On the way home, we spent a few hours in Ben Gurion airport. The beautiful Shul there, the videos of the Rebbe playing there on a continuous loop, the Kosher Food Court, the bearded Kippahed security supervisors..it's all very special.
One word about Ben Gurion. You don't have to take off your shoes or your sweater/jackets when you go through the xray. You don't have to take you baby out of the the stroller and fight to get the carseat through the xray belt. You just have to look like you are not going to doing anything stupid and they PROFILE you, using their common sense to decide who they need to suspect. Maybe not PC but very helpful.
Some final thoughts:
Favorite site: By far the Kotel. The exuberance and the unity that was palpable there was just great.
Biggest eye-opener: The Golan Heights. After being there, it is baffling that the Syrians would think Israel would relinquish it.
Most dangerous-feeling place: Chevron by far. In general, there was a very minimal presence of uniformed soldiers on patrol in Israel. We saw many off-duty soldiers, but very, very few on duty. (The Israelis all told us that there are soldiers everywhere, but they are concealed, watching from vantage points.) But in Chevron there is a strong presence, because there the Jewish communities are tiny and dispersed in the massive Arab presence. And the fact that the Arabs have murdered Jewish children there over the last several years too. Thank G-d recently it has been "quiet", but the tension was there. G-d watch over them.
Oldest visible site: The 4,000 year-old roads in Chevron.
Hottest place: Tiberius! Hands down.
Best food: Big Apple Pizza in the Ben Yehuda Mall.
The Golan Hotel in Tiberius was great, except that we're back in Calabasas and we're still waiting for the guy with the luggage cart to come out and help us get our stuff to our room. (It was really nice to be able to wake up and eat breakfast in the hotel and not have to shlep tuna sandwiches, etc.)
Eldan Car Rental was by and large cool. Except that they warned us not to take the tollway and we did so...we're waiting for the ax to fall. And when we were returning the car, the guy who was handling us dropped us like a hot potato to go have (what looked like a planned) shouting match with a coworker. Muzar.
The GPS rental was al hapanim. The machine had a mind of its own, or no mind at all, however you want to put it. But it got us where we wanted to go, with a touch of gritted teeth.
The mikveh turnstile in Tveryeh ripped me off five sheikels. (And the water was almost clean!) To the two Yeshiva boys in Tveryeh who asked me to arrange connections for them in LA - stay home. Your people need you!
Places we missed: Dead Sea, Sderot, Rosh Hanikra, Egyptian border, Old City Wall ramparts, Kotel Tunnels, 90% of Jerusalem, 95% of Israel, many good people we intended to visit but ran out of time, 99% of Kfar Chabad, most of Tzfat, the tomb of Rabbi Meir, and much more. Next time.
To G-d, thank You for a very special Land.
To the Gabays, thanks for getting us there.
To Josh and Emma, may you grow up as proud and active Jews, mazal tov on your Bar/Bat Mitzvah, realize that Israel's Jewish identity relies squarely on yours!
May we share more Simchot together, and may we all go together to our Holy Land, with our righteous Moshiach, to a complete and peaceful, serene Holy Land, with no hostility from anyone, no need for youngsters to strap on guns and boots. May it be NOW.
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