Day Two – Haifa, Mount Carmel, and Tel Aviv

Today I awoke early in the kibbutz in Gonen.  I went for a beautiful, foggy morning run, and then snuck into the reception house before anyone else to upload about a dozen photos (which was a great accomplishment!).  We loaded up the bus and started our drive out of the North east corner of Israel.  We traveled to the city of Haifa, the third largest city in Israel. 

Looking up the street at the gardens.

 Haifa sits on an amazing bay on the west coast of Israel.  It slopes up away from the coast up the side of Mount Carmel.  In Haifa, we first stopped and visited the Bahai gardens.  Bahai is a sect that broke off of Islam that emphasizes worshiping nature and its symmetry.  There are 6 million Bahai followers in the world, and the headquarters of the faith is in Haifa.  The gardens were extremely beautiful and well maintained.  We stopped for a brief photo before continuing on our way.  

Ryan (UNF) being goofy in front of a tourist sign.

Alex (Flagler) overlooks Haifa 

           

           

Next stop in Haifa was the Technion, or Israel Institute of Technology.  This is often compared to MIT, as it specializes in high tech forms of engineering and science.  Students of Technion have built, launched, and put into orbit their own satellites.  One of the students that gave out tour was on a project improving bullet-proof vests for the Israel Defense Force and now works with the design of Boeing “Dreamliners.”

            One incredible thing we’ve really been discussing each day is the mandatory military service of Israeli youth after secondary school.  After graduating high school, all Jewish Israeli men are required to serve 3 years, while women 2 years, in the IDF unless given a special assignment to go to school before serving for 6 years.  Another factor of Israeli development and youth is that after finishing their term of service with the IDF, many young Israelis choose to leave Israel and travel the world.  This is often considered necessary for the released soldiers to “experience the world” and get a chance to decompress from their service.  One young man giving us a tour was 24 and a sophomore at Technion.  The other was 27 and had just graduated.  This makes the university atmosphere much different, as the students have all been through much more life experience and have a better concept of what they want to pursue.  It is pretty crazy that they are required to go through so much at that age, but it seems to be an accepted (maybe even celebrated?) part of life for many.  Our guide, Leor always has lots of positive things to say about the system.

The Student Center at Technion.

Natalie (Ohio State) really likes cats (and statues of men petting cats).

An amphitheater at Technion.

           

A look over the back of Mount Carmel.

We left Technion and continued driving up Mount Carmel.  This mountain is very significant in the Bible as the scene where the prophet Elijah tested the prophets of Baal.  He asked them to pray to Baal and have him send fire down on a sacrifice on the mountain.  The prophets prepared their sacrifice and prayed all day, begging Baal to deliver fire on the sacrifice.  Meanwhile, Elijah prepared his alter and had servants soak all the wood and bull in 12 jars of water.  Elijah prayed to God to deliver fire, and “the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.” (1 Kings 18:38)  This is the same mountain I walked along today.  It is hard to even try to imagine that happening in this place, but that is certainly the belief of the Jews.

           

The woman who guided us to her home for lunch.

We met up with a woman of the Druze religion and she led us to a home in her village of Isfiya, still on top of Mount Carmel.  The Druze religion is a belief system that comes out of the Arabic people, but it is separate from Islam.  It actually traces its history back to Jethro, the father in law of Moses.  They claim that their god is the same god of Judeaism.  However, their faith strongly incorporates reincarnation.  It is also completely exclusively- you cannot convert into Druism.  They believe that the 2.5 million Druze in the world today will never increase or decrease, but instead circulate with the reincarnation.  Only Druze that choose to be “religious” get access to the texts of their faith.  It is very mysterious and has little known documentation because of its exclusivity. 

           

Walking through Isfiya.

Walking up to the woman’s house reminded me of Zanzibar, with the painted concrete houses and small alley-roads paved with bricks.  We came into the woman’s home and ate a delicious lunch.  After staying a while, stopping by another community facility in the village, and taking another look over the side of Mount Carmel, we went back to the bus.  We drove to a nearby fire station which JNF helped fund.  There were terrible forest fires in the Carmel area in 2010, where over 2.5 million trees burned and 45 people were killed.  JNF stepped in and funded a campaign for the firefighters to make sure this catastrophe would never happen again.  It seemed a bit ironic that this area is prone to destructive fires, given the history with Elijah.  Obviously that is pure speculation, but interesting nonetheless. 

Q&A about Druze.

Abbie (UNF) and I being goofy with our friends,
the five prophets of Druze.  

The food was AMAZING.  Hummus, a form of Nan, kebob,
rice, eggplant, and some other goodies.

Looking over Mount Carmel.

This is our medic and guard, Eyal (probably wrong spelling, but oh well).

Some Israeli guards, probably younger than me, walking through Isfiya.

A Druze community learning center.

Being silly in the Druze community center.

           

Listening to the spokesperson of the Mt. Carmel Fire Dept.

 Finally we loaded onto the bus and left Haifa.  We drove probably an hour and a half to Tel Aviv.  Leor described Tel Aviv as a mix of “New York, LA, and Florida.”  It is the largest, most modern city in Israel and is on the west coast.  We went straight to our hotel, a block from the Mediterranean.  After dropping off our things, we had a session with an Israeli economist, discussing the start-up/exit business culture in Israel.  There are many successful high-tech start-ups in Israel, but he contests that Israel needs to invest in more long term business life-cycles, rather than depending on Google or Apple to buy out their competitive idea.  We ate a delicious dinner and then had a small concert with artist Udi Krauss, who is a producer and performer in the Tel Aviv area.  He graduated from Rimon University, which is an affiliate of Berklee College of Music in Boston.  After the performance, all 30 of us stormed the lobby to soak up some wifi before bed.  Day Two complete!

Leaving the Fire Station.

Selfie in a fire truck with Jess (JU)

Udi Krauss just shredding.