Touring Israel

Church of St. Anne

Joe Yudin — 2012-01-25T15:29:19+00:00

More often than not, while wandering around the Old City of Jerusalem, eavesdropping on some of the tour guides, you can observe that some guides pronounce certain sites and places as being the place where "so and so" did this miracle and "so and so" fought that battle and "so and so" walked here or there. Other guides will state that "tradition holds" that "so and so" did this or that at the specific site. When talking about what happened in the Bible and where it actually happened, faith and belief plays a major part and evidence is hard…

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Mt. Gilboa

Joe Yudin — 2012-01-15T15:51:13+00:00

"Thy beauty, O Israel, upon thy high places is slain! How are the mighty fallen!" II Samuel 1:19.

There are a few passages in the Bible that can be quoted (and misquoted) by almost everyone because of their infamy due to their absolute poetic beauty. The aforementioned quote is one of them. It’s part of David’s lament upon receiving the news of King Saul’s tragic death on the slope of Mt. Gilboa. Certainly this biblical passage is one of the most beautiful in its poetry. Bring your Hebrew-English bible and a good map for this tour…or…

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Battle for the Golan Heights

Joe Yudin — 2012-01-12T11:46:17+00:00

Between 1948 and 1967 the Syrian military sat atop the Golan Heights and on the shores of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), looking down at Israel in the valley below. In 1964, the Syrians began work on canals to divert the water sources of the north away from the Kinneret and by the end of May 1967, the Syrians had moved the bulk of their forces to the borders of Israel and their leaders were openly boasting of Israel’s eminent destruction in the press.

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Hiking the Negev Desert

Joe Yudin — 2012-01-05T11:02:03+00:00

Hiking in Israel isn’t just for nature lovers. I actually got into hiking during my first visit to Israel, but when I went back, however briefly, to the United States and hiked there, it just wasn’t the same. Don’t get me wrong there are tens of thousands of intense and beautiful hikes in North America that are challenging, fun and a nature lover’s dream, but my point is that hiking in Israel is a whole different experience. The key to hiking in Israel is by knowing it’s in depth history.

The best place to start…

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The Royal Tombs of Jerusalem

Joe Yudin — 2011-12-12T13:43:06+00:00

There is no other place in the world like Jerusalem. A tourist I was guiding once told me that while he was touring Jerusalem and Israel, his brother toured Rome and Italy. When they got together after their respective trips his brother was astounded by the two thousand years of history. “Two thousand years is that all?” questioned my tourist, “In Jerusalem that’s not even the halfway point!” I couldn’t have said it better myself. A walk through any neighborhood almost anywhere in Israel, will show you some incredible and diverse gems of history, archaeology and architecture. On this…

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The Walls of Jerusalem

Joe Yudin — 2011-11-04T09:14:49+00:00

“Do good in Thy favour unto Zion; build Thou the walls of Jerusalem.” Psalms 51:20

As the weather begins to cool down and the kids go back to school there is no better time to tour Jerusalem for leisurely strolls, wandering through its alleyways, gazing at the walls as the sunlight reflects differently throughout the day off the Jerusalem Stone. When approaching the west side of the Old City for the first time, tourists always gaze up at the site of Jaffa Gate and the walls stretching north and south as if they have never seen…

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4x4 on the Golan Heights

Joe Yudin — 2011-10-24T13:14:21+00:00

Over the weekend I decided to take my family on a short jeep tour and picnic by a spring on the southern part of the Golan Heights. We set out early and headed towards the Jordan Valley and continued north on Route 90 to Lake Kinneret at Tzomeh Junction and right on Route 92. At Ma'agan Junction we continued straight on seldom-traveled Route 98 in the direction of Hammat Gader. This road takes you on a beautiful scenic route high above the Yarmuk River on the border of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in the Mountains of Gilead. Over…

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Days of Judgment

Joe Yudin — 2011-10-07T10:53:56+00:00

I’ve been asked to write a travel log that’s connected to Rosh Hashannah in some way. At first I thought I would tie it into walking through some off the beaten track trail with lots of pomegranates or apple orchards and bee hives, but I figured that would be too obvious and superficial. So when I stretched back into the depths of my brain as to what part of the country captures the “secular” essence of Rosh Hashannah, a trail immediately struck me that is connected to it, even though it is one of the more famous trails in…

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A Walk through an Old New Land Part 4 of 4

Joe Yudin — 2011-10-02T23:18:44+00:00

“If you will it, it is no dream.” – Theodore Herzl, from his book “Old New Land” published in 1902.

When guiding tours in English I always assume that my tourists know nothing of Israel or its history, both ancient and modern. Even if they are quite knowledgeable it never hurts to start from the beginning to put things into perspective. Most of them do vaguely remember some of the biblical stories, and maybe have read the Leon Uris book Exodus or even follow the foreign news media, however skewed. This isn’t a knock at our…

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A Walk Through an Old New Land Pt. 3

Joe Yudin — 2011-09-26T05:28:35+00:00

I used to wander around Neve Tzedek in the early 1990’s. The buildings were falling apart, the roads were riddled with potholes, but it still had that cultural feeling of the immigrants and the artists who lived among them who had settled there in the 50’s & 60’s. It was a charming, but rundown neighborhood. There were a couple of great bohemian bars, a few funky struggling galleries and some pretty cool flea market type thrift shops. It seemed that there was a “For Sale” sign on every other dilapidated building, and I was positive that this neighborhood would…

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