The morning dawns clear and brisk as the salt sea breeze off the Mediterranean awakens us to our first full day in Israel. We will be journeying along the coastal plain today, then around the end of Carmel to Haifa, across the western Jezreel valley, and up through Nazareth and Cana to our hotel on […]
I am awake early to watch the sun spread its rippling sheet of gold across the surface of the Galilean lake. Palm fronds stir in the morning breeze along the edge of this subtropical inland sea. A few fishing boats are pulling into the harbor of Tiberias after a night of toil in the deep. […]
Reluctantly we turn our backs on the sweet Galilee but with mounting expectation make our way south towards Jerusalem. This is the day we will wind our way past scores of mountains and valleys so significant that God included them in the only Book He ever gave to man. Tonight, just as the sun drops […]
From the moonscapes at the Dead Sea to the lush farmland of the coastal plain, from the black Bedouin tents on the edge of the Negev to the forested foothills of the Shephelah, we will find it hard to take in today the dramatic changes at every turn in the road. Making our way over […]
There is, as can be imagined, much to interest a Bible student in the bustling, modern city of Jerusalem. We tour the sobering Yad Vashem, the heart-rending Holocaust Memorial, complete with its Avenue of Righteous Gentiles, those who helped the Jews, often at the cost of their own lives. We see the Shrine of the […]
We notice the bullet-pocked walls above the Zion Gate as we enter the confines of the Old City. They are a grim reminder that Yerushalayim, the City of Peace, has hardly lived up to its name. These bullet scars were left in 1948, but war is nothing new to this little piece of real estate. […]
Any tour travels at the rate of the least interested person. If someone comes along “for a holiday,” and complains about the food or accommodations, is the last one on the bus every day, gripes about not enough shopping time, etc., the whole tour suffers. A visit to Israel ought to be seen as a […]
Is Middle East peace an oxymoron?* It certainly seems so. Jerusalem (meaning, the city of peace) has heard the march of earth’s armies through her streets perhaps more than any other. As Charles Gulston writes in his classic Jerusalem: the Tragedy and the Triumph, “It has been said that if blood were indelible, Old Jerusalem […]
I was born, the son of Jewish parents, in the city of Frankfurt on Main, in southwest Germany. My father, a successful insurance representative, was a loyal subject of the ruling house of the Hohenzollern and felt that he was a good German. My mother was an accomplished pianist. I was brought up in an […]