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Friday, February 19th, 2010
The beautiful Dead Sea oasis of Ein Gedi. (Seen from Nahal Arugot.)
(Catching up on writing about the siyurim/tours we’ve had so far, this one is from a little over a month ago.)
When most people think of Ein Gedi, they think of a beautiful oasis sandwiched between the cliffs at the end of the Judean Desert and the highly saline Dead Sea, the lowest place on Earth at 422 meters (1385 feet) below sea level. Popular images that spring to mind related to this oasis include gorgeous waterfalls, colorful flowers and delicate ibex bounding along sharp cliffs. Others might think of the date crops that were so closely connected with this area.
But what is somewhat less prominent, but still highly significant, is the wealth of interesting (and at times perplexing) archaeological finds within the Ein Gedi area. I wanted to highlight a couple of the archaeological sites that you might want to see on your next trip to the Ein Gedi park.
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Posted in Tour Diary, Tour Guide Course | 2 Responses »
Tags: archaeology, Ein Gedi, fortress, synagogue
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
A tour group at the theater in Caesarea, Mediterranean in the background.
Finding a bit more time now, so hope to post some tour updates and more news stories soon. But just a quick summary for now. Tours that I’ve taken but not yet written about: Ein Gedi, southern Dead Sea area (Mt. Sodom), Modiin vicinity (Tel Gezer and stuff related to the Maccabees) and Sharon/southern Carmel region (Apollonia, Dor and Atlit).
And some of the class subjects I may want to discuss here: Geography and Geology of Israel (and how they relate to each other) and fauna. But first…
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Posted in Israeli Tourism, Miscellaneous, Tour Guide Course | No Responses »
Tags: business, culinary tourism, IMTM, Israel, Market, Ministry of Tourism, Tel Aviv, tourism, wine
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
A piece of Edomite glass (C 2100 years old) that I found on a dig in Beit Guvrin.
Last week’s and this week’s classes have both dealt with general overviews to the land of Israel, dealing with such things as roads, borders, broad history, and the like. I’ll break down some of the other information in a future post, but I thought it might be helpful for me to give you a brief history of the different periods of history that we encounter here. This way, if I later refer to something as taking place in a certain period, I can refer you back to this brief overview!
Some of these are broad eras that apply to all of civilization, and others are specific to this location. The latter is the case the more modern we get. Also, in some cases, the period may start at different times in different parts of the world. (For example, Muslim period begins at different times in different parts of this area, depending on when the Muslims conquered various lands.)
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Posted in Primers, Tour Guide Course | 5 Responses »
Tags: Assyrians, Babylonians, Bar Kochba, British Mandate, Byzantines, Canaanite, Greeks, Hasmoneans, history, Holy Temple, Israel, Jerusalem, kings, Mamluks, Muslims, Ottomans, Persians, Romans
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
The Judean Hills on a sunny day, seen from Nahal Soreq
It’s getting late, and I have to be up early for our tiyul/trip tomorrow. So this will be a brief post, just to touch on a few quick things, before I hit the sack.
Firstly, a brief update on the exam failure “scandal” I wrote about here. I got a few more “facts” and figures from the head of my course that relate to this story.
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Posted in Tour Guide Course | 1 Response »
Tags: business, Dead Sea, Ein Gedi, Eli Raz, exam, license, Ministry of Tourism
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
A piece of the wall that surrounded Jerusalem in the time of King Hezekiah.
Our siyur (tour) this past Tuesday started in my backyard, almost literally. We met at the Tayelet / Haas Promenade, a mere 5-minute walk from my apartment in beautiful Arnona, Jerusalem. This scenic outlook offers an excellent spot to view the geography of ancient Jerusalem. From there, we went to a semi-hidden and little known spot called Ketef Hinnom (Shoulder of Hinnom, a valley in Jerusalem), then hiked through Gei Ben-Hinnom / the Hinnom Valley, and came out at the bottom of Ir David / City of David. We spent the rest of the day winding our way up, down and back up again inside this complex and interesting archaeological site.
I am not going to go into too much detail about Ir David, especially since I already discussed it a bit in this post here, but I did want to discuss a few interesting points from throughout the day. I also want to discuss two recent news stories that relate to things we learned about.
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Posted in Tour Diary, Tour Guide Course | No Responses »
Tags: archaeology, David, gravesite, Ir David, Jerusalem, Ketef Hinnom, Tayelet, Tel Aviv, writing
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
Tel Beit Shemesh
No, I’m not talking about a poker tell. I’m talking about the kinds of tells that you hear about whenever your travel to Israel (or other parts of the Middle East). Tel Arad, Tel Be’er Sheva or Tel Maresha, for example.
(By the way, you may have noticed the change in spelling from “tell” to “tel.” If so, 10 points for you. More on that distinction later!)
So, what is a tell, anyway?
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Posted in Tour Guide Course, What Is...? | No Responses »
Tags: archaeology, Beit Shemesh, tel, Tel Aviv, tell
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
My tourguide course being led on our first tiyul
There is obviously a tremendous amount of material that the tourguide course covers, both experiential and more academic. And when the two years of the course come to a close, there is still a large and intense exam that each student needs to pass in order to become licensed. People often mention how difficult they’ve heard this exam is (there are both written and oral portions to be passed). But I’ve always told them I wasn’t too worried about it.
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Posted in Israeli Tourism, Tour Guide Course | No Responses »
Tags: exam, license, Ministry of Tourism
Monday, December 28th, 2009
Ancient burial caves in the village of Silwan, across the Kidron Valley from Ir David / City of David
This past Friday’s class focused mainly on Biblical Jerusalem. By exploring its history both through the archaeology and through the Biblical texts, we were able to formulate a picture of what makes this small piece of real estate so important in the context of world history. I’m sure I’ll have more to add once we actually take our tiyul around the area of Ir David / “The City of David.” But I did want to discuss a few interesting points that came up.
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Posted in Tour Guide Course | No Responses »
Tags: Abraham, David, Ir David, Jerusalem, Joshua
Friday, December 25th, 2009
Overlooking the Shefela (Lowlands) from Beit Meir on a cloudy day.
We had our first siyur (tour) this past Tuesday. Entitled “In the Footsteps of David and Shimshon (Samson),” it really encompassed a few different subjects that all related to the area around the city of Beit Shemesh. We also spent some time at the beginning of the day in moshav Beit Meir, at the very end tip of one of the ridges of the Judean Hills. This gave us the chance to get a good overview of the geography of the land (though it would have been a much better view if the day was sunnier, rather than alternately cloudy and rainy, with only brief respites of sunshine).
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Posted in Tour Diary, Tour Guide Course | No Responses »
Tags: Beit Shemesh, Dan, geography, gravesite, kever, Manoach, Samson, Shefelah
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
Sunrise over Har Zeitim/Mt. of Olives & Har HaBayit/Temple Mount
So, first off, I want to apologize for my recent “radio silence” — I had another post ready to be written, but then I got ill with tonsillitis (and here I thought it was mainly a kids’ disease!), and am only now recovering. That post will follow soon.
But we had our first class this past Friday morning, so I wanted to discuss it briefly.
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Posted in Tour Guide Course | No Responses »
Tags: feedback, language, public speaking, tel
