This April, 2024 we made a 'Solidarity Tour to Israel'. It was organized by imagine Tours and Travel and hosted by its founder Rick Ricart. Together with 12 other pastors we traveled the country from north to south. We were here just six months after the horrific attacks by Hamas when now the country is deemed safe to visit. We came with the hopes of letting people in our own communities in the United States know what the condition was like ‘on the ground’ and express our solidarity with the people we met. We felt safe the entire time and were left with a pervading sense of a hopeful melancholy by its citizens.

 

Sarah and I flew into Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv as we have ten times before. However, this time the passport lines were nonexistent; it was a forecast of our travels to come. We are among the first tourists and travelers from outside the country. After meeting up with our group we traveled to 'Hostages Square' in downtown Tel Aviv. This improvised site was established soon after the attacks of October 7, 2023.

 

At the square's entrance stands an electronic sign that ticked off the time from months, days, hours and seconds since the hostages were captured. Signs declaring, ‘Bring them home - now’ hung along surrounding fences. We made a solemn walk though the square and were touched by all the homemade and artistic expressions of the trauma.

 

One especially moving installation was a 25 yard long white table. It was filled with place settings, water glasses, and chairs - all empty. It symbolized the missing who had a place waiting for them at the table. A host from the site thanked us for coming and presented each of us with a necklace that had a perforated tag in the middle. When the hostages are released the tag can be broken in two symbolizing their homecoming. We all wore this necklace throughout our journey together.

 

From Tel Aviv we drove north to our first biblical site; Caesarea Maritima. This is an immense archeological site where Herod the Great built an impressive palace and city and the world’s largest harbor at the time. It is also where Pontus Pilate lived during his tenure and St. Paul spent two years in prison.

 

Typically there are dozens of buses sitting in the parking lot here when we lead tours to the Holy Land. There was one other bus; with tourists from Indonesia. This was the norm throughout the week. We often were the only visitors to the biblical sites. It was at once convenient not to jostle with crowds and also eerie. We had the sites to ourselves!

 

If you have traveled to the Holy Land or read the Bible you are familiar with Capernaum, the Mount of Beatitudes, Tiberias, the Sea of Galilee, Magdala, etc. On account of the absence of visitors we had amazing views of the all the important structures and rich conversations about their biblical context and meanings. We were also blessed with Roni Winter, an Israeli guide with over 40 years of experience.

 

While in the Galilee we stayed at Kibbutz Lavi, situated just west of the city of Tiberias. The kibbutz movement is unique to Israel and is part of its fascinating modern origins. Started over a hundred years ago by mostly Russian students the kibbutzim were established with idealistic and socialistic values. Not permitted to farm in their home country they threw themselves into the cultivation of crops and manufacture of all kinds of products. They became vibrant self sustaining communities that produced many of the early leaders of the State of Israel.

 

At Kibutz Lavi we were welcomed by the community and stayed in a hotel-like setting. At dinner the first night Sarah and I had an impromptu conversation with one of its female staff; Shaia. She explained to us the conditions of daily life. Nearly 20% of the occupants of the kibbutz are evacuees from the north; towns and villages near the Golan Heights. These families have lived for 6 months in hotel rooms trying to make the best of it. Some of them lost their homes due to shelling by Hezbollah rockets launched from Lebanon. She said it was good to help the displaced families but also sad to experience their transient nature. Everyone was trying to adapt to this temporary new normal.

 

Shaia spoke to us in the dining room. She wore a head scarf as an observant Jew and a modest yet colorful dress. Her eyes were intense with a mixture of joy and pain. A child wearing pajamas walked by with a roll in his hand, barefoot among the tall adults.

 

The following morning our group gathered in font of the kibbutz awaiting the arrival of our bus. One of our group members, Roger, joined us and related a conversation with the community’s ‘Crossing Guard’. Aged 65, he had grown up in the kibbutz and loved the community. He couldn’t find the words for gratitude for our coming over to be in the country. As our bus left the kibbutz that morning we looked out the window and saw the friendly crossing guard. He wore a large beard and looked like a rabbi. He had tied a colorful handkerchief onto the end of a long pole and walked into the street. He guided the children across and then gave us a friendly wave and retuned to the curb opposite.

 

Our itinerary finally led us south along the Jordan River. We celebrated at the baptismal site of Jesus, had a float in the Dead Sea and visited Qumran. Every site was basically ours.

 

At a rest stop just outside of Jericho we refreshed with a cup of coffee and stretched our legs. While there we engaged in a conversation with a young Jewish couple. Their 9 year old son was dribbling a soccer ball nearby with a friend. We asked the husband and wife what life was like in Israel. They were evacuees from the north and on a ‘vacation’ with their son. They were torn by the desire to leave; move to the United Sates or stay. “If we move, we lose!’ the husband said. The wife piped in that every Saturday they travel to Tel Aviv. There they join thousands to protest and implore the government to bring home the hostages.

 

At the end of the day we arrived in Jerusalem by way of Mount Scopus. There we disembarked and our leader gave a Hebrew blessing. In the distance we could hear a muezzin chanting the call to Muslim prayer. We were entering the most holy city revered by the three Abrahamic faiths; Jews, Christians and Muslims.

 

After checking into our hotel Sarah and I headed to the Old City of Jerusalem on foot. Entering the Jaffa Gate from the southeast we found the streets untypically empty. We were used to the pellmell of city life. As we stood there taking in the scene we saw a stream of young men entering the Jaffa Gate. We noticed that many of them carried a rolled up rug under their arms. We deduced they were Muslims carrying the their prayer carpets for evening prayer.

 

Our tour leader, Roni, had reminded us it was the final Friday in Ramadan and over 100,000 faithful would gather on the temple mount at the Al Aqsa Mosque for prayer that evening. The men were accompanied with clumps of women with shawls or a hijab. Sprinkled amongst them were observant Jews with all sorts of outerwear, representative of their ethnic communities.

 

A few days later our group made its way to the Western Wall where we were able to write prayers on slips of paper and wedge them in the crevices of the enormous rock edifice. All among us were men, young and old, bedecked with white prayer shawls, holding prayer books. They bobbed back in forth in intense prayer chanting the words of benediction.

 

After I had prayed I heard voices singing and cheers nearby. Turning I saw a gaggle of young men starting to dance in a circle. All of them had traditional black leather prayer straps wrapped around their left arms. Surprisingly, many of them also had black automatic rifles slung over their shoulders. As I walked closer to get a better look I noticed fellow traveler Roger, dancing with them. One of the celebrants reached out his hands to me and soon I was dancing along with them. There to my right was a 12 year old, making his bar mitzvah atop the shoulder of a friend. All had smiles in their eyes as they sang a joyous song in Hebrew.

 

We then walked the Via Dolorosa and made our way to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Our walk was unobstructed through the usually packed streets of the Jewish and Christian Quarters. It was Sunday and in the church we were met with a procession of Greek Orthodox celebrating mass. The priests and deacons were clothed in long bejeweled green vestments. Aromatic incense filled the air as a bearded attendant swung a thurible that emitted plumes of smoke.

 

These clerics were followed by a few dozen laypeople. Without these hellenic worshippers we had the usually clogged chambers of the church all to ourselves!

 

Later that day we drove to Bethlehem. The little town of Bethlehem is in the West Bank and has been walled off since the second intifada in the early 2000’s. After we passed the security checkpoint we were met by Johnny Nissan, a second generation merchant at his olive wood store. He hosted our group for a five course lunch that was incredible. He, his father George, his nephew John and various family members shared their hearts about the plight of Palestinian Christians today. The Covid pandemic and 7th of Oct. Massacre have been a one-two punch to the economy. Nearly 80% of business is provided from tourism. It is down to a trickle. Pray for us and visit, they all implored.

 

We toured many of the biblical sites again without another group in sight. As we drove out of Bethlehem we passed the evocative Dividing Wall murals. Painted by local Palestinians they convey the dire conditions that these neighbors of Jerusalem are experiencing as well. Bethlehem means ‘house of bread’. The people on both sides of the wall find there is little bread to be had.

 

Our hotel in Jerusalem was just around the corner from the famous King David Hotel. Sarah and I took a stroll into its storied lobby and view from its veranda. We then stopped in to an art gallery a block away. The owner, Lucien from France greeted us and showed us around. He is a sculptor who works in bronze. One particular piece that drew us was inspired by the “Warsaw Boy’. Standing 4 feet tall it has the boy with his arms raised and with parts of his body missing. A Star of David is cut through his midsection.

 

As we talked with him about his bronze creation he said, “I tried to show both the tragic repetition of antisemitism and the enduring power of hope. For 3,000 years people and nations have tried to kill us. But we continue to stand on one leg defying the odds.”

 

This was the penultimate day of our solidarity tour to Israel. The following day we would drive south to the Gaza region. I will write another blog in the future about that wrenching experience.

 

Sarah and I returned to the United States the following week. 

 

Shalom from Israel,Joel & Sarah