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...