End the trip with a little meaning.

For our last full day in Israel I knew that we needed to add in some chesed activity. We were supposed to pick fruits with Leket earlier, but those plans changed as the fields we were supposed to go to changed and we could no longer make it. There are several other organizations that offer volunteer opportunities. I was looking for one that would be not only meaningful, but also have at least some element of fun. The obvious choice is Pantry Packers however they need at least 6 participants over the age of 6 in order to secure a time slot. We don't even have 6 in our group to begin with, so I had to find something else. There is an organization called Yad Eliezer which I am familiar with back home. Once a year our local neighborhood hosts a mega bake sale to fundraise for this organization. I have baked for them for several years and hope to continue. One of their branches goals is to provide formula for babies to parents who need it. (Don't worry, they aren't anti breast-feeding or anything, but there are babies who need to be fed, and that is who they help.) I contacted them to see if they had any volunteer slots open for us and they were more than happy to accommodate our little group including our toddler.

Yad Eliezer's food packing warehouse is in the heart of Jerusalem in a very religious neighborhood. Once we arrived and figured out how to enter the warehouse, we were escorted upstairs to watch a brief video on all the different types of assistance Yad Eliezer provides for various needy people. Afterwards we went down stairs to the conveyor belt. A man was assigned to help us pack boxes of toiletries and food necessities like pasta, flour, sugar, canned vegetables etc. They had a specific way of filling the boxes in order to maximize the items placed in the box. Once all of the staples were taken care of he showed us large crates of random food and told us to fill any of the empty spaces in the boxes with anything we find in the crates. My sons decided that there are probably more than a few families who are receiving the boxes that probably have children who would appreciate a snack, so they sifted through the crate finding cookies, chips, bamba, bissili, pretzels, chocolate etc. basically anything that they themselves would want to eat. Of course they added in more things like pasta, beans and rice, because children do not live on cake alone (contrary to popular belief!). The final step was the kids favorite part. You slide the boxes down the line into an automatic taping machine. Over and over we sent our full boxes through the machine until our job was done. Yossi, the man in charge video taped us while we worked. He also asked us to do some funny moves while he videoed. He showed us a funny video that he put together of our time there. My kids had a good time. It wasn't hard work, the job we were doing was obviously going to help several families, Yossi was entertaining and made the food packing a lot more fun than it sounds.

After all of that handling of food and running around the warehouse, we had worked up an appetite for lunch. Mendel was intent on getting a Bavarian Cream from Cofix (one of the few "different" pareve desserts around). I knew there were many Cofix stores in Yerushalaim, but I didn't know exactly where one was from where we were. I typed it into WAZE and let the app guide us. At first it took us to Ben Yehuda Street. But after driving around for about 20 minutes looking for a place to park, I gave up and navigated us back to Mamilla Mall parking. We were now experts at walking through the mall, through Jaffa Gate, through the Old City and right to Cofix. Mendel got his bureka fix, his Bavarian cream and an ice blended Lemonade. Meir savored his ice blended coffee knowing that there is NO WAY he would be getting one back home. Atara had fallen asleep as we bumped our way through the old city with the stroller, but I got her the pasta that was such a hit last time.
We then headed down to Misgav Ledach road to the Temple Institute Museum. We signed up for an English tour. We weren't allowed to use our cameras in the museum, so you will just have to take my word for it... This museum is all about recreating the vessels and the articles used in the Holy Temple so that when Mashiach comes everything will be ready and Kohanim can get right to work with the service. The only other people in our group was a man and girl (about 9 years old). The man was probably an older brother, but he must have been an Israeli citizen because he had with him a GIANT weapon, which is quite normal to see in Israel, but surprising for us still. We went through the rooms of the museum while a narrated recording played and highlighted what we were supposed to be looking at. In the last room there was a movie depicting modern architectural renderings of what the temple mount could look like. It was interesting to see it done with the people in the drawings wearing modern clothing and not turbans and tunics. While we were enjoying the film all of a sudden there was a loud BANG! Of course our first thought was the guys gun must have gone off! But no, he just dropped his phone. Afterwards, one of my kids remarked how they really like having this guy with us as they felt very safe knowing some one in our group was fully armed.
I had my kids chose their last Minion Popsicle of the trip (even though it was quite cold out) and then we wandered around the Old City a little more. The kids chose their souvenirs and we made our way back to have one final dinner and hang out with their cousins.
I can't believe our trip has come to an end. Meir is already planning what we should do and repeat for his bar mitzvah, so until next time. Lehitraot.

Taking it easy

 
Our plan for this short Friday was to go to the Herzl Museum in Yerushalaim. We reserved a spot in an English tour at 8:45 am. This would mean leaving RBS at 7:30, and to meet that deadline, getting everyone up at 6:45/7. Many mornings most of us were up at that time anyway. Friday morning at 7 am none of the kids were up. I decided that since our past week was extremely busy to let the kids sleep and to wait it out. They didn't even get up until 8:30am. I finally wore out my crew!
Once everyone was up, dressed, davened and fed it was closer to 10am. The Herzl Museum was obviously not going to happen even at a later tour time slot. I completely forgot about my back up plan of the Police Museum right here in Beit Shemesh (which rumor has it is free). My 13 year old was content to read and relax and watch the 2 year old. My 9 year old was just as happy to go with me into the Mercaz of RBSA to so some pre-Shabbos shopping and to hunt down some chapstick. The wind and dry weather and maybe even some of the poor air quality due to the Arson Terrorist Fires raging through the country made his lips cracked and miserable. So off we went for some odds and ends.
Shabbos as usual was wonderful. We spent it once again with my sister and her family. The cousins played and marched around to each park. I think my 9 year old really enjoyed his freedom to roam. Their 9 year old daughter took my 2 year old to a few of the parks, I really enjoyed their freedom to roam without me!
We didn't really have any plans for Motzei Shabbos, but I wanted the kids to get out just a little, so we went to the new mall in Beit Shemesh. We took my nephew Shlomo with us. He is in High School/ Yeshiva so his opportunity to join us during the week was non existent. Our first stop was the new ice cream shop. Fortunately for Mendel they had a wide variety of pareve flavors. They also had a help-yourself chocolate syrup pump and sprinkles that were pareve. Everyone got their scoops and cones, I waited for Atara to decide that she didn't want hers, she wanted mine. Lucky for me I was able to convince her that adding sprinkles to her half consumed cone was enough of an upgrade.
Even though we all had eaten plenty on Shabbos, the boys were hungry. If you ever have the pleasure of taking teen/tween boys on a trip you will notice they are always hungry and can always stop for a bite. There was a shwarma restaurant that met the kosher seal of approval for my nephew. He helped Mendel order since the menu was only in Hebrew and there were a lot of options. I saw a kids meal on the menu. It seemed a little pricey, but I figured Meir and Atara could split it. It was so cute. They served fries (chips) and schnitzel nuggets in a deep fryer basket. There was enough food there for Meir, Atara and the rest of us to at least pick at.
We popped into market down stairs to load up on travel snacks and to check out if there were any flavors of Doritos or Cheetos that we hadn't sampled yet.

When we finally exhausted the options of the mall, and had visited my sister at her job at Terem (urgent care clinic that we fortunately only visited as a social visit), we headed back home for our final full day in Israel.

Ancient Jerusalem; Modern Jerusalem

Thursday morning started off early once again with our reservation to the Temple Mount Sifting project. My sister and two of her girls joined us for this experience.  This is run by Ir David, but it does NOT take place near Ir David, it is basically next to Bringham Young Univeristy and the Hebrew University. Once you figure out where to go, parking is easy, but figuring out where to go can be a bit tricky. We parked above the sifting site and walked down about 100 steps down a hill. This part is NOT stroller friendly, fortunately for us Atara hates her stroller anyway. Unfortunately for me, half of the time she wanted to be in the carrier. The views of the Old City are outstanding from here.
The point if the Temple Sifting Project is to go through the tons and tons of dirt that the Muslims dug out to build a mosque on the Temple Mount in the stables from the time of Kings David and Shlomo. They took no care in careful excavation and mixed layers and areas with reckless abandon. The volunteers (you pay a small fee) sift through pre-filled, but not sorted buckets of rubble. First you select a bucket and then take it to a sifting tray. Then you wash off the dirt and rocks. Next you search through the pieces you find into different categories such as pottery, metals, glass, special stones, bones etc.  A certified archaeologist comes over to your sifting tray to check through your work and make sure you didn't miss anything or thing something is ancient when it is really modern. Any special findings for the day are placed on a special display table. Meir found a nail from the time of the second Bais Hamkidash (Second Temple). The difference between a modern nail and an ancient one is a modern nail is round at the shaft and head and an ancient one is square shaped (since it had to be hand pounded by an metal smith).
Atara was moderately occupied during this process. The archaeologists let her play in some of the worthless rubble sifting through it as if it was important. They also let her play with some of the empty buckets and wheelbarrows, but after about an hour she was in full complain mode. The other kids could have stayed longer and Meir even says he would consider archaeology as a profession. Even though it was early, we treated the kids to the customary ice cream and Popsicles.
The Bermans headed back to RBS to continue on with their day and upcoming wedding preparations, we headed back into the Old City for some breakfast. We were thinking of going back to
Cofix, but a throng of school kids where in the store and there was no way we could get through that tidal wave of kids. So, off to Cafe Ne'eman. There they sell the burekas that Mendel loves, sufganiyot that were pareve and the most creative sufganiyot that were dairy. Meir, Atara and I sampled some donuts, ate some bagel sandwiches and got Atara some pizza from the store next door. We thought about going down to the Kotel once again, but it was about 45 minutes until we had to be at the shuk for a tour, so we headed out of the Old City to allow ourselves some time to get lost and confused!
We took the light rail from just outside the Old City walls 3 stops to Machne Yehuda. We had to meet our tour guide Debra Nussbaum Stepen in front of the Berman Bakery on 42 Agrippas Street. First we had to find Agrippas Street. We had several blocks to walk in order to get to the right address
, but we made it there by 2 pm.
Debra took us all around the shuk with various stops to sample local and ethnic food like malawach and custom fruit juice blends. We sampled mixed roasted seeds and nuts (which the kids loved!) and dried fruit. We drank tea and had fresh rice cakes. Debra explained the history of the shuk and discussed things like the different kosher hechshers we saw. We ate, learned and walked for 2 hours. It was a great experience.
After our shuk tour we met up with a Solomon cousin on Ben Yehuda. We walked around a little but it was very cold and windy that we decided it would be best to park ourselves at the mehadrin Pizza Hut to get the kids dinner and to chat. Afterwards we went on a hunt to find Mendel something to eat. Finding a good hechsher for meat proved to be a bit more challenging. We finally came up with a shwarama/felafel type place right before we had to cross the street to our one and only parking area, Mamilla Mall. The outdoor scene was much more subdued than usual for a Thursday night due to the chilly weather. Just as well.

Up and down

I chose our zimmer to be in the center of the Galil because on our last day we were supposed to volunteer to pick the fields with Leket, an organization that donates produce to needy families and school children. Their northern fields were slightly on our way back down. Perfect. Convenient. But then they emailed me saying those fields were mostly all picked out and they were going to be picking at fields about an hour and a half further south. This would be even more convenient except for one small detail, we were supposed to pick in the morning so I scheduled an afternoon activity nearby, so driving 3 hours round trip was less than appealing. I cancelled on Leket, we will pick up another chesed activity later.
So, now I had to figure out what to do in the morning. I decided that since Rosh Hanikra did not work out on our way up, we will do it in the morning and work our way down the rest of the day. It was about an hour and 15 minute drive to Rosh Hanikra, which is at the border with Lebanon.

We took the steep, but short cable car ride down to the grottos. They had an English movie for us to start with, which was interesting enough. We learned about the natural formation of the area as well as the man made tunnels from the time of Alexander the Great. We also found out that the train tracks that we could see in the ground were made by the British, but destroyed by the Haganah when they heard that the Lebanese were going to use them in an attack against Israel. We then explored the grottos and tunnels and paths that traversed the mountain. The water was a clear blue- turquoise. As much as we couldn't see through the Jordan River, we could see the bottom of the bay through the Mediterranean Sea.  Popscicles and ice cream were in order once again as we headed out to our next stop.

Our next stop of the day was to Kfar Kedem.  Here we go to experience life as in the time of the Mishna. We dressed up in tunics and head scarves. Our guide Amir took us through time (more explanatory than role playing imagination). He explained the religious significance behind what we were wearing and doing. Since it is nearly Chanuka one of our options was to make olive oil. We went to a small area with some olive trees. They had several real ancient olive presses and oil collecting stones. We gathered olives and pressed them. He showed us how to work the various oil collecting tools. Next we went to a small wheat field mock up. We learned about planting and harvesting wheat. He connected it to the laws of Shabbos and the laws of a field. He gave us some wheat kernels and brought us to an ancient grinding/milling stone. Next we made fresh pita on an outdoor oven. After that we went into the tented area to enjoy more pita, fresh hummus and techina with olive oil and spices, olives that they cured there on site, fresh dates and herbal tea. Yum!

Our final activity was donkey riding. Amir taught us how to hold the reins of the donkey to guide it. He taught us the voice commands for getting the donkey to walk and stop. We lead each other around the corral. It was a much more comfortable and soothing ride than the camels, but we all agreed we are glad we are in the days of automobile, even the tin can on wheels we are renting.

Our next stop comes with an "Only in Israel" story. Atara has a wubanub (a pacifier attached to a stuffed animal) She likes regular pacifiers too, but seems to lose at least one every two days. The wubanub seems to hang out with us for several months. For some reason only known to her she decided to bit off the tip to her bear wubanub. Now, I could have decided that it is too bad for her and now she is pacifier free, but we have several more days her along with a long trip back home. I wanted a paci replacement more for me than for her. I asked an online board if they sell these things anywhere in Israel. We were going from Rosh Hanikra to Beit Shemesh and eventually to Yerushalaim so I had nearly half a country to find one. No one could concretely tell me where to go. Suddenly one woman from Tel Aviv told me she has a brand new one that her baby daughter doesn't use and we can have it if we could come and get it. So, off to Tel Aviv we went! This kind lady gave us Atara's new monkey paci and she was even on our way home.

Last stop of the day was back to RBS. Along the way we passed a forest fire in Zichron Yaakov. We would only later find out that this was the first of the catastrophic arson terrorism fires set by the Arabs that ravaged Haifa and other parts of the country.

Calm waters, rough waters

After we woke up and found delicious healthy muffins hanging on our doorknob compliments of the Villa owner and hostess Chana, we took our time getting ready to head out. Our first activity of the day was only 15 minutes away. I quickly phoned them to be sure us showing up this morning was still fine.
We piled into the car and headed out to Rob Roy Kayaking (which is really canoeing) http://www.robroy.co.il/
Rob Roy is an Native American (Indian) Themed encampment just off the Kineret on the Jordan River. They display some totem poles, teepees, dream catchers etc. I think there are other more full day activities you can add on to do there, but we were just going to be canoeing this morning.
I had everyone change into swim clothes just in case we ended up getting wet. There are a few signs saying no swimming, and when you look at the Jordan river you can easily guess why. It is one big murky mess. You can easily imagine a variety of nastiness swimming under the water, but you can't see a thing below the surface. We were the only ones there that morning so they didn't mind putting up with Atara insisting on a life jacket that looked like everyone elses and not the "baby" kind. She also had to have her own oar. I tried to explain that she just needs to hold her own, but wouldn't be using it, but the man said he can only give us 3 oars. So basically Mendel and I rowed and steered the boat and Meir and Atara took turns whenever Atara thought Meir could have the oar for a few minutes.
/The water was very still and once we got into a rhythm rowing the boat was very easy. We had an hour and half total water time. There must have been some sort of scavenger hunt along the river because there were a bunch of signs with hand drawn eyes and numbers. Around them were wooden creatures and animals. There were some homemade rope swings every so often, but there was NO chance my kids were going to use them to jump in the water. Even when I suggested they try them out, they shot that down faster than we could paddle away.
The route was not circular, so we had to pick a time to turn around and come back. Atara had pretty much had enough and could no longer be distracted by dragonflies and random songs, so we returned to the launch site after about an hour. Of course everyone was rewarded with popsicles and ice cream. We changed back into our regular clothes and headed into Tiveria.

Tiveria (Tiberias) was only about a 30 minute drive away. There we went to the Kever of the Rambam (gravesite). I had Mendel look up the Rambam and some of the other tzaddikim who are buried in Tiveria. He was most interested in Rabbi Meir Baal Haness. I told him that I had previously davened and given tzedaka in his name to help me find lost things. We learned that he is buried standing upright so he can just walk out of his grave and greet Moshiach. When we got to Kever Rambam (which looks like a modern white flame structure surrounding it) we split to our designated sides and said a bit of tehillim. After that we went to the Maimonides Heritage Center  http://mhcny.orgThere is a small museum that goes over the life and works of the Rambam. We had an appointment at the Center to do their puzzle game. We first watched a short, but well done and interesting video on the life of the Rambam. We then did the one hour puzzle game trying to answer clues to earn us keys to unlock a safe with a surprise inside. This puzzle room was a little different than the escape rooms we had done in the past at home as we were given all of the clues at once and asked to either collaborate or to work alone finding the answers some where in the museum. The clues were written in cryptic form and we had to put in answers into an ipad to see if we were correct. We were able to complete all 5 clues in about 50 minutes. This was a fun and educational activity. The docent couldn't have been nicer. He even provided crayons and blocks to try and keep Atara busy. He prompted is with hints when needed. I highly recommend this activity. On our way out Mendel was needed for a mincha minyan at the Kever, so we waited for him realizing that since we are north of Yerushalaim his minyan was facing south instead of east.
We decided to go walk along the Tayelet (boardwalk) to see what was going on and to find food for our dinner. Pretty much nothing was open. It was EXTREMELY windy by the Kineret (Sea of Galilee). The water was very choppy. Meir had his own delight at finding his name in Hebrew as graffiti. We tried to walk along the water but it was too windy and cold. When we stopped to take a picture the stroller started rolling away. Obviously there weren't any boats to rent to cruise the water. Most things seemed closed for the season. We did find our usual Pizza and ice cream stops for Meir and Shnitzel/Shwarma stop for Mendel.
As we walked back to our car we stumbled upon an open air art museum. We learned that the vowels for reading Hebrew were developed in Tiveria.
This was one of our less packed, hassle filled days with less driving but one of our more enjoyable.

Going up the coast

Monday was day one of our trip with in a trip to the northern part of Israel. We are just going to the Galil, not the Golan this time. As always I strive to avoid as much traffic as possible, so even though we have big plans and need an early start, unless we were going to leave at the crack of dawn, I needed to wait a bit to time our pass through Tel Aviv correctly. Our first official stop was in Akko (or Acre for some reason....) but that was too long of a haul for kids, so I made sure we had a pit stop at the Namal in Tel Aviv (basically a seas side promenade). I knew there was a great play ground there, but that was the only detail I had. We parked near Max Brenner (not kosher as far as I know) and let everyone out at one awesome playground.
There were trapeze style ziplines, death defying slides (as usual), a large spiderweb rope climbing thing, a variety of unique swings and a bunch of spinning and balancing devices. We probably could have stayed there an hour or two, but I really wanted to move on to do as much other things as possible this first day.

In 1994 a section of the Old City of Akko was excavated and Templars Tunnels were found. They weren't officially opened until 2007. I had never heard of them until researching for this trip and I was intrigued. In fact I didn't know much about Akko and really wanted to see it. When we got there my kids were a bit wary of being in a city full of Muslim Arabs even if their reputation was one of a peaceful lot. We saw signs for the Templars Tunnels and tried to follow them, but they led through an Arab shuk and the kids (and to a lesser degree, me) chickened out and walked back. We then sought out the Visitors Center. We spoke with a docent there and she assured us that we were on the right track. She told us we had to go all the way through the shuk to find the Templars Tunnels. Oddly enough it was the one time in Israel I privately wished my kids were both wearing baseball caps. We did our best to navigate the area, going through narrow ancient streets and what seemed like alley ways, finally finding the Tunnels. It is no wonder that it took so long for experienced archeologists to find and excavate the place!Templars Tunnels  We paid our entrance fee and went down into the tunnel shaft. By this time my kids were not in their best explorer moods and we went through rather quickly. There were a few signs explaining the time period and significance of the tunnels. Supposedly there is a movie that projects on the walls, but my guess is it is in the tunnel that we did not go through since 2/3 of the kids were starting to melt down. I pretty much forced Meir to eat a sandwich (I don't care if he didn't like that kind of bread or that kind of cheese).
The tunnels exit at the sea port walls. So now we had to figure out how to get back to our car while avoiding some of the creepy passageways and not getting utterly lost. Some how we figured it out. Just as I was rewarding and fortifying my kids with their usual popscicles and ice cream, the Muslim call to prayer sounded. We watched some of the women go to pray, but then they really just wanted to get out of Akko STAT.
On my list of things to do that day was to head up to the Lebanon Border and see Rosh Hanikra. I knew the area closed at 4 pm. Given my past experience with national parks in the winter, I assumed the last cable car down would be around 3pm (with little flexibility). It was now around 2:30. My pocket wifi decided to not load. WAZE which I had come to rely upon was not functioning. We found a gas station and I tried to ask for a paper map. They no longer sell them. An English speaking customer gave me basic directions that I wasn't thrilled to follow, but I knew we were close and assumed I would see some signs along the way. Finally my phone restarted and we headed north. I knew we were cutting it close. Just before one final turn, there was a major traffic accident and the police closed the roads. WAZE could not re-route us. It was 3:05, it was time to give up on this plan for today.

Next on my list for the day, however was to back track a bit into Haifa to this totally quirky place called "Ballers". One day I showed my son their Facebook page and he was completely insistent that we go there. He doesn't ask for a lot of things, so I had to fulfill this one if at all possible. Ballers is a room with giant pool tables and instead of playing pool with cues, the balls are small soccer balls and you stand on the tables and use your feet. It doesn't open until 3pm, so I knew we were in great shape. We got there a little after 4pm. There was only one other table being used when we arrived. The employee let the boys use one table and let Atara do her thing on the empty adjacent one. You rent the table an hour at a time. The boys played about 4 games of pool. By then I think even they had their fill, but Atara was certainly done. She did enjoy rolling around on the balls, throwing them into the pockets, jumping into the pockets and getting the balls out and dancing to their rock music. The employee was very nice and accommodating. If you are looking for an evening activity with a slightly older set to entertain, I recommend you give Ballers a try.  Ballers Facebook page

Instead we made our way to Yavne'el to our zimmer Villa Rimona The zimmer's site My kids were delighted to have free wifi and a TV with netflix. I was happy to have a shower attached to the wall, my own little bedroom area and netflix for my kids so after dinned they could space out and go to sleep! Every morning the guesthouse owner Chana delivers healthy, yummy muffins that are pareve and mehadrin. Pretty much the rest of the food you are on your own for, but there is an electric burner, a mini fridge, a hot water urn and an area you can BBQ (we didn't, but you could). We made do with a pasta dinner eaten al fresco. It may not have been a perfect day, but it was a memorable and full one. Looking forward to the next couple of days up north.