioned why we were in the country, I found it to be no different than going into Japan.  I expected to see many soldiers with machine guns and found none.   We got our luggage and met Dr. Taha Massalha at the exit.  Except for the signs in Arabic, Hebrew and English, it could have been an airport anywhere.

We drove from Tel-Aviv to Daburriya, which is in the north part of the country, near Nazareth and at the foot of the Mt. Tabor.  This small village is the home of the Massalha family.  It was an uneventful trip, except for the time we passed the wall separating the West Bank from Israel.  It is a tall cement structure.   We did not see any activity around it.  Taha said the wall may go right through a community.  Where it used to take ten minutes to visit your brother across town, it may take hours now.

According to Taha, before 1948, there were about 3 million Arabs and 1/2 million Jews in Israel.  After 1948, most Arabs were forced to leave, and they were not paid for their land.  The Jews came in and drove them from their homes and took the land.  Some mosques were turned into museums and restaurants.  If the Arabs protested, they were sent from the country.  Those who cooperated, got to stay.  Many educated Arabs left on their own and went to Europe and the United States.  The Zionists believe the land belongs to the Jews, and they had a right to it.  To be fair to the Jews, the U.N. awarded the land to the Jews as their own country.  Unfortunately, the issue of the resident Arabs was not addressed at that time.

The Arabs can vote but with such a minority (15%), it is of little use. They get equal or higher taxes to the Jews, but their schools and roads do not get equal attention.

Dabburiya is a small town of about 7000 people.  They have two elementary schools, a middle school and a high school.  Mt. Tabor is the highest mountain in the area, and is about 600 meters above sea level.

When we arrived in Dabburiya, we had lunch.  We were taught to say “Psm alh arhman arhem.” which means, “In the name of God who gives mercy and kindness.”  We were given a snack of prickly pear fruit while waiting for lunch. Lunch was sumptuous.  We had chicken, a rice pilaf, cucumber pickles, baked vegetables, (potatoes, tomato and onions) There was also soup, which they sometimes ladle over their rice.   The Massalha family, like almost all Arabs, does not use forks.  They use spoons, bread or fingers for almost everything.

On the living room sofa, there were sofa cushions which had crocheted doilies like my sister might make.  Students wear uniforms to school, and young people do not live together before marriage. Islam women cover their bodies, heads and arms, when they reach ten years old.   Dina (Taha’s wife) did not do this until she was older. She then read the Koran and learned that it was better to follow it.  So now she covers her head, arms and legs.  For the beach, she has clothing that covers her whole body. Everyone has cell phones, and believe it or not, their use is even more widespread than In the USA.  They have sofas and other furniture as you would see in the US.  The children were playing Age of Empires on an HP computer.

The Arab men can marry outside the faith but women can not.  Observant Muslims do not drink alcohol. If a man marries outside the faith, it must be with a Christian or Jew, that is, those who follow God.  Men can marry up to four women, but must be able to provide for them and give them equal attention in all things.   They do not all live in the same house, they live in separate houses.  The man goes from one house to another.  I asked Dina how she would feel if Taha married another woman and she said it would be ok because it is in the Koran.  Dina is a very devout Muslim woman.

The Massalha Family

Taha – Father:  professor of physics and supervises student teachers
Dina – Mother: full time housewife
Yasmeen - married daughter:  Elementary teacher, and English teacher during summer.
Elham – Daughter:  student in Technion in Haifa.  A highly prestigeous school, equivalent to MIT.
Mohammed – Son:  Studying plastics engineering in college in Tel-Aviv
Auob – Son:  High school
Esmaeel – Son:  High school
Yehya – Son:  Very active junior high student,12 years old

Journal 3

Some Background Information

Thursday, July 22

To review how this all started, I met Dr. Taha Massalha at a National Science Teacher's Association in Atlanta, Georgia.  He told me of a sunrise/sunset experiment, and we decided to collaborate on it.   He then invited me and my husband to go to Israel.  We are in Dubburiya, Israel, staying in his home with his wife and five of his six children.  By the way, if my spelling of Dubburiya is not consistent, that’s because it’s English spelling isn’t consistent here.  At the beginning of the road that leads to the village, there are three signs spelling out the name.  All three signs spell it differently.  This relaxed (!) view of spelling makes it very interesting for us to determine where we are on maps.  Are we looking at a different place or just a different spelling?  Curiouser and curiouser.

Taha and NSTA
Taha has been to three NSTA national conventions; Orlando, St. Louis and Atlanta.  In 1998 he wrote to Sylvia Shagrue, who is a past president of NSTA.  He told her about his sunrise/sunset experiments and she invited him to come to Atlanta to present his ideas.  

Taha and Shenkar College of Engineering and Design
Taha took us to a college in Afula, a small city west of Dabburiya.  He is on the Board of Directors of Shenkar College of Engineering and Design.  It is a college that is open to everyone, Christian, Jew, Muslim and Druze.  They study such topics as plastics engineering and computer engineering.   You can check it out at http://www.shenkar.ac.il/

Arab Girls and Education
Taha's second daughter, Elham, is a student at the Technion in Haifa. The Technion is the equivalent of MIT in Massachusetts.  She is working to be a Materials Engineers.  She will work with bio materials, such as replacement body parts (knees and hips).  Arab women are becoming better educated than men.  It is easier for a woman to get a husband if she is educated.  The most men work outside the home at the jobs that are available to Arabs, such as construction and agriculture.  Very few Arabs can get white collar work in any area except education, which pays very poorly.  Women work in the home raising the children, and it is important that she be educated for this important job.   Families recognize that an educated wife helps to have an educated society. Taha would like to help more Arabs become engineers, so they will have more choices.

Taha's Father
Taha's father was an Arab-Palestinian farmer before 1948.  His mother was a homemaker.  She could not read or write. His father could read and write, but only in Arabic.  (Taha is fully fluent in Arabic, Hebrew and English).  According to Taha, his father was a farmer with 50 dunum.  A duum is about 1000 square meters.   This was a good sized farm.  When the Jews came to power in 1948, they took almost all of his father's land, and left him with only 15 on the side of a rocky mountain. They did not pay him for the land, or help him when his family was hungry because he could not grow crops on the land.   Taha's father worked day and night to try to raise crops on the land that was left to him.  The Jews took over 3000 dunum of land from all the citizens of Dubbariya. All the cotton grown on the fields around Dubburiya does not belong to the citizens of Dubbariya, but to a kibbutz.   When the Jews took the land, Taha's father left the land and did not fight.  That is why he was allowed to stay on the rocky hillside.  Other Arabs fought the Jews and they were thrown out of Israel.  Whenever anyone talked of the land, Taha's father would cry.   Taha's father had 9 children and no income where once he was a successful farmer.

Arab Israeli
In some sense Taha is better off as a minority in Israel than as a majority in another Arab country. He does have some freedoms such as starting the engineering school.

Taha says Democracy is for the powerful and rich.  After 9/11, Taha said Democracy was harmed.  People were put in jail for 3-4-5 months without cause.  According to Taha, one Israeli journalist was jailed in the US.  His crime was taking pictures for an Israeli newspaper that the US government did not want him to take.

There is constant social conflict in Israel between the Jews, Muslims and Christians, although the conflict is almost always peaceful.  Taha believe only through education can we solve this problem.  In Science and education and culture, students of all the faiths work together.
Taha does not call himself a Palestinian because he no longer is a citizen of Palestine, he is a citizen of Israel.  It does not help anything to call himself a Palestinian.  He is an Arab Israeli.

Divorce
The divorce rate is under 5% among Arabs.  God does not love Divorce. No kidding. Why can't we get this straight?

Journal 4

Israeli Colleges, Arabic Opinions and Armageddon

Friday, July 23

Yesterday we spent the day going to colleges.  When we got back, I fell asleep about at about 6-7 PM and did not wake up until about 10 or so. I then got into conversation with college aged Mohammed and talked until about 4 AM.  I have spent the morning trying to get caught up on journaling and having pleasant conversations with Dina.  
Thursday’s events.

Breakfast
We had a very delicious breakfast.  (Insert!  Please remember in all culinary topics, Glenna speaks for herself.  I {Harry} do not always agree.)  We had pita bread, which we dipped in several things such as honey, grape jam, pinenut butter, a green herb called zaatar with olive oil, and Lebany, which is white and kind of sour.  We also had grapes and cucumber pickles, tomatoes and olives.   I had asked for milk but the others had tea.  They said hot tea for breakfast helps you to be cool.

Car Bombs and Safety
I asked about car bombs and the safety of our trip into Haifa.  I was told there have been no car bombs in Dabburiya and maybe one in Afula, and one in about three years in Haifa.  Also, the bomb in Afula was believed to be planted by the Russian Jews as part of organized crime’s attempt at a protection racket.  Of course, in the US press, any bomb must mean terrorists.   Last week, a judge was shot and killed in Tel-Aviv.  The motive for this crime is not clear, but it does not fit the normal pattern of the terrorists.  In any case, violent crime in Israel does not compare to the crime in America.

We passed by fields of sunflowers, cotton, melon, tomato and onion.  It is amazing how fertile this land is.  The land is so stony, it makes New England look like Iowa.

Megiddo/Armageddon
We stopped by Tel Megiddo National Park and the site of Megiddo Castle. It is known to us as through a corruption of language as Armageddon. People have lived here for 7000 years.  It has been destroyed 25 times. The final battle is predicted to be here in Revelations.  It is located in a highly strategic location, overlooking a very fertile plain that contains the only real road between Egypt and Mesopotamia.  It has had 17 holy structures in the same place, one on top of the other.  Among others, Solomon and Ahab built here.  It is almost impossible to grasp the great age of this place.

The Academic College for Education in Israel
Taha works in what used to be an Arabic school, but has changed its name and reputation to include everyone who wants to come.  They still teach classes in Arabic, so they have Muslim, Christian and Druze, but they do not yet have Jewish students because of the language issue.   They have teachers from all four faiths.  They had beautiful artwork everywhere.  There is calligraphy over the door saying "The source of sweet water is crowded"

We met with College President Najeeb Nabwani. who is Druze.  He had a sign on his wall in Arabic calligraphy that says, "Shoot for the moon. If you miss it, you will be among the stars."

We were presented with a children's book written by Dr. Nabwani entitled, The Little Judge.   It is the story of a child who had a wise solution to a theft that helped out a judge.  We were told that there is no drinking or drugs or even smoking in the college.  They estimated that only 2% of the students smoke, anyway.

We met many of the professors and ate lunch in the college cafeteria. Everyone was very cordial and friendly.  I gave peace cranes to all that I met from my students in West Boylston.  They were all thankful, and would sadly say that they wish for peace as well.

Shenkar College of Engineering and Design
We went to Shenkar College in Afula, where we met the Director of Science Education in Israel.  We had a very cordial visit with him and a tour of the college.    We talked of the possibility of exchanges between Israel and the United States.   We were given information on pursuing this. Shenkar College has very small classes, and tries to go beyond what a student would get elsewhere.  The multi-ethnic aspect of the school is very important.

Muhammad
As I mentioned, I spent from midnight until 4 AM talking about politics with Mohammed, Taha's college aged son.  It is fascinating to hear things from another viewpoint.  For instance, he asked if the US does not deserve some retribution for the bad things we have done?  Also, who is the terrorist?  Our country went to war with another country, killed its citizens and bombed and destroyed many buildings, all because they supposedly had weapons of mass destruction.   When these could not be found, we said, oh, we had bad information.  To Mohammad, it seems strange that the richest and most powerful country in the world could not get better information.

He spoke of the Jews and their treatment of the Palestinians.  He says if a Jewish person is killed, we hear about it all over the world.  Many Palestinians get killed, and it is not in the news nearly as much. He says the United States gives arms to Israel but does not help the Palestinians.   The Palestinians are poor and cannot defend themselves. They have had their land taken away.  They are huddled in camps. They cannot fight against tanks.  They try to fight because they have had their land stolen from them.  It is the most important thing they have. They love the land because it is a holy land and they refuse to give the land up.   They fought with their sons and brothers and sisters to keep this land from being stolen from them. They have also seen their mothers and brothers and children killed in front of them.  It is written in the Koran and the Bible that the Judgment Day will be here. Here the land is equal to honor.  If you lose your land, you lose your honor.

Again, according to Muhammed, a local mosque collected money for the Palestinians for school supplies.  The leaders of the mosque were arrested by the Israelis and put in jail because the Israelis said they took this money for themselves, and other charges just to keep them in jail.

There is a law in Israel that states that everyone must respect each others religion, but the Jews do not follow it. In Haifa, an old Mosque was taken over and made into a bar. As we know, Moslems do not drink.

To say this building conversion is offensive to the Arabs is an understatement.

Visits to an Arab Farm and Nazareth

Sunday Breakfast
We had a breakfast of a sweet bread that a neighbor bought in Jerusalem.  It was very good.  It was served with tuna fish, olives, cucumber and tomatoes.  We also were offered a cereal that is chocolate covered banana. The boys ate it with hot milk, and Yehya put sugar on it.   As I said before, the olives are very good.  They are grown on trees in the Massalha yard, and Dina picks them and prepares them.  We also had a mint flavored tea that is very good.

Dr. Farhan Saede
We went to the little village of Arabe, to a small farm owned by Dr. Farhan and Malika Saede.  Malika, the wife is originally from Morocco.  It was a little surreal to be greeted by an Arab woman in Israel with “Enchante!”  He has 20-30 sheep and goats.  He has honey bees, and many plants for the bees to get nectar.  We got to sample such fresh foods as figs, cherry tomatoes, facoose (a sweet cucumber), and prickly pear. They also grow zucchini, okra, zaatar, pomegranates, green plums, and eggplant.

There was a canal by the farm that carries water from Lake Tiberias to the Negev. It is used for irrigation and for cooling a nuclear power plant.  It goes through the land of many Arab farmers.  They are not allowed to use the water, and they only have two bridges in 20 kilometers (12 miles)   That is extremely inconvenient for a small farmer to get to both parts of his divided farm.  The roads in the Arab sectors are extremely narrow and poor and rocky.  Many have had to abandon the part on the other side of the canal.  In the Jewish sectors, there are good, wide, well-paved roads. There seems to be little or no effort by the government to keep up roads in the Arab towns.  The way that the Arabs seem to be treated reminds me of what I was taught about how blacks were treated in the US before Integration.

In Israel, there are many villages that have been around for thousands of years.  The Israeli has chosen not to "recognize" many of these Arab villages.  The official term for these villages is "unrecognized villages." The absurdity of recognizing something by giving it a name that says that you don’t recognize it is pretty obvious.  The residents of these villages have to have the name of a nearby village on their identification papers, and they have to send their children to another village to school.   The idea is that these towns do not get any tax support money from the Israeli government.

Dr. Saede told us that he tried to get electricity, which he should be able to get by law.  He paid a deposit, and the company was about to install it, but the Ministry of the Interior, said no and that was that.  Not only did he not get electricity, but he lost his deposit. Dr. Saede got around this problem by buying and running a generator.  It seems obvious that some members of the government do not want the Arabs to develop and own land.  One of the doctor's guests begged us to tell what is happening here and be their ambassador to the US.  I got to sit on the porch with the men as the women prepared the meal. We sat on foam cushions and discussed politics.  Gee, things are alike the world over.

We were treated with many sweets and fruits while we waited for supper to be prepared.  I was amused to see that they fired up a grill and our meat and onions and tomatoes were grilled on skewers by the men.  We had a wonderful meal with the Doctor and his wife.   As we were eating, his daughter and her three children arrived, followed by his son and his fiancée.  The Doctor's daughter, Amira, lives in the Netherlands with her Arabic husband.  She is completely fluent in four languages:  Arabic, Dutch, Hebrew, English and understands German.   Her English was excellent.

In school, the Arabic students take Arabic, Hebrew and English. We were told the World Health Organization had a slogan "Adding years to life."  Now, since 1990, they have the slogan "Adding life to years"

Nazareth
In Nazareth we visited a basilica called the Church of the Ascension, where Gabriel came to Mary to tell her she was pregnant.  There were many pieces of art work centered on Mary sent from all over the world.  They were exquisite. It was moving to go inside and kneel in a place where Mary lived and where Jesus walked.

Later, we went to a Greek Orthodox church which was built over Mary's well.  Although to outside of this church was not impressive, within, the art work was exquisite.  It was moving to drink water from Mary's well.

We had a wonderful meal at what Taha told us was the best Arabic restaurant in Nazareth.  We had many delicious Arabic dishes.  One looks like a hand grenade.  Taha told of a friend who came into someone's house and saw this food and ran outside saying "It's a bomb!” It had ground beef in it and was covered with something like a corn bread.  It was called Kubbih.  We also had falafel, which I liked to dip into various dishes.  There were three different dishes of eggplant, a staple in Israel.  We had beef strips on a plate, then tore up Syrian bread and dipped it into various things like humus, a hot relish and pickled vegetables.  We also had the obligatory olives and pickles.  It was a wonderful meal. After we were so full we could hardly move Taha took us to a sweet shop to eat a local delicacy called k’nafe.  (I used this spelling based on pronunciation.)

Jim's Question
Last evening, I asked Taha and his brother Muhammed if they were to follow the Koran perfectly, could they live in peace with the Jews. They immediately said "Of course!" There was peace for twelve centuries. There was only a problem because the Jews decided they "owned" Israel and proceeded to come here and take land without paying for it.  They were offered land in Africa but refused.  They wanted Israel.  Many Arabs were forced to leave the country, or go to the West Bank and Gaza strip which was given to them by the UN.  In the West Bank and Gaza strip (Palestine), the Arabs are in camps, kind of in limbo.   Most of the homes have been destroyed and they are very much restricted and watched by Israeli soldiers.  They have no army or weapons.  Some have been able to get some chemicals and make bombs, but mostly they only have rocks to fight with.   The Jews have taken over the rest of Israel and live free and often affluent lives.  The Palestinians only want a place to call home.

Muhammed's Children
I was invited inside to visit with Muhammed's wife and children.  It was good for me because they did not speak very good Engish, and I finally was forced to learn some Arabic.  It was fun trying to figure out what each was saying.  The children had English in school, but with little opportunity to use it, they were not good at speaking.  I went away with a wonder at the intelligence of the Massalha children.  Keep in mind English is their third language.

Journal 6

Conversations in a Watermelon Field, Haifa, and Druze Villages

I am having a very difficult time getting to journaling.  We are kept going from early morning to night (which I love) but it is @#%* hot! It takes a lot out of you when you are not used to it.  Now that I have that off my chest...

Sunday evening, young men and sweets
Sunday evening, we went with college age son Muhammed to the top of Tabor Mountain, which is beside Dubbiriya. It was beautiful to look at the sea of lights in the valley.  We also visited family members who were sitting by a field of watermelon and a large area of drying watermelon seeds, chatting and smoking a water pipe.  With many big smiles, Harry was offered a smoke and he refused. In a previous excursion with one of Taha’s nephews, Harry was offered a smoke on a water pipe, and accepted.  When in Rome. . .

Anyway, we met a lawyer, Zaid, cousin of Muhammed who went to school in Italy, and speaks Arabic, Hebrew, English, Italian and some German.  He apologized for his English but spoke very well.  His brother, Raed, was also there.  He is a truck driver.  We spoke of the wonderful land of Israel as well as the struggle of the Arabs in this land.  These young men are between 25 and 30, and very happy to meet Americans, and also anxious for us to get a good impression of Arabs. They invited us to go to the Golan Heights with them one day.  Suddenly, someone appeared with a box of Arabic confections.  They are wonderful!  If I can find some I will buy them and bring them home.  (He who visits first gets a taste!)

We were also told that in 1948 there were 400 Arab villages, but now there are only 96.  There are many unattended olive trees, as they now belong to local kibbutz, and Arabs are not allowed to come on the land. Not all kibbutz people are into production of olives.

Monday, Haifa and more
Haifa is a city on the Mediterranean Sea.  It is known for shipping. In 1948 it was mostly Arab and now it is mostly Jewish.  We went by a Mosque that is part church and part auto repair garage.  Some of the Mosques have been turned into museums, but one in Haifa has been turned into a bar. I was told one Mosque was used as a studio for porn films. These mosques were not abandoned or sold; they were taken.

We first went to the Ba'Hai Gardens.  Ba’hai is a religious group has a church and beautiful gardens in Haifa.  Ba'Hai members travel from all over the world to visit this site. We climbed many, many, many steps to get to view the gardens, because they are planted in a long vertical strip up the side of a very steep and substantial hill.  The gardens were beautiful.  Words cannot do it justice, so please check the web page for a picture.

We went to the Mt. Carmel Church called Stella Maris.  It is a church started by the Crusaders.  This is the home of the Carmelite Order of monks.  At the church, I lit a candle and prayed for blessings for the marriage of Emily and Clint Earns.  (We attended their wedding just before coming to Israel.)  We were told the first time you come to the church, your first prayer will be answered.

We then took a tram down the mountain.  It was a beautiful as it overlooked the shore of the Mediterranean Sea.  We then went to a seafood restaurant.  The fish was served with heads and tails like in Japan.  The interesting part was a guard at the door.  We had to be wanded, and have my purse examined.  We found at the end of the meal that we paid something like $4 each for the security guard.  We had the Arab Salad which we have come to expect.  It is Syrian bread with humus and other things to dip your bread in, and preceeds your entree. I had a fish called Denis.

I asked if there are any homeless.  I was told very few in Haifa, but none in Dubbariya.  

We then went to two Druze villages, Oasofia and Dalyat el Karmel. Actually, they are mixed villages of Christian, Muslim and Druze, but all Arab.  We had a great time in the shops and bought some wonderful hand woven wall hangings, table cloths and glass dishes.   We had some great conversations with people in the village and enjoyed looking around at the shops.  Harry looked at water pipes but cannot decide if he can take one home as part is usually glass.  We have a lot to pack already.

We asked Taha in the car about divorce among the Islam faith.  They are allowed to divorce but there are other avenues suggested before divorce, and it is a last choice.  It is very difficult financially and socially.

Journal 7

The Golan Heights

This entry will be a tag team effort by Glenna and me.  I can't even remember what day we went to the Golan Heights, but one recent day one of our host's sons and Glenna and I piled in the Toyota for a trip of discovery.  (Our hosts for this trip were Raed, a truck driver and Ziad, a lawyer.)   Get out your maps of Israel and follow along.

Our host lives fairly close to Nazareth.  From here, we went to where the Jordan River flows out of the Sea of Galilee. As an aside, it is striking how few tourists there are ANYWHERE in Israel.  At the site that tourists go to for baptisms at the Jordan, we were literally the only people!   The gift shop was almost deserted and no-one was at the river itself. We continued South of the Sea of Galilee and on to the east until we got to the Syrian border, and then headed north.  During much of this section of the trip we were within anywhere from a mile to a hundred feet of the border.   The border itself is very obvious with lines of razor wire, a cleared zone on both sides of the wire and many warning signs.  Sometimes in the distance we saw military installations for observation and radar.

At one point, we stopped for lunch in a village that is composed almost exclusively of Druze people.  The Druze are ethnic Arabs.  They consider their religion a kind of Islam.  The girls are spectacularly beautiful, and it was obvious that the guys with us enjoyed the scenery. After buying some gifts and a delicious lunch, we moved on through the eastern part of the Golan.

There are VERY few people living here.  We were told that when the Jews took over the Golan, they kicked out almost all of the inhabitants, or they fled the violence.  There are many places that show regular and orderly piles of rocks (demolished houses), groves of olive trees and prickly pear cactus, (a sure sign that Arabs lived there) but no people.   The visual scenery is spectacular, with a steady climb in elevation.  Always in the distance is Mt Herman, which dominates all of the Golan.  It is tall enough that it is snow covered all winter, and into the summer months.

The guys next took us to what we guessed was a preserved fortified spot, high up in the hills.  This is a site used by the Israelis in previous conflicts.  From this point, you could see for many miles in any directions.  This was a poignant moment in several ways.

1.  The Israelis obviously thought that this was an important point, because they had turned it into a park, complete with restrooms and a substantial restaurant.  Both the restrooms and the restaurant were closed, and we were one of only two parties there.
2. This area of the Golan is famous for apples.  There is something very wrong about a military strong point in the middle of apple orchards.

After this brief visit, we went to Nimrod's Fortress/Castle, currently an Israeli National Park.  This is a very impressive site, located on the top of a hill that is surrounded by cliffs on three sides, and a very steep hillside on the fourth. This fortress was built in 1227 by Muslims to protect a major route from the Crusaders and internal intriguers between Damascus and anywhere to the south and west.   Considering its age and the number of times it has been attacked, it is in remarkable condition.

We then continued further north toward the Lebanon border.  We actually entered a village that is half in Israeli occupied Golan, and half in Lebanon.  We were within about 10 FEET of the border.  To get into the village, we had to stop at a checkpoint and leave our passports, which were returned when we left. (You can read some anxiety into this from Glenna.)

We also stopped at Kurst National Park, which is the site of the miracle of the swine from the Bible.  It is also the site of a recently unearthed Byzantine Monastery.  It was fascinating to look at what was left of this ancient structure.  They believe this structure was built in the fifth century.   To view such ancient structures is amazing.

We passed by the Mount of the Beatitudes, but the church was closed. We then went on to the city of Tiberias.  We spent some time walking by waterfront shops and restaurants.  We then went into the town, now after dark and stopped by an old Mosque in great disrepair, in the middle of modern buildings and a shopping area.   We were shown this Mosque and told that the Arabs collected money to fix up the Mosque, but were given a lot of red tape and finally were not given permission to work on the building.  In the meantime, vandals did further damage to the once beautiful and sacred building.   It was heartbreaking to see such a beautiful building fall into disrepair.  I (Glenna) wanted to organize a sit-in or something to bring attention to such things. Again, we were told that this is not the worst of it, they told us what we had heard before, that Mosques have been used for bars and worse.   There are laws on the books in Israel that each must respect the religion of the other but some inspectors do not always follow this law.

Journal 8

Home Again

Israel and the USA

Harry and I arrived home safely Wednesday.  After sleeping, unpacking and repacking and some fitful sleep, I am off to Maryland to attend a Women of Faith Conference with my sister Ellen.

When I return, I will finish the journals for the last fun-filled, hectic days in Israel, and finally post pictures to the website.
Our experience was wonderful.  I hope each of you get the opportunity to visit Israel one day and enjoy the hospitality of the people and the wonder of visiting holy sites.

Journal 9

A Busy Day

Jisr Az Zarqa

We visited the village of Jisr Az Zarqa.  It is a small town of about 18,000 people north of Tel Aviv.  This village is the only one in Israel that is both all Arab and on the Mediterranean Sea.  It is on prime real estate on the Mediterranean Sea, but it is among the poorest villages in Israel.  They have severe problems with unemployment, and consequently with alcohol and drugs.  This village is made up of people who were brought here long ago from Egypt and Jordan.  The two groups do not get along, and there is not a sense of community.  The villagers have a poor sense of self worth.  We met with Mohammed Naamneh, the director of the Community Center.  He is a very impressive man, with impeccable English and boundless energy.  We first met him at Dr. Saede’s farm.  He helps bring in food, like our Food Share, and plans summer activities for the children.  He is not a resident of Jesr El Zarka, and hopes to one day work himself out of a job by encouraging someone from the village to take over his job.  The day we visited, the town had been unable to pay for the water, and the water got shut off for the whole town.

The last mayor tried to get the townspeople to work on turning the village into a tourist attraction, but to no avail.  It was a discouraging story.  Mohammed said he would like to have a project between the school there and an American school.  I suggested that we could work on putting together school supply bags for the children but he liked the idea of a project better.  I think perhaps exchanging art work between our elementary school and theirs would be fun.  We will see.

Shenkar University

At Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, we met Dr. Gavin Suss, Head of Academic Administration.  He surprised us with a British accent and said he is from South Africa.  Shenkar College is unique in that it has a school of fashion and jewelry design as well as an engineering department.  Mohammed Massalha, our host’s son is a student in the Plastics Engineering department.

We were given a tour of the facility starting with a magnificent machine.  It is a computer printer.  However, this is not a normal printer.  It actually prints out working models in solid, three dimensions!  It works by printing out the design model in thin, thin layers.  One example we saw was a wrench.  It was designed on the computer, and came out as a plastic wrench, complete with moving parts.  You could turn the screw part and the jaws moved.  They also had a rook (Castle) from a chess set with a winding stair case inside the piece.  The most fascinating and hardest to describe was a model which had many gears that all worked.  This will make engineering a much faster process, because the expense of making a prototype model is greatly reduced.

They had other wonderful machines that produced 3-D models as well.  One made jewelry in wax with more detail than could be made by hand.  A mold is made over the design and then jewelry with incredible detail can be made.

We were fortunate to be able to view a wonderful display of student projects including jewelry, fashion and design inventions.  The inventions were great.  They included a “hug chair” for autistic children, a portable kitchen on wheels, and a clothes line with little clingy rings on it that made clothes pins unnecessary.  We had a great time visiting this school, and visiting with Dr. Suss.

Jerusalem and the Ministry of Education

We then traveled to Jerusalem to the Ministry of Education.  We met with David Sela who is the National Inspector for Physics.  Yup, we were among the big wigs!  He invited Massa (Middle School Science) and Rachel (Chemistry) to join us.  We had a wonderful time discussing science curriculum.  Massa showed me the 7^th grade text which is recommended by the country.  Everyone in the whole country studies the same thing the same year using the same curriculum.  Students purchase their own books, so teachers are asked to keep a text the same for at least five years.  Teachers are allowed to deviate from the text, but must cover all material covered by the text.  They have recently added engineering to their curriculum, and they are having the same struggles getting teachers to cover the new curriculum that we have in the US.

To clarify, the whole country of Israel has close to the same land mass and population of Massachusetts, so it is not like Japan as far as everyone using the same curriculum.  They have an added problem that we do not have in the US.  Most of their schools teach in Hebrew for the Jewish students, and the rest of the schools teach in Arabic for the Arab Christian, Muslim and Druze students.  This means they have to print the text books in both Arabic and Hebrew.  I suppose it is somewhat like the ESL classes.  They have the tests in Israel like we have here to give teachers incentive to teach the complete curriculum.  I mentioned the National Science Teacher Association Convention in Dallas, Texas, Spring 2005, and Massa expressed a desire to attend.  It would be great if she can come.

I described my Data Collection and Graphing Project that I do with my students.  I showed a culminating PowerPoint presentation designed by students this past year.  Massa described a science fair-type event that they have in her school which is done mostly in school to avoid the parent “help” that seems to be a given all over the world for science fairs.  It sounded very interesting.  I hope to see the final projects some day.

David, Massa and Rachel were all Jews.  I mentioned how much I was enjoying staying with Arabs and learning about their culture.  I also mentioned that I was pleasantly surprised how well their women were treated, including encouragement in higher education.  Rachel said she did not think this was very widespread.  I asked how they felt about the Arabs still living in refugee camps in the West Bank.  Massa said she did not think they were living in refugee camps.  They live in villages like any other part of Israel.  She said hoped everyone could find a way to go on and leave the past behind.  I told Massa how impressed I am with Taha, and she said she knew quite a few Arabs and was looking forward to getting to know Taha.  She said she was giving a teacher workshop in a Druze village the next day, and had decided not to charge anything for her workshop.

Judean Desert

When we left Jerusalem, we decided to go up along the East side of the West Bank, following the Jordanian border.  We went south of Jericho and then headed north, away from the Dead Sea.  We could not visit Jericho, as it is part of the occupied West Bank and not at all safe for Americans.  We could not visit the Dead Sea at the northern end because it had barbed wire because it is the border between Israel and Jordan.  This part of our trip brought us through the Judean Desert.  We saw barren hills, and Bedouin with their tents, sheep, camels.  It was beautiful, driving along in an air conditioned car, but I cannot imagine living there in a house, let alone a tent.  I am told there are Bedouins who live in the towns now.  In fact, I believe there are Bedouins living in Dubbariya.

As we traveled north between the West Bank and Jordan, we passed through a check point, manned by Israeli soldiers, but we were told we were ok because we had Israel license plates, rather than Palestinian plates.  As we traveled north, the land went from desert to just barren with a little scrub.  Then we got to rows of date palms, banana trees, grapes vines and even fish farms.  These were sometimes owned by Arabs but the large ones were owned by a Kibbutz.

We went by a prison that we were told holds over 8000 Palestinians.

We saw a sunset on our way home.  What a day!

Bride’s Party

Oh, you thought the day would end here with a nice dinner and rest from a long day. . .  Wrong!

After we got home, Dina was waiting for me to change and go to a Bride’s party.  How could you say no to a traditional Arabic Bride’s party?  We could hear music from blocks away.  We walked the few blocks to where there were streets blocked off.  We were ushered to a table and given heaping plates of a rice and chicken dish.  There is a white sauce that is put it over the rice and chicken dish.  Delicious!  There was other food, but I particularly enjoyed that sauce.

We then went over to another area where a couple hundred ladies were all sitting in rows of lawn chairs.  By the way, plastic lawn chairs are all the rage in Arab Israel.  We sat in them in kitchens (they stack easily), on farms and at parties.  Anyway, the women were together and there were a few men and boys, including a couple of Taha’s sons, but the women sat together.  Up the street, there was what we would call a band stand constructed of wood in the middle of the street.  There was a band playing and a beautiful woman in a bright, floor length ball gown was on the stage.  This was the bride.  Friends and family were lined up to get their picture taken with her.  After a while, there was a commotion at the other end of the street.  It was the arrival of the family of the groom.  They carried him down the street on their shoulders to the bride.  He got her from the stage and danced with her in the street.  They were surrounded by friends and family who were also dancing.  Not as couples, just dancing around them.  After a bit of dancing and such, the groom and his family left.

The party continued.  They brought around the dark Arabic coffee and sweets much like baklava.  As I have said, I loved their sweets.  There was also soda available.  All of this was served by young men that I believe were cousins or brothers.  The party was going on and on, and I got very tired.  I was told at midnight they would have passed out little packets of henna, a reddish dye. I will have to check with Dina, but there is something about putting henna in the palm of your hand and writing something in it to give you good luck.  I could not take notes in the dark of the wedding.  We arrived back home (yes, we felt like it was home) and I fell into a deep sleep.

Harry passed on the Bride’s party but went to the groom’s party the next night.  I guess the bride does not come and there is dancing and such with more men.  I did not ask if there were women there or not.  Wedding celebrations can last for three or four days.  There are a lot in the summer as there are here.  Taha, as a highly respected college professor, and having eight brothers and sisters with many nieces and nephews, attends to dozens of wedding in a summer.

Journal 10

This was to be an Ecumenical day as our next stop was at a Druze village.  The Druze have been around for over 1000 years.  They are similar to the Muslims, except they do not do the praying and fasting that the Muslims do and the specifics of their religion remain a strict secret.  The Druze tend to live in the mountains on the edge of other civilizations.  The Druze do serve in the Israeli army and are treated pretty well by both sides.  Raed took us into the Mokhtar House.  This would have been the mayor’s house in the past.  Perhaps you could say the social center of the village.  Now it is set up for tourists.  It was long and dark and wonderful.  You could imagine belly dancers in scarves and men smoking water pipes.  There were handcrafts on the walls everywhere.  We were served. . . no, you are wrong this time:  tea!  The tea is made from something like 24 different plants.  It tasted like tea to me.  We went to the oldest part of the village and stood and ate ice cream and soaked in the ambiance.

 While traveling