Author Archives: Shmuel Browns

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About Shmuel Browns

I am a tour guide, licensed by the Israel Ministry of Tourism. I do tours throughout Israel, personalized to your interests, time and budget.

Photo of the Week – Nahal Peratzim

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A popular day trip from Jerusalem is to do Masada and Ein Gedi and then end the day with a float in the Dead Sea. I guided a family on this route last week. In thinking about it I want to suggest a different Judean desert trip. Visit the pools and waterfalls at Ein Gedi but instead of doing the crowded Nahal David (a nahal is a dry stream bed) hike to the hidden waterfall in Nahal Arugot, do Masada in the afternoon and end the day with a walk through Nahal Peratzim as the sun sets and the moon rises, a great family hike. This photo is Nahal Peratzim, a canyon between high walls of lissan marl. Clicking on the image will display it larger. Please share this post with your friends by clicking on the icons at the end of this message.

Nahal Peratzim

The technical details – the photo was taken with a Nikon point and shoot camera in April (ISO 100, 8mm, F7.6 at 1/100 sec).

Photographs on this website are © Shmuel Browns (unless marked otherwise) – if you are interested in purchasing one of my photos or using one of my photos for your own project please contact me.

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Photo of the Week – Red Canyon Colors and Textures

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When driving down to Eilat you can turn off of highway <90> and drive along highway <12> that runs along the border with Egypt. There’s a great family hike on the way, watch for Wadi Shani and hike the Red Canyon. This photo was taken at the entrance to the canyon. Clicking on the image will display it larger. Please share this post with your friends by clicking on the icons at the end of this message.

Red Canyon

The technical details – the photo was taken with a Nikon D90 (digital SLR) camera with a Nikkor 18-70mm lens in February (ISO 400, 18mm, F10 at 1/160 sec).

Photographs on this website are © Shmuel Browns (unless marked otherwise) – if you are interested in purchasing one of my photos or using one of my photos for your own project please contact me.

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Flora of Israel – Mandrake

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There are two places I have found clumps of mandrake (Mandragora autumnalis) or dudaim in bloom, Neot Kedumim, the Biblical Landscape Reserve and Khirbet Midras; they can also be found at the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens in the Mediterranean section, blooming in December/January. Mandrakes are mentioned in two places in the Bible, in Genesis and Song of Songs, suggesting that it is an aphrodisiac.

Reuben went out and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother, Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, “Give me, I pray thee, of your son’s mandrakes”.  Genesis 30:14

The mandrakes send out their fragrance, and at our door is every delicacy,
both new and old, that I have stored up for you, my beloved.  Song of Songs 7:13

Mandrake

This perennial has a clump of dark green leaves, resembling somewhat the leaves of chard; in the center appear purple flowers. The fruit, orange to red berries, resembling cherry tomatoes, ripen by late summer, at the time of the wheat harvest. The plant has a tap-root (splits into two sometimes) that has a peculiar shape resembling a miniature person. All parts of the mandrake plant are poisonous; it acts as a parasympathetic depressant, hallucinogen, and hypnotic.

This post is for Bonna, my life partner and mother of our 5 children – in heartfelt gratitude for 32 years together. In Hebrew the word lev or heart is equal to 32.

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Photo of the Week – Gamla

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Situated in the southern part of the Golan, Gamla was built on a mountain shaped like a camel’s hump, from which it derives its name. The steep ravines precluded the need to build a wall except along the town’s eastern edge, as seen in this photo.

Gamla

The technical details – the photo was taken with a Nikon DSLR camera on June 1 (ISO 800, 65mm, F13 at 1/800 sec).

Please share this post with your friends by clicking on the icons at the end of this message.

Photographs on this website are © Shmuel Browns (unless marked otherwise) – if you are interested in purchasing one of my photos or using one of my photos for your own project please contact me.

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Photo of the Week – Tel Arad

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Tel Arad is an Iron Age city in the Negev desert. This week’s photo is of the ruins of a major fortress built on the top of the hill to protect Israel’s southeast border and the Negev trade routes.

In the northwestern corner of the citadel, an Israelite temple with three rooms was discovered, made up of an ulam (entrance hall), heichal (main hall), and dvir (holy of holies). Stone altars for incense flanked both sides of the entrance to the dvir. In front of the temple was an altar built of bricks and stone, measuring 2.5 x 2.5 meters, similar to the altar described in Deut. 27:5 and II Chronicles 6:13. This temple was destroyed, apparently as a result of the religious reforms of King Hezekiah at the end of the 8th century BCE.

Tel Arad

The technical details – the photo was taken in December with a Nikon point and shoot camera (ISO 100, 8mm, F7.6 at 1/359 sec).

Please share this post with your friends by clicking on the icons at the end of this message.

Photographs on this website are © Shmuel Browns (unless marked otherwise) – if you are interested in purchasing one of my photos or using one of my photos for your own project please contact me.

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Flora of Israel – Caper

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Whether growing in the cracks of the Western Wall or in the Judean desert, in places like Ein Gedi, people are surprised when I point out this bush and they learn that it is a caper bush (Capparis spinosa) and that the flower buds are the capers that they’ve eaten pickled in salads or with salmon. The caper is a perennial winter-deciduous plant that bears rounded, fleshy leaves and large white to pinkish-white flowers.

Caper

The flowers are complete, sweetly fragrant, showy, with four sepals, and four white to pinkish-white petals, many long violet-colored stamens, and a single stigma usually rising well above the stamens. The caper flower is the emblem of Neot Kedumim, the Biblical Landscape Reserve. The caper plant is a citizen of the world, native to the Mediterranean, East Africa, Madagascar, south-western and Central Asia, Himalayas, the Pacific Islands, Indomalaya and Australia.