Summer tourism and aliyah season is almost here, and whether it’s your first trip to Israel or your eightieth, don’t you wish you could have a list of all the little things everybody else wishes they’d thought of?
This comprehensive travel guide was written by Debra Nussbaum Stepen. She’s a Licensed Tour Guide in Israel (no mean feat, as it takes years of study and deep historical and geographical knowledge!) and you can find out more about her and her services at debratours.com.
Comprehensive Travel Tips for Tourists
1. Do not throw out the little slip of paper that they give you at the airport. This is your entry visa and entitles you to exemption of the 17% VAT tax on
I’ve always loved Airbnb, a site that made it super-easy for anyone and everyone to rent out their place and make a little money on the side (or a lot – I know for lots of people it’s an actual business at this point).
Why? According to NGO Human Rights Watch, who undoubtedly has advised Airbnb every step of the way, it’s mainly because “Palestinian ID holders are effectively barred from entering” these areas (just as they can’t enter many parts of Israel). Because the Palestinian Authority have utterly failed, since the initial hope of Oslo, to reach any kind of peace agreement – not tried and failed, but simply failed due to power hunger on the part of their leadership.
When I read about all of this this morning, frankly, I was astonished that I had an opinion at all.
I didn’t used to.
You have to understand that I was a very bad prospective olah, in that I didn't really know anything about Israel before we came here.
I probably couldn't have found Haifa on a map. Let alone Beer Sheva, Netanya, Ramat Gan and a whole bunch of other towns that I now know as well as the suburbs where I grew up.
Which also meant I couldn't tell the difference, politically, between Chevron and Rechovot, between Efrat and Eilat, between Kochav Yaakov and Kochav Yair (okay, to be fair, even born Israelis get those two mixed up!).
I always figured that if I lived in Israel, the "situation" here would make a lot more sense. I would know what "settlements" people were talking about and understand whether they were right or wrong and which were the good bits of the country and which weren't.
I’m a lot less naive now.
But even so, I certainly couldn't claim to know more about how to fix the situation than anyone else. So the fact that Airbnb, like the EU, is announcing that they have the answer, and that the answer is to label different parts of the country in different ways to call attention to the political situation… well, that’s astonishing.
This is actually more of a public service announcement than a blog post. Know what the biggest threat is to pedestrians in Jerusalem? From what I’ve learned this week it definitely isn’t terrorism… it’s slippery sidewalks.
Yup, those fabulous shining stone walkways that make Jerusalem look so lovely for so much of the year… are apparently (almost literally) deadly.
If you’ve ever walked through the Old City at night in the rain, you probably figured that already. But maybe, like me, you thought you were the only one. Nope, nope, nope. If you’ve ever stopped yourself from running for a bus in our nation’s capital because you were scared you’d slip and fall and break your neck… it turns out you’re not alone.
Except some people aren’t just afraid of falling. They’ve actually fallen, and maybe not suffered
Picture yourself in a world of darkness, groping around, not knowing where - or what - anything is.
You're lost in a hopeless, unsolvable maze. Are you near a wall, a door? Are you about to bump into something? Your only hope is to trust in the skills of your guide, an all-seeing miracle worker who can somehow navigate her way through total darkness.
Last month, I finally got to visit the blind museum in Holon. Okay, it's not really called the blind museum. Part of the Israeli Children's Museum there, it's an exhibit called Dialogue in the Dark. And it’s been on my “Israel Bucket List” for about ten years, since I first read about it in a magazine.
Your own personal Virgil
When you go in, you enter a world of total darkness. You leave everything behind in a locker – glasses, keys, phones (except a small amount of pre-counted money for the snack bar).
Luckily, you're given your own Virgil, a blind guide who knows her way around like the back of her hand.
Are you sick of all the standard, cliché Israel souvenirs: olive wood plaques, “SuperJew” magnets, cheap metal kiddush cups? Do you feel like a sucker every time you walk into a souvenir shop and pay too much money?
I know I do, and I’m not a tourist – I actually live here. (Maybe you live here, too, and you wish there was something different you could bring back with you the next time you travel back to visit family and friends?)
I bet you wish there was something original you could bring them instead without spending a fortune.
Why not gift your friends and family where their stomachs are - with the gift of special foods from Israel?
Here are twelve tantalizing suggestions to tickle their tummies:
1. Bamba
These are Israel's most beloved snacks. If you live in a major Jewish centre, then forget this one, because you can probably buy them closer to home. If not, share the crazy novelty of Israel's beloved "peanut-flavoured cheesies," now also available with a variety of fillings. There's also Bissli and other crunchy snack aisle faves to round out the gift basket.
2. Olive oil
They're all local and delicious, so just pick the most beautiful or unusual bottle. If you know someone who's in the know about olive oil, get them to introduce you to a truly special "vintage" or artisanal producer, or to an organization like Galilee Green, which is working to revitalize a regional economy.
3. Fancy salts
Even the "plain" table salt we buy says it's from the Red Sea,
Stop! Before you put that backpack down for a second… don’t.
Israelis are, shall we say, just a little bit touchy about unattended luggage, purses, backpacks, of any kind.
Leave it alone for more than a few seconds and it’s automatically reclassified. It’s no longer your stuff… it becomes a חֵפֶץ חָשׁוּד / chafetz chashud = suspicious object. And that is something everyone here takes very, very seriously.
Here is the entire Kotel / Western Wall complex shut down because of a chafetz chashud:
Can you spot it in this picture?
Some moron put down a backpack and walked away… and the entire place had to be evacuated.
When you do leave something behind by accident, Israelis are very vigilant. It starts so quietly you might not notice, but the reaction is almost immediate: “Whose bag is this?”
If it’s your bag, you’d better claim it, and fast, because soon enough, everybody will be chiming in trying to figure out which dummy has left a potentially suspicious object lying around.
Ultimately, the chain of inquiry can lead to your bag being exploded for you
I can’t get over how wonderful it is living in Israel and NOT being a tourist here. I still rant about it sometimes, in my head, how utterly amazing it is that we get to wake up here Every Single Day.
But… sometimes, a tourist is exactly what you want to be.
When you live somewhere, usually nobody tells you what’s what. You’re on your own to figure stuff out.
Of course, that was true back in Toronto as well. I would have been annoyed if someone had pointed out famous landmarks like Casa Loma or the CN Tower every time we went past them. Plus, back there, there are plenty of “personal landmarks,” places that mean a lot to me but not necessarily other people – like the hospital where my brother & sisters were born, which I wave to every time I drive past.
Here, the opposite is sometimes true. We have almost no history here, and people assume I know stuff because I’m Israeli (now) when, in some cases, I totally do not.
The truth is that when you live here, you sometimes have no time to do the fun tourist stuff that can help you get oriented for the long term.
So last Wednesday, I grabbed Naomi Rivka (age 9) for a day of being girl tourists in the nation’s capital. We did the twice-daily free* walking tour of the Old City of Jerusalem with a company called Sandeman’s New Europe.
You can see us here in the mandatory group shot before the tour – we’re the only ones shading our eyes from the really bright afternoon sun.
Allow me to spoil the surprise: I’ll tell you the answer up front.
Ready?
No.
But there’s another thing I wanted to share first, which actually also came to me via facebook. This isn’t something I usually do; I figure if you want to follow me on facebook, you can.
(Didn’t know that yet? Follow AliyahLand on facebook! Follow me personally on Twitter!)
[can anyone tell me why all my graphics are surrounded by this annoying white frame?!?!]
Like I said, normally what happens on facebook stays on facebook. But in this case, these two things felt more important than most given the barrage of “stuff” that’s been falling on Israel over the last few days.
A not so fun-and-games kids’ video
I shared this video, which came with the following caption, from The Jewish Standard’s facebook page:
This song was composed by a local teacher and has been taught to hundreds of schoolchildren within firing range of Gaza's rockets to help them deal with the fear and trauma of having 15 seconds to run for cover when the Color Red siren sounds.
Despite its cheerful tune and praiseworthy goal, I was crying by the end. It’s only a minute; please watch at least a few seconds.
And I don’t cry about stuff… well, almost never.
When I shared it, I said, “It is not fair that children have to learn this song. Kind of catchy, but if you're like me, you may cry anyway.”
But when a friend added a comment to the effect that she admired our courage… and that she didn’t think she could live here, all I could think of to say was, “It’s nothing like courage. It’s just… life.”
I wish I could tell them, and you, that I am taking this trip no matter what. I wish I could tell you that I will not be deterred by terrorists attacking civilians. …
On one hand, how can I tell my family who is living this reality every day that I will not be visiting? How can I tell cousins with young children that their country is too dangerous for my children and not theirs? Isn’t the best way to support Israel to travel there …
On the other hand, I wonder will I need a gas mask to see my grandmother? Will we land in Israel and be rushed into bomb shelters? …
My comment was short, but – I think – encapsulates exactly what I believe about this situation and every other situation that could possibly develop here.
Jews outside of Israel often forget that our destinies are linked. As Mordechai told Esther, "Don't think that just because you're in the palace, you alone out of all the Jews will be spared." We are all in this together, and you are not safe anywhere if we are not safe here.
You know my answer… now here’s why
Here’s what it comes down to: “The truth is,” Chesler writes, “I don’t know what will happen.”
We sure don’t.
In Israel or in North America, you don’t know what will happen. That’s because you don’t run the world.
What do I mean by that?
Your decision to get on a plane does not in any way affect Hashem’s decision to keep you alive (or not). If your time is up, your time is up, whether you’re in Machane Yehuda or driving on the Long Island Expressway when that moment comes.
But the one thing we do know from our history is that it’s impossible to hide. If “they” are coming after the Jews, they will find you wherever you happen to be.
Does that mean you should run into a burning building?
No, absolutely not.
But Israel is not a burning building. Israel is the promised land, a land of peace and opportunity, and there is no Jewish place like it in the world.
Sharing Israel with your children keeps them safe in a way huddling with them in the illusional “palace” of North America never could. It teaches them that we are Jews; that we are strong.
That we will win.
It doesn’t take courage to come here. It’s just life. The kind of Jewish life the terrorists (in this and previous generations) have dedicated themselves to eradicating.
So… should you cancel your vacation?
Another tidbit I posted on facebook yesterday that might answer your question: I booked a plane ticket to bring our older daughter back in September.
Sure, I’m hoping there will be peace by then. But whatever is going on around us, as a Jew, she belongs here… and so do you.
