A recent mailing from JNF showed a picture of the Wall, and said “anywhere else this would just be a wall. This is the Kotel. The Western Wall. One of the holiest places in the holiest city in the world. Jerusalem.”

It showed a picture of the old city, the Citadel and Tower of David, and said “ Anywhere else this would just be an old city. This is the magical city of Jerusalem.”

Rabbi Artson, wrote while flying to Israel “I believe there are four primary reasons why our own identities are so inextricably linked to Israel. The Land, The People, The Culture, and Self-Determination”, and he explained each.

He wrote “There is nothing wrong with even strong disagreements. But my core convictions about Israel, and the large role Israel plays in my own identity, transcend politics, policies or partisanship”.

Carolynn and I have visited Israel before, and we were excited about returning. We knew it would be different than the first visit: when you see for the first time that signs are in Hebrew and English, people are speaking Hebrew everywhere, and realize that Jews are the majority

In some ways a visit to Israel is even more meaningful, now when we are older and experienced. Our 2013 visit was even better than our high expectations.

We stayed in Jerusalem at the King Solomon hotel, arrived late Shabbat. Our room had a breathtaking view of the western wall of the old city. We stayed there on our previous trip with Beth Jacob in 2009, with a similar view, so it was like seeing an old friend again. It was a beautiful site, changing with the time of day: sunrise, morning with indirect sunlight, afternoon with direct sunlight, and illuminated at night.

Sunday, second cousin Tzippy Kleiner and a  friend came to the lobby of our hotel, and we walked down  King David Street, going inside the YMCA, and looking at the front of the King David Hotel across the street.

We went a little north, and visited the Hebrew Union College buildings,The landscaped gardens are beautiful. There are classrooms, library, research center, and offices. The first buildings were by architect Heinz Rau in 1963, and expanded by architect Moshe Safdie in 1988. In a separate rectangular room, we saw an exhibit of the paintings by Tzippy Kleiner. There were 23 colorful paintings, titled “Head High”, mainly about  black women. It was the last day of the exhibit, so we got there just in time.

We walked farther north, saw the Citadel Hotel, by architect Moishe Safdie, completed in 1998. Across the street to the west is the Waldorf Astoria hotel nearing completion. Across the street going north is the entrance to the Mamilla Center, opened in fall 2009. It had reconstruction of old buildings, and new buildings, in Jerusalem style architecture using Jerusalem stone, also designed by Moishe Safdie. This mall goes all the way to the Jaffa gate to the old city. In the Mamilla Center there is a  wide uncovered non-traffic street, shops and restaurants on both sides, and a great variety of sculptures all along both sides of the corridor. At the end there are broad steps, leading to the front of the Jaffa gate. 

Before 1968, the entire area from the King David Hotel to the Jaffa gate, entrance to the Old City then occupied by Jordan, was a desolate no-mans land, separated by barbed wire and mines. After 1968 a park was planted in the area, going down the hill. There are many new buildings in this area, layered along the hillside. There is a breathtaking view of this area from in front of the Jaffa gate.

The Jaffa gate, one of 8 gates through the old city walls, is the only one which is perpendicular to the walls. Next to the Jaffa gate there is a large opening in the walls, which German Emperor Wilhilm II had ordered in 1898, so he could enter on his white horse.

We decided to see a fashion exhibit at the King David Citadel and Tower. It was first built in the 2nd century BCE, destroyed and rebuilt several times. We had seen the Citadel at our first visit to Israel long ago, when we saw only a small part of the building. Now we saw much more, including a large courtyard outdoor area, located between the 3 sides of the buildings and the city wall. Here there is an archeological excavation, with findings as far back as 2,700 years, to the time of Kings David and Solomon. There are outdoor passageways, from which to look down at the extensive  amount of old walls of the excavation.

There we saw a class of young children , followed by a teacher and a young IDF soldier with an automatic weapon over his shoulder.  The fashion exhibit was in a separate room: beautiful gowns, titled  “the influence of the bible on modern women’s fashion”.

We went to the Christian Information Center, located across the street from the Citadel. where we saw a model of ancient Jerusalem. There are meeting rooms, a cafeteria, and a Church. 

Sunday afternoon Dov Basker, husband of my late first cousin Eileen, came from Tel Aviv and met us, and we went to  the Israel Museum, We had seen it before, but it had a major renovation which was completed July 2010. The remodeling took 3 years, cost 100 million dollars, doubled the gallery space with easier access.  We saw the” don’t-miss Herod exhibit”, which started at the Museum February 2013. It is titled “Herod the Great: the King’s Last Journey.

Herod ruled Judea from 37 B.C.E. until his death in 4 B.C.E. He was born Jewish, but his loyalty was to Rome. He was cruel, and he was hated. He constructed buildings im Masada, Caesarea, Hebron, Jericho, etc. He rebuilt the Temple on the Temple Mount. His royal tomb was at Herodium, 89 stories high, located 8 miles north of Jerusalem. There is a large area of excavation at Herodium. Most of the artifacts in the exhibit were brought from Herodium, including his sarcophagus, set in the middle of a reconstructed upper section of his mausoleum, which is round with columns.

When we left the Museum, we walked down the long wide steps, and close by we had a view of the Dead Sea Scrolls building, the Knesset building, and the Supreme Court building. We had visited the inside of these buildings on previous trips.

Monday morning Carolynn and I walked a long way. First down the hillside, past the Moses Montifiore Windmill and the first neighborhood outside of the old city walls, then the winding walk up the hillside to the south west Old City walls. Then we entered through the Zion gate.  As we walked to the Jewish Quarter, there were small shops.

We walked through the familiar Jewish Quarter to the Western Wall. It was even busier than usual, because Monday and Thursdays are days for Bar Mitzvah’s at the wall. Among all the other people at the wall, we saw four different processions of the Bar Mitzvah boy carrying a torah, surrounded by friends and family, and each group chanting it own melodies – everything happening at the same time.

We walked out going south, passed and viewed the large area of excavations south of the Temple Mount which we had seen in detail in our 2009 trip. Here there are findings from Roman times: Robinson’s arch which is a remnant of a passageway from the Temple Mount to the city, a paved street, the walls of four shops, a mikveh, a stone with a Hebrew inscription, etc.

We exited through the Dung Gate. The Dung gate is close to the excavations of the city of King David, which we had seen from closer in 2009.

Monday afternoon we went to see Maal Adumim, which is know as a settlement. Maal Adumin had been in the news in the US. It is a modern extensive city, located in the hills east of Jerusalem. We drove through, and saw the exterior of the police station, the shopping center and housing. We saw the outside of the hospital, where P M Ariel Sharon has been in a coma for several years. We saw the view to east Jerusalem, called the E1 corridor, which Israel has reserved for construction to connect to Jerusalem.  Maal Adumim has a population of 40.000. We were glad to have seen Maal Adumim in person.

In 2009 we had seen other settlements. We had stood at  the entrance to Gilo in south east Jerusalem, with a view to the valley below. We had visited a school in Modim in the West Bank near Jerusalem., We didn’t have time to visit Ariel, which includes Ariel University.

The population is Gilo 30,000., Modim 90,000. and Ariel residents 20,000 plus 10,000 students.

On the ride back to east Jerusalem, we passed through an IDF check-point, and moved through with no delay. Along the way we saw some parts of the security fence. We stopped at the popular lookout, with a view of the eastern walls of the old city, the gravestones of the Mount of Olive cemetery. We saw one lonely disheveled looking camel which people can ride. There was a camel in the same spot when we were there many years before. We drove by the Mount Scopos campus of the Hebrew University and Hadassah. Driving down the hill and west, we drove by the Garden of Gethsemine, where Jesus prayed.

We had dinner close to Ben Yehuda street, and leisurely walked up that long street, with its many shops and restaurants, as the sun was setting.

Tuesday morning we sat awhile in the lobby of the King David Hotel, which was built in 1931. In the lobby we keenly felt the long history of the place. One man in a dark suit quickly walked in the front door and down the hallway, with a photographer taking pictures as he walked. A large group of African men and women in their colorful native dress were grouped in the back part of the lobby. Several long black limousines stopped at the front door, with security men around, and the Africans were quickly driven away.

We walked to the Mamilla Center , through the Center again, through the Jaffa gate into the old city. We climbed steps to the top of the wall, saw the view, didn’t stay long or walk along the top of the wall, because it wasn’t an area that we most wanted to see. We walked east through the multitude of shops of the Christian and Arab Quarters,, turned right to walk to the Jewish Quarter. 

We reached a familiar sight: the Roman excavations of the former Cardo (Roman street). It is lower than the present street, has many tall columns in a row, and you view it from above. To the north we entered a small arched entrance, and saw a large covered room with more Roman excavations, including more tall columns in a row. Going north, we were surprised to see a very long covered street, with shops and art galleries, full of people, which is a recent recreation of the Cardo. In several places you can look down to lower levers of excavation.

As we left this area, we saw the back of a tall building we had not seen before. It is the Hurva Synagogue, and we bought tickets for a guided tour late in the afternoon.

In the Jewish section of the old city, we walked around, I took pictures, and then we had lunch in a small restaurant. I had some well know Israeli and middle-east food that I hadn’t had before. It is Shawarma, which is a long vertical skewer, marinated roasted turkey, from which the meat is sliced.

I spent some more time at the Western Wall, walked around the plaza, watched the many different people, touched the wall once again, and just enjoyed being there. I walked into the beginning of the western wall tunnel, which we walked all the way through in 2009. The plaza in front of the wall had all kinds of people. Jews who are orthodox, conservative, reformed, and secular., and soldiers in uniform. From the plaza looking to the other side, I saw the layers of buildings, of Jerusalem stone, which are mostly Yeshivas for orthodox men, and also buildings for women’s torah study. There steps go to the upper levels of the Jewish Quarter.

The western wall in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem is my favorite place in Israel. I asked myself, why?

I was aware that there I stood in the same place where Jews stood 2,000 years ago, close to the Temple Mount where they prayed in the Temple. My paternal grandfather went to visit his brother in Haifa in 1935, and I hope he also got to Jerusalem. My maternal grandfather, who prayed with talis and tfillen at home every day, never was able to visit Israel. My mother and father visited Israel one time, in 1946, stayed at the King David Hotel, and could not go to the old city and the western wall, because Jordan banned all Jews. Israeli soldiers in 1967 valiently fought, some were injured, some died, so that Israel regained the old city and western wall and now Jews can go there.

The Hurva Synagogue was built in the early 1700’s, was destroyed by the Muslims, rebuilt in 1864, and destroyed by the Jordanians in 1948 when they occupied the old city in the War of Independence.

In a “Guide to Jerusalem” in 2009, it said “the Jewish Quarter’s most famous landmark is the destroyed Hurva Synagogue, surrounded by a wide arch”. We saw that arch in 2009, when there was no Synagogue there. The arch was a memorial to the Synagogue, built in 1977.

The Hurva Synagogue was again rebuilt, completed in 2010. An arch is incorporated into the front wall of the Synagogue. We took the guided tour. In the basement are excavations of Roman time:  walls, which are believed to be remains of a Mikveh  for ritual bathing. On the ground floor there were some low remains of the old walls of the Synagogue, the new walls were built upon them, and the two can be differentiated. The Synagogue is about three stories high, with a dome over the top. The walls are white, with paintings on the wall in pastel colors. Inside Orthodox Jews were praying.

We climbed outdoor metal stairs, to an outdoor path around the base of the dome. We saw the view of the roofs of the old city. Nearby were the tops of two Armenian churches, and a tall Muslim Minaret. We went inside to a walkway around the base of the dome, and our guide demonstrated the fine acoustics.

Wednesday we went to a JNF building, to meet our guide for a one day tour of the northern Negev. There was a large lobby area with some Jewish art. To the south side there was a one room Synagogue, with beautiful stained glass windows, and some Jews saying their daily prayers. This building is a few buildings away from the Great Synagogue of Jerusalem, which has the chief Rabbi of Israel. We had attended services there on previous trips. It is a beautiful Synagogue, in which there were about  15 torahs in the arc. Downstairs in the Great Synagogue there was a small room for alternate  orthodox services. Thinking of the many Synagogues in Jerusalem reminded me of the story:  that a Jew on a desert island built two Synagogues, the one he likes to go to, and the one he won’t go to.

There was the guide, and four other people, in our vehicle. We drove through the hills down from Jerusalem. We saw in the distance  the Latrun memorial to the IDF armored soldiers, saw another memorial to the IDF combat engineers. We saw vineyards, and fields of sunflowers and pomegranats. We rode by the city Airyat Gat, and drove by an Intel manufacturing plant, which has 5,000 employees.

Then we reached Sderot in the Negev. The Palestinians had fired thousands of rockets from nearby Gaza into this town. When JNF Pres. Robinson visited there, he vowed the JNF would do something for them. The JNF obtained a large warehouse, which it converted into a 20,000 square foot recreation center. We saw a group of young girls, from an orthodox Synagogue, having fun in the inside playground that day. We saw two adjoining bomb shelter rooms, with steel walls. One had audio-visual equipment for viewing of media. One had equipment for sports. The children have 15 seconds to go through the multiple doors into the shelters when there is an alarm for incoming rockets.

When we left Sderot, we rode by Saphir College. We saw many green-houses, for agriculture in the desert. We rode by the town of Ofaqim. There is very little rainfall, so Israel reclaims 85% of its waste water and uses it for agriculture. It conserves water by drip-irrigation, use of sensors, and it has desalination plants near the ocean.

We were scheduled to see the underground bullet factory in Rehovet, which we had seen twice in 2009, so the guide took us instead to the Aleh Negev. It is a facility whose entry sign says “a Rehabilitation Village For The Special Needs Population”. It is 25 acres, then a residence for 70, planned to be the residence for 220 disabled adults. They have a hydrotherapy pool, a petting zoo, horseback riding, many kinds of innovative therapy and education. There is a large professional staff and volunteers. There is a hospital, many specialized buildings, and landscaping, all in the desert.

We rode by some areas with Beduins. Then we rode through the streets of the town of Givot Bar, which is a JNF sponsored model living are in the Negev desert.Residents buy a lot, and have their home constructed. All the homes are detached, and each is a different architectural design. There is a gate at the entrance.

The Negev is a desert, but if the JNF dreams come true, someday it will be the Negev Forest. In Beer Sheva we saw where the JNF had planned a 1,700 acre River Park Project. It will be bigger than central park in Manhattan. Most of the land was barren brown dirt then, with bulldozers moving dirt around. They were building a new road into the area from the main road. There is one place where there is green growth on a domed hill, and there is a bridge over the river. Previously this area was used a trash dump, and we saw a few remaining auto wrecks not yet removed.

Thursday we took a taxi down the hills to Tel Aviv. The ride was about one hour, and Israel was constructing a new road which would shorten the ride by about ½ hour. We reached our small hotel located near the beautiful beach, which is very long, adorned with hotels and condominiums. The beach has light colored fine sand which appears to be similar to the sand of Carmel CA.. Our hotel was near the main small boat Marina, and also the  Pussy Cat night club located on a plaza higher than the beach. There are wide steps from this plaza down to the beach. Looking south one can see all the way to the tower of Jaffa, which is about 4 miles away. More of the beach also extends far northward from this area.

Our hotel Leonardo Basil is a small hotel across the street from the beach. Thursday afternoon, from the hotel we walked down Ben Gurion Street. It has no autos, two walking paths, landscaped center strip, with conveniently spaced benches. On the street is the small two story home of P M Ben Gurion, which we visited, and found interesting with its large collection of his books and papers, library, living quarters.

Ben Gurion street  goes to  Ben Yehuda,  and next Dizengoff.  On  Dizenfgoff  we found a small kosher restaurant, and that evening we went to that restaurant for dinner with Dov Basker.

Friday morning we walked south on Dizengoff.  We went to  Dizengoff Square, a Flea market there, and beyond that to Dizengoff Shopping Center.

Friday afternoon we went to Rabin Square, and then to an area with the Art Museum, Library, and Performing Arts Center. These buildings had interesting architecture, located around a large plaza. We could not go into the  Museum of Art and Library, because they were closed as Shabbat was near. We saw a very large number of people leaving the Performing Arts Center, after a performance by the Harlem Dance Company. We went in and saw the modern lobby, but not the auditorium.

From there we saw the tops of the nearby Azrieli Center. The circular tower is 49 floors, the triangular tower is 46 floors, the square tower is 42 floors. At the base is the shopping mall, with about 30 restaurants, an 8 screen cinema, and auditorium and parking garage.

Friday evening we went to a restaurant called Barbora, on Ben Yahuda, which was  recommended. The meal started with “salad”: small bowls of seasoned humus, beets, carrots, coleslaw, eggplant, etc. We had St. Peters fish, we removed the center spine of fine bones, and it was good.

Saturday, Shabbat, we did as we had planned, explored the beach. Secular Jews were celebrating Shabbat at the beach, accompanied by non Jews and tourists. The beach was covered with people, many underneath umbrellas. In the water people were swimming, surfing, and sailing. On the beach people were playing paddle ball with a paddle and hard ball, saw some gymnastics, and many volley-ball games. We walked south along the Promenade,  about ½ way to Jaffa, and took a cab the rest of the way.

We had not been to Jaffa since a visit long ago. It is an ancient seaport, which was there in the biblical stories of Solomon and Jonah. Some shops were open in Jaffa, but many were closed because it was nearing Shabbat. There is a sensational view of the skyline of Tel Aviv from the cliffs above the beach of Jaffa.

Tel Aviv was founded in 1909, when a small number of  Jews from Jaffa met on a sand-dune, and then the city started with 66 families. In 2013 the population was 410,000, and they had 2.5 million international visitors a year.

Saturday night we had an early dinner in the Gordo restaurant at the back of the beach, and watched the sunset. Then we heard music, walked north to enthusiastic folk dancers on the Promenade, and I took some short movie sequences. It was the perfect ending to our exciting Shabbat on the beach of Tel Aviv.

Sunday we did as we had planned, visited my second cousins. There are 4 train stations in Tel Aviv, and we met Dov Basker at the  Central Station on Arlosoroff Street. He helped us buy tickets, and accompanied us for the day.

The train went north through Hertziliya, Natanyah,  Hadera, Caesarea, to Binyamina station. We took a taxi for a short ride to Tzippy Kleiner’s apartment in Karkur. We took the elevator to her floor in the high rise apartment building. It is near the coast, without a view of the water, with a wide view of multi story apartment developments, with agricultural fields in between. We met cousin Nurit Harari, Tzippy Kleiner’s son and granddaughter. Tzippy served us a very good lunch. Nurit drove us back to the train station, where we boarded to go father north to Haifa.

We went to a restaurant, located in the lower oldest part of Haifa, near a rectangular shaped huge grain silo, and some cranes at the container  port. The restaurant had been remodeled, after it was hit by a rocket from Lebanon in the last Lebanon war.

We had dinner with my second cousins:  Tzippy Kleiner; Abraham Lichthouse, and his wife Naomi; Ora Lichthouse, widow of Micha Lichthouse, who was my first contact with this branch of the family, whom we saw in 2009, and met for the first time in 1997; Tziporah Klopstock, and her husband Jochanan, Tziporah remembers she was a child when my parents visited Haifa in 1966 ; Zipporah Jechieli, who is the sister of Nurit Harari.

These second cousins are the grandchildren of Josef Lichthouse, who immigrated to Haifa from Warsaw in 1925. Josef is the brother of my grandfather, Louis Licht, who immigrated from the Ukraine to San Francisco in 1914. Louis’s other two brothers, stayed in Warsaw, and they and their families were all killed in the Holocaust; Eisek Lechtus, his wife Yisha, and their three children; Moishe Lechtus and his wife Ester.

My second cousins, and my first cousins and I, have the same great-grandfather: Gedalya Lechtus.

We took the train back to Tel Aviv, and at our hotel we awakened at 2:00 AM. We got to Ben Guion airport at 3:00 AM,  and were surprised that  the very large lobby was full of passengers, snacking while waiting for flights. It was as many people as in busy airports in the daytime. On the way to the airport we had seen some stores were open, and some people were on the streets. Tel Aviv is known as” the city that never sleeps”, like New York City.

In our 2009 trip to Israel with Beth Jacob of Redwood City, we visited other important places. Some of the JNF sponsored sites were: Atlit former British detention camp, Ammunition Hill, Bullet Factory in Rehovit, Hula Valley Nature Reserve, Yachad school in Modim. Visited Independence Hall , Palmach Museum, and Binyamin Open Market, in Tel Aviv. Visited Caesaria, stayed in Tzfat, drove through the Galilee along Lake Tiberius. Stayed in Jerusalem: Old City, Kenneset, Conservative Center – Carolynn and I went to Mt. Herzl Cemetery and the Begen Center. The group went to the Golan Heights including a winery,  stayed at the Ramon Crater, went to the Grave of Ben Gurion, stayed at the Dead Sea, Ayalon Institute and Kibbutz Lotan - both are environmental research. Carolyn and I stayed in Eilat at the end of the trip.

I am listing these to show that it takes time to see Israel - there is too much there to see it in a hurry.

JNF wrote “there’s a little bit of Israel in all of us. Come explore the Israel in you”. We found that is true. Visit Israel to learn new things about the country, and in the process you will also learn new things about yourself. One needs to go to Israel often, because it is ever changing and improving. It is tiny geographically, but it has a vast amount of features: architecture, archeology, beautiful scenery, ancient history, a melting pot of cultures, and an energetic innovative people who are a Jewish majority in a Jewish state.

My grandfather Licht visited Israel in 1935 which was soon after his wife died. He visited his brother, who moved to Haifa, Palestine, in 1925.

He probably went to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, because it would have been available to him and was only 94 miles from Haifa.

On the way to Israel he visited his two brothers, their wives, and the 4 children of one of the brothers, in Warsaw, Poland. I have pictures of them. They all died in the Holocaust.

For middle class U.S. Jews in that time, few visited Israel, and when visited it was once in a lifetime. Commercial airliner travel didn’t start until about 1939.

My mother and father visited Israel in 1966 , and stayed at the King David Hotel. They couldn’t go to the old city, couldn’t go to the Western Wall, because after 1948 it was occupied by Jordan, who banned all Jews from the Old City. Jordan destroyed the Jewish Quarter including all the Synagogues, and many headstones in the Cemetery east of the Old City. The area between the King David Hotel and the Old City was a no-mans land, covered with barbed wire, and deserted. After Israel regained the area in the Six Day War in 1968, it is beautifully landscaped and a joy to see.

Carolynn’s father and mother were strong supporters of Israel, but they never went there for a visit. When Carolynn went to Israel she was also going for them.

My grandfather Abe Kirschenbaum was a devout Jew who would have loved to visit Israel, but never went there. When I go to Israel I feel I am also going for him. 

When I visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem, and enjoy the Jewish section of the old city, I felt that I am also going for them. Carolynn and I have traveled to many places all over the world, but my favorite place of all is the Western Wall in Jerusalem. It is so significant, so symbolic, so memorable.

Rabbi Teitelbaum said Robin is his wife, but Jerusalem is his mistress.  

The bible mentions Jerusalem 670 times. The Jewish daily prayers, and the Passover Seder, end with “next year in Jerusalem”. Jews have lived in Jerusalem for more than 3,000 years since the time of Kings David and Solomon. The Temple was destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed again. Zionism began in the late 19th century.  Since 1948 Israel is a democratic Jewish State.