Diaspora in Israel.

My objective for today, being the 9th of Av, a dreaded fast day, was to get the kids out in the middle of the day for a couple hours, come home in time for Bailey's nap time and then count down the minutes until break the fast. The outing also had to be something that was indoors, air conditioned and largely something the kids could do with out much guidance from me. Once again I gave Dovie the option to stay back, so we took Shayna along.
The Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv is a museum that focuses on Jewish people outside of Israel. I remember it to be a typical museum with exhibits of replica synagogues from Europe that were nearly all destroyed. I didn't think that this would be a hit with my kids but I came across something else that they offered. Their newest exhibit was called A, B, SEE, DO (in English). It is a hands on Hebrew language lab for children. It looks like you stepped into a box of "Pictureka"

http://www.bh.org.il/The%20Family%20Gallery.aspx Like most of Israeli attractions for some reason you MUST pre-order tickets for this exhibit.  They give you a reduced rate if you buy 5 tickets. It is geared for 3-10 year olds. Each area has English signage, but the games and activities are exclusively in Hebrew. I figured that although the target audience was on the young side of my group, given their level of Hebrew we should be able to enjoy most of section. I think I guessed correctly. And we brought my Hebrew speaking niece along for insurance.

Similar to most children's museums world wide, kids spend very little time reading and absorbing the lessons of what they are doing and just jump in and figure it out as they go, or not. There were many very cute hands on Hebrew language activities and mixed in were all sorts of climbing and sliding structures.
At the opening there was a "step on the Aleph Bet Letter" game, further in there was a pictorial texting activity, there as a "Martha Speaks" rock climbing wall (where you feed her a letter disc and she says a Hebrew word with that letter), the kids stood in a green room and signed according to a Hebrew story that was projected on the wall, a tower of Babel building area and more. We tried out everything including a Hebrew Braille wall and a conveyor belt of letters for word puzzles. We spent about two hours there. We were able to walk around part of the museum on our way out. We wandered into a world wide Family Tree competition display which was very cute.  We saw one mock up shul before heading out. The kids ate their lunch on a grassy hill before rolling down a few times. We made our way out to the car and headed back as planned.
Break the Fast was hosted by my brother's-in-law family in Mevaseret-Yerushalaim. They hosted a lovely meal in the Yeshiva Dining hall complete with a variety of their grandchildren finishing Mishayos or Gemara for a siyum. A real shame Moshiach didn't come while we were here in Israel over Tisha B'Av, that would have really been the ultimate!

Hakol B'Yedai Shemayim

My sister suggested a short interesting hike near her house for today's activities. Snack bags and lunches were packed, water was frozen and cameras were ready. Since I didn't know where we were going she lead the way. We made it to our hike after an hour long detour on the highway involving a road surveyor who should watch where he is going, a couple ambulances, a whole slew of police and some forms. Don't worry, no one in my family or my sister's family were injured. It will forever serve as a warning to my kids about standing in the street and will make Rabbi G's comment "Kids, go play on the highway" a little less funny.

Since the way was heavy on the drama we stopped off to see the ancient oil press that was used to get the last remnants of oil out. The kids climbed up for their photo op. We drove by the Roman stairway to somewhere and passed a water collecting chamber. Our final stop was ruins with mosaic floors. They had recently put up a barrier gate, but the kids ignored it and went to go examine the site.

Before Shabbos we picked up some supplies from Angel's Bakery, some flowers for my sister and a BOX of Sponge Bob Popsicles. The little girls took Bailey around our street with dolly carriages and babies (a first for the Bailes!) the boys played DS and Ipad games and The Shayna-Mendel alliance took Meir to redeem his shekels for a prize at the shekel store. He proudly came home with a Yerushalaim key chain. Wouldn't it be great if that qualified as his souvenir?

Free is Free

Many museums participate in the ASTC Reciprocal program. This means, if you have membership to a particular museum you automatically get free admission to a "sister" museum as long as it is 90 miles away from the one you originally bought the membership. We are members of the Discovery Cube Museum in Anaheim, CA and its sister museum here in Israel is the Bloomfield Science Center in Jerusalem.

They took one look at my membership card and saw the ASTC emblem and let us right in. Free parking too. How awesome is that? The museum is a very hands on science center and fortunately they have all of their signage in English and Hebrew (Arabic too, but we have yet to be able to decipher those squiggly lines) The first area is an out door area that focuses on optical illusions. My kids love puzzles and riddles and illusions, so this was right up their alley.
We entered the main hall to the science behind scenes in popular Israeli children's books. If my kids knew the stories they may have appreciated this more, but they still tried out everything. Bailey's favorite was loading a wind tunnel with vellum leaves and watching them blow out. Meir and Mendel especially liked the plate spinning exhibit.

Next we checked out the out door water science center. The kids were light on the explanations of what they were doing, but enjoying themselves nonetheless. We had to move inside once Bailey found throwing the pea gravel into the water features more entertaining.
With our free entry, we were also given coupons to redeem a project in the Phineas and Ferb section. We colored and built - with directions exclusively in Hebrew - a P and F race car and glider. There were tracks to send them down. A few other things were in that hall, but we breezed right through.

We checked out their exhibits on electricity and finally the Carnival science. The museum is nice, a decent size with lots to touch and do. It is also air conditioned. Is it a must see, no. But it was free for us and an enjoyable day out.  Too bad the food in the cafe wasn't kosher. We did keep to our ritual of ice cream and Popsicles.

In search of food and souvenirs (I had been holding that off until the end of our trip, and sadly we are just about there) we decided to head to Malcha Mall. I found it, but for future reference the GPS calls it the "Jerusalem Mall". We walked around and noticed the lack tourist trap items so headed to the food court. Pizza and Falafel hit the spot. I thought about going to Ben Yehuda street, the home of tourist traps, but it was rush hour and traffic was just too annoying.
Back to RBS to hang out with the cousins. Mendel even had the ultimate play date and slept over at the Bermans.

we found a better place twice in one day

There is this place in Holon called "Better Place" where they are manufacturing completely electric cars and setting up charging and battery swap-out stations throughout Israel (and parts of Europe and elsewhere). They offer tours and tests drives. Unfortunately for us, but good for them, they are so busy right now with their car orders that they cancelled all of their tours. http://www.betterplace.com/global-progress-israel So, we had to find a better place to go to rather than "Better Place" and I think we succeeded.

The Solomon-Berman camp headed back into Yerushalaim to Ir David. Not to be confused with Dovie's Ears, cuz trust me, you don't want to go there!
We parked in Mamilla Mall. After yesterday's parking fiasco this was refreshingly normal and straightforward. We walked up to Jaffa Gate and asked the Information Center how best to get to "Ir David". She wanted us to walk through the Arab Shuk to the Kotel and out Dung gate. There was NO chance that we were going that way. Fortunately I knew how to navigate my way through the Jewish Quarter. (Thank you Rivka S. now F. for all of those Shabbos invites to Aunt Tova's!)
The City of David is just across the street and down the hill once you exit Dung Gate right near the Kotel.  http://www.cityofdavid.org.il/en
We arrived just in time to catch the 3-D English movie. My Matmon card allowed us to visit the grounds and walk the tunnels for free. We only had to pay for the movie. They did a very good job laying out the history of the area with computer graphics and aerial maps. It was worth the money. We ate lunch in a shaded area complete with washing stations and washing cups. We were serenaded by the harp at the front gate. I then had the kids change into their swim trunks and water shoes so we could make our way down to Hiskiyahu's Tunnel (Warren's Shaft).

This tunnel was similar to the one we did in Mey Kedem, except for a few things. 1) It is much longer, about 500m 2) there are NO sources of light in the tunnel. Flashlights are a must (yay headlamps!) 3) you could walk side by side in much of the tunnel in Mey Kedem, here much of it was tight walking single file 4) there are several areas where the ceiling is quite low most adults had to duck as we walked 5) except for the beginning, however the water is very shallow, mostly mid calf. We hypothosized as to why there were certain differences. We came up with a) The Roman's had better technology b) the Jews did this to survive and hide, so it was secret c) the Roman's made theirs to develop an area and had more room, the one in Yerushalaim was in an already populated area and had to snake around more. Could be.

Dovie decided he was going to play "Bored tour guide" as he lead us through. He made up commentary on everything we saw along the way. "Here is an ancient wall, watch your step as you climb up these ancient stairs, over here you will find the ancient cave with the very same spider King David saw..." Part way through the water tunnel he got tired of his running commentary and decided to play shrieking zombie. I'm sure if the Berman girls were going through with out us they would be troding through the water (minus the headlamps) singing Tehillim and noticing how their voices sound with the acoustics of the tunnel. But too bad, zombies it is. At least they weren't trying out burps and other noises they seem to favor.

Once we finally came out the other end we had a choice, take a taxi for 5NIS a piece back up to the entrance, or go through a dry tunnel for 400m. (roughly 20 min) We chose to walk. Along the way we learned that this was part of the path that people took when they were coming to the Bais HaMikdash on the major holidays. Some how I doubt they were able to go through that part with their oxen and cattle, but it was cool to think about climbing the hill to where the Temple once stood. It was cool for a while, until Bailey decided that she had had enough of the sling carrier, wanted to walk, then just wanted to pitch a fit. Fortunately my niece Liba stuck around to help me though the second tunnel.

This tunnel ended on the scaffolding of where they are still on archeological digs and excavation. It was neat to watch them at work uncover the ancient rooms and mosaics. (No bored tour guides here).
We had thought that we would go to the Davidson Gate to see what is going on there, but even with the popsicle break we were sensing an end to our day. I wanted my kids to do one last Mincha at the Kotel before our trip was over, and it was right there, so off we went.

We tried AGAIN to get a picture with some Chayailim. We saw a group of three walking and I asked them if we could pose. The Chayelet (lady soldier) said sure, the two men looked annoyed and walked on. More dud soldier photos. We began to walk up the steps back to the Jewish Quarter when we saw a bunch of soldiers coming down. My sister stepped in to ask if we could take a picture with them. FINALLY we got our army men picture. Thank you IDF!!

You would think our day was over, but I had one more activity planned. After we snarfed down some food for dinner, Elisheva came to baby sit Bailey while the boys and I went into Modiin for a chocolate workshop. http://www.chocolatedreamsco.com/ We met our Chocolatier Rhonda Israel who used to run a yeshiva but decided to do something more fun when she made aliyah 12 years ago. She has a room off of her kitchen which it dedicated to her chocolate business. She has a an official Teudah for Kosher LeMehadrin posted.

Our work shop was in her living room. Since we had told her this trip was largely in honor of Dovie's Bar Mitzvah we were warmly greeted with a festive like party set up. At each place was chocolate tefillin, an informative paper about chocolate and some treats and drinks waiting for us. All of the chocolate she makes is pareve so Mendel was free to enjoy. Rhonda, our joyous, delightful instructor showed us her chocolate temper machine. It can hold about 10lbs of chocolate.

She demonstrated how we can make a variety of different flavors of chocolate with all of the ingredients she layed out for us. She gave us 12 candy holders each to fill with our own creations. She had the upmost patience with Meir and helped him a long. She didn't freak out when Mendel looked like he was covered in chocolate. She complemented Dovie's creations and answered Eli's questions clearly and kindly. She even took photos of our activities for us. We were there for about 2 hours. We put our chocolates into a gold candy holder and then into our own boxes. The boys all said this was one of the best things we have done. I guess we found our "Better Place". Twice.

Geula Now! (but minus the yellow flags)

How could we come all this way and not show the kids Mea Shearim and Geula?! So, everyone into the car and off we go with cousins in tow. No problem finding the place, but parking? Oy Vey! They are doing some MAJOR road work right down the middle of Malkhei Yisroel street, the main drag and so Israeli traffic and parking in the area is INSANE. We literally saw some one park their car on top of a mound of rubble. I got stuck behind a delivery guy who decided to stop and make his deliveries from the middle of the road. There was absolutely no way to pass. A traffic officer finally told him to move on.

 I saw a place to park and even parallel parked on the right hand of the street with minimal fuss. Instead of meters they have these detailed scratch off cards to mark your time of arrival and you can pay by the hour.

In times of yore (like when I was 12) the main attraction in the area was Pizza Uri and the olive wood factory store.  The Pizza shop is alive and well. They sell pizza. No fries, no calzones, no salads. Pizza. They don't even give you a plate, they give you the slices on a piece of cardboard. Good thing they don't serve soup or you would probably have to open your mouth and have Mr. Uri poor it in! One of my favorite parts of shul is Birchas Cohanim. It is not because I am basking in the glow of holy words or any of that, it is because all of my children have no choice but to disappear for several minutes into the men's side.
 In Pizza Uri, because I have a family of nearly all boys I got to experience the same basic peaceful feeling. The pizza store has separate seating. And before any of you cry foul at women being second class -blah blah blah- you should know that the women's side is in the front of the store with better tables and chairs. The MEN are behind a partition, up a few steps and sit on hard benches. I got to eat my pizza and drink my iced coffee in peace.

We didn't go to the olive wood store, though I imagine it is still there. We had a different mission to meet, the Yarmulka store. My nieces delighted in my announcement that the boys needed to select a yarmulke that they wanted for Rosh HaShanah. The rest of their High Holy day clothing tends to be of the white shirt/ black pants variety, so this is the main accessory. I gave them freedom to choose whatever they wanted from the vast selection, but it had to be fancy. We then chose the embroidery fonts and colors. They wouldn't be ready for an hour so we went on to our next item on the list.

We needed a bar mitzvah gift, a siddur for my nephew Shlomo that we would have personalized. I had his sisters choose the type he uses and pick out a nice cover. They even gift wrapped it for me. Joy!

 Our final stop on the Geula/Mea Shearim tour was in a store that sells all of the Jewish dye cuts for projects and teachers, Jewish themed stationary, holiday table additions and basically anything cute that is Jewish Calendar related. I bought little flags on toothpicks that say "Basar" "Chalav" and "Pareve". The next catered event I throw will certainly be labeled. So cute. And, you know how I love labeling my items....
My kids have fallen into a rhythm of going to hang out with their cousins until dinner time. Even Bailey goes along. This is what it is all about. This and ice cream.

Bikes on a mission

Every once in a while (more closer to once...) I scheduled a less structured day. Today was one of those. My plan was to go into Tel Aviv to Gan Yehoshua, a very large park with a variety of activities on the grounds. http://www.touristisrael.com/yarkon-park-tel-aviv/1098/  My sister and I packed up our cars with as many kids as we could (Poor ol' Shlomo still has school!), a picnic lunch, some play equipment and off we went. We both have a GPS, but that doesn't mean that they will both lead us to the same part of the park. My car ended up in one spot across from Luna Park (an amusement park with rides and roller coasters) and hers took her across from Tel Aviv University. I won't read into that too much.
 My kids were practically drooling at the site of the amusement park, but we have a bunch of those at home and I was looking for a low key day, not a spin til you barf sort of time. Once we finally found each other (and as you are taught when you are child, if ever you are lost stay put and let people find you, so that's what I did. I let her find us!) we tried to figure out where to go. We saw a great big ORANGE colored structure in the distance. It looked l ike a playground to us, so off we went in that direction. Once we got closer we saw that it was one of Israel's totally random sculptures. Adjacent to it was a tree naturally growing sideways that was just asking to be climbed. So, climbed it was.
The Rock Garden was right next to us, but the kids gave us such a look at the suggestion of going into a rock garden that we thought they might just stone us if we did; we decided to move on.
We found the play ground with in minutes. It is a gigantic wooden climbing structure. It even has what my macho boys referred to as the world's shortest zip line, but that didn't stop them from trying it out several times. They played, climbed, swung and ran around until we thought it was best to break for lunch. Once everyone was refueled we decided to look for the Zapari (Bird park) and something called "Junga Junga". I had checked out the website and it looked like fun, but suspiciously they had left out the pricing on the English site. http://www.zapari.co.il/?categoryId=22402 The Zapari was fairly close to the playground, but at 50NIS a head we thought it was a bit steep for what they had to offer. What "Junga Junga" truly is shall remain a mystery.
 We had seen scores of kids of all ages riding around the park on 2-6 passenger buggy bikes and the kids really wanted to try them out. These ended up being 20NIS a person for 1/2 an hour. It was at this point that I had discovered that Bailey's Lamby was missing. Lamby is a stuffed animal lamb head attached to a small silk blanket. Her "lovey". This is what I had been worried about for weeks before our trip. Bailey cannot sleep without Lamby. I even have to time the washing of that thing to avoid nap time or bed time. What a disaster this was going to be. Our bike buggies now had a mission -- retrace our steps in hopes of finding Lamby. We pedaled around the park every so often sending someone scouting out the area to check. No such luck. Lamby was MIA. I tried not to dwell on it, but it wasn't easy. We kept going around the park, discovering a water park and concert stage; we raced eachother and even bumped the competition out a little. The buggies were easy to pedal and steer. Even the younger kids took turns pedaling while us over sized babies sat in the front seats.
We made it back hot, sweaty, tired and thirsty. We stopped for refreshments (Popsicles! of course). It was time to go. Although it would have been faster to go to the car a different way, I wanted to try one more time to find Bailey's Lamby before facing the rest of the trip with an inconsolable toddler. Low and behold Dovie found it on top of a hill that we had briefly passed through. Oh thank Heavens! I had never been happier to find that grubby lamb. Even Bailey was cheering when Dovie was waving it around. Now we can go.

Into the Gush.

Shabbos in Ramat Beit Shemesh with my sister's family was lovely. I missed Levi very much, but the kids ran back and forth with their cousins, went to the park, played games, challenged each other with riddles, read and otherwise occupied themselves. Since shalosh seudos was so late it did double duty as dinner. Once the kids were cleaned up from the layer of dirt that seems to accumulate over Shabbos no matter where on earth they are, I treated them to a late night gellato at Zislick. Yum. Even the pareve flavors are good. (just skip the "smurf" flavor!)
Sunday was a day on our itinerary I had been looking forward to. We arranged with our tour guide, Sarah Edri, to have a day in Gush Etzion. She came up with a day that would take us through the Etzion block from the times of antiquities until modern day.

Our first stop was at Deerland Park. http://www.deer-land.co.il/page12/English   There my big boys rode the 2nd largest zip line in the world- (Israel calls it Omega) 400m. Dovie is big enough to go alone, but Eli and Mendel had to combine their weight in order to make it across. The owner/employee hooked up the kids' harnesses and told them to lean back and then without any other explanations, instructions or warnings sent them plunging ahead. They had about a 15 minute ride back in a jeep. In the mean time, Meir, Bailey and I rode the "mini" zip line, 140 meters. Bailey rode with me. She enjoyed the ride down but put up such a fuss when the guy tried to put the harness on her. Meir liked it so much he went twice.
We fed the goats rice cakes and pet rabbits and guinea pigs. I hope all of this animal exposure doesn't come with requests for pets when we get back home.

Dovie and Eli wanted to do the ropes course. We watched them with baited breath as they dangled high above us balancing on logs and ropes moving their safety clips on their own. We were supposed to go berry picking, but we were running late, and I have had enough discussion about not eating berries due to bug infestations that we decided to skip it. :)

Once the extreme sports were conquered we went to Kfar Etzion to learn about the area. We watched a movie about the multiple massacres of the Jewish pioneers tragically succumbed to. The final story happened the day Israel was granted Statehood. Arab rioters had taken over, the Jewish farmers turned soldiers had run out of ammo. The Arabs went to where the women and wounded were staying and threw grenades into the basement murdering them all. The screen went up at that point revealing the bombed out basement. We learned about the lone tree that remained in the area and served as a reminder to the orphans and widows of the massacre and encouraged them to return and build again. Our guide then took us to see the Lone tree. It is now in the backdrop of a vineyard and girls school. It is a thriving area (still surrounded by hostile Arabs), of over 36,000 Jews. http://www.etzion-bloc.org.il/tabid/434/Default.aspx

We took a trip back in time to another era in Jewish history to Herodian. King Herod had built yet another palace which later became a major hide out during the Bar Kochva rebellion. We started at the bottom of the site which was where the cisterns and the Bar Kochva caves were located and worked our way up to the top to the palace/bathhouse/dining hall etc of Herod's were. http://biblewalks.com/Sites/Herodion.html  Sarah stressed to the kids that although all of these troubling times have happened in the area, it is the Roman Empire that no longer exists, yet the Jewish presence is thriving.

In order to drive home the message that although we are still here and growing strong, we can't take our safety and security for granted, we then went to watch a team of rescue workers train search and rescue dogs, patrol dogs as well as dogs training to help the disabled. Mendel and Meir went with one of the handlers to hid in the fields. The main rescue dog trainers had one of the dogs track and "rescue" them. It took the dog about 45 seconds to find them! We also watched the dogs train to attack intruders while at the same time being so disciplined that they don't turn on their handlers or anyone else around them. We then watched as two dogs were training to become companions for Ukrainian children with autism. The main trainer's name was Yekutiel. If you would like to donate to help cover some of the cost of training the dogs you can contact him at jewishlegion@aol.com

Our final stop was to deliver cakes to an Army pit stop. The people of Gush Etzion wanted to forge a connection and to show deep gratitude to the soldiers who petrol their area, they opened a pit stop that serves coffee, cake, tea and slushies for free to the soldiers most of the day. It is run by volunteers and run on donations. The kids then wrote letters and drew pictures for the soldiers. Unfortunately we were running so late that there weren't any soldiers in the pit stop. We greeted one who was on patrol just up the rode. He said he isn't allowed to pose when he is on duty but it would be OK if the kids stood around him and I took a picture. Hopefully some time on this trip we can get the ultimate Chayal photo op. Still have over a week to go...

Underground fighters, Underground wonders

Another "must do" but book ahead activity is the Palmach Museum in Tel Aviv.  http://telemedia.co.il/en/page-46 You have to show ID to get past the guard station, but it isn't just some summer job teen checking you out, they KNOW who has an appointment and how many are in your group and greet you with your name. Talk about security check! Children must be 6 years old to enter and they aren't kidding. No babies, no toddlers. This museum isn't the kind that you look at exhibits behind glass and read the description or even listen to a brief audio explanation as you roam around. Instead it is more like a play about the history of the Palmach and the battles it fought. For English you still get a phone like wand to listen from, but you don't have to press anything.

The group goes from room to room but it is set up more like a movie set or stage as the story is told before you with real footage movies and modern re-enactments. It takes a little while to get used to listening through the handheld and tuning out the sounds around you, but it is so well done that you get absorbed into the story. There is no time to hang around between scenes and the guide keeps you moving (and didn't really like when we tried to take some group pictures) Some of the younger kids were still a little confused so I made sure to walk with them and give my own very brief commentary as we went along so they weren't lost. I know it made an impression on them when a day or two later they were still asking questions referring back to what they had seen/experienced.

Even though it was Friday and we had to do some preparations for Shabbos, we were eating at my sister's so we still had time to spare. Nearby is Sorek National Park, or the Stalactite Caves. http://www.parks.org.il/BuildaGate5/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~15~~739243154~Card12~&ru=&SiteName=parks&Clt=&Bur=268824546  Given that I have my Matmon card, we may as well pop by. I have done this cave EVERY time I have been to Israel. I remembered the steps going down to the cave well, but I had never driven to it before. It is one of those white-knuckle, steering wheel gripping drives with hairpin turns that give you beautiful scenery if you dare take your eyes off the narrow two way road.
There are English tours, but not when we were there. They show you a movie (no play acting in this one) that can have English sub-titles, but some one requested Russian, so my kids were out of luck. Fortunately I spoke to the guide explaining that my kids don't speak Hebrew so staying with the group would be pointless for them. She let us go ahead of the group. It is a very cool (in both sense of the word) Stalactite and Stalagmite cave. It is enormous and interesting. They have a very safe path with good enough lighting so you can navigate the cave without a problem. You cannot however bring a stroller into the cave. Bailey walked around in there just fine and really seemed to like it. We weren't sure what the deal was with flash photography. We took a few pictures and decided that if anyone were to challenge us we would play dumb American tourist.

You need to take the stairs back up to the top. If you can understand some of the signs posted along the path, they are actually entertaining (like how many steps you have taken, how many calories you have burned....) We made sure to buy some Popsicles at the little store before heading back up. Bailey came down just fine, but Dovie and I took turns carrying the princess back up the steps. I think my calorie count was better than the sign posted or at least justified the Popsicle I ate along the way.

Galloping Donkeys!

When I was still at home there were a few categories of activities I wanted to try and locate for my kids to experience. One of those things was olive oil making or wine making. Unfortunately olive oil pressing is not in season right now (it conveniently happens to be in season just before Channuka). During my search for a place to do that, I stumbled upon Philip Farm. www.philipfarm.co.il On the farm in the northern Negev just south of Kiryat Gat they offer olive oil pressing, just not now. Their main attraction is Donkey riding. Of course we were going to do that! The farm manager/owner is named Yochai. He communicates well through email and speaks English very well. You do need to make a reservation to ride the donkeys so they can get the right amount ready for your arrival. The farm land is one of two places in Israel that is a shelter for donkeys. They were expecting 6 new ones from Tel Aviv to bring their total up to 81. The donkeys are free to roam the farm eating the grass at will.

Getting anywhere in Israel always seems to be tricky because nothing has a basic address. You need to go south on the 40, pass Kiryat Gat on the way to Be'er Sheva, just passed the Plugot Junction, but not til Kama. It comes up without warning on the right side.

Yochai had us park right near the donkeys because he felt it was too hot for us to walk up the path today. It was 34 C, which is about 93F. Hot, but I expected worse in the south. He gave a brief history of the area from biblical times (This was the land of the Plishtim) and some references of donkeys in Tanach (Avraham saddled his donkey, the Hebrews left Mitzraim on donkeys, Shimshon killed a bunch of people with a donkey bone, Bilam had a talking donkey and Moshiach will come by white donkey, but he said probably today it will be a white car...) He then asked us if we wanted 2-3 donkey chariots.  I looked around, there was only Yochai, his farm helper and us, Me, my niece, my sons and my baby. Who was supposed to drive these things. Us apparently! He explained to us how to steer the donkey carts and some safety rules, put us on with a chain seat belt, handed us the reins, told us which path to follow and off we went. We traveled with Dovie and Eli in one cart, Liba and Meir in another and Me, Bailey and Mendel in the third. Yochai and his dogs ran behind us.
Donkeys are fast. They can run/gallop and it is hysterical. We were all laughing so hard as our donkeys ran down the paths. They new exactly where to go so steering never was really an issue. We came to a small forested area and the donkeys stopped in the shade. Yochai spread out a large woven mat for us to sit on and then he told us about the history of his family and the farm and some more about donkeys. It was actually quite interesting. We then got back into our donkey carts (he called them chariots) and went back to the starting point. Dovie discovered if you tap their behinds a bit they will go faster, be we warned him to watch where he puts his hands; he's in the danger zone!
We ate our lunches in the picnic area while chickens, roosters, ducks and an emu looked on.

It was still early and the kids had plenty of energy, so we decided to add Beit Guvrin to our day.
http://www.gemsinisrael.com/e_article000012102.htm  For the first time the person at the gate actually asked for my ID when I handed her my Matmon, but all was well and we went right in. She circled key areas for us on the map. I drove to the first parking lot. We saw the presses that could be used for olive oil making (they need to be moved by donkey!) and then we came across an archaeological collecting ground.

The kids posed on the capitals and columns as if they were statues, climbed on top of a sarcophagus and touched a bunch of things that were probably destined for a museum some day that would no longer be able to be touched and climbed on. We finally realized the caves were across the road. We went down into these HUGE caves where they used to keep pigeons. It was interesting, but most importantly very COOL in there. Like breezy, stay all day kind of cool.

At the next stop Dovie lead us up the Tel Maresha. Lugging Bailey in the heat up a hill was not exactly delightful, especially since we were meant to go to the right instead of the left. That child gets his sense of direction from his father!! We found the interconnected caves we were looking for and once again were rewarded with nice chilly temperatures. They were so cool that we even laid on the floor to bring every one's core temps down.  There was one more set of caves we could have explored, but everyone was thirsty and tired, so we headed back to RBS.
Tomorrow is Rosh Chodesh Av and the beginning of the 9 days when swimming and meat meals are forbidden, so we decided to get in a both before it was too late. The kids splashed around the Berman's above ground pool and I made a run for some burgers and hot dogs. A nice filling and refreshing way to end the day.