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.

Hiking Nahal Dragot

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Driving along the shore of the Dead Sea on our way to Masada and Ein Gedi, I usually point out the cutoff to Nahal Dragot – there are some great hikes here if you are up to the challenge. In fact, Nahal Darga as it is also called, is a kind of test for Israelis.

Nahal Dragot

From the center at Metzukei Dragot, there is an unpaved road (if you were to continue north you could go as far as Herodium), take the turn to a lookout point with a great view of the canyon, the deepest part of Nahal Darga and a hint of what awaits.

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Returning to the main road and continuing westward we come to the start of the black trail. From there it is a short hike to the Murabat Caves, 3 caves, side by side on the northern cliff. It was here that letters signed Bar Kosiba were found, evidence that the mythical leader of the Bar Kochba Revolt against the Romans in 132-135CE did in fact exist.

Letter of Shimeon bar Kosiba to Yehonathan, son of Be’ayan:
Peace! My order is that whatever Elisha tells you, do to him and help him and those with him. Be well.

From here it’s about a 150 m. descent to the start of the canyon. It will take 4-6 hours (4 km) to hike this part of the narrow canyon with more than 50 meter high walls, dry waterfalls and pools of water in natural craters (note there are places you will have to swim across). At the end of the hike the wadi widens and crosses highway <90> about 1½ km from the Mezuke Dragot cutoff, estimate that to complete the hike will take a full day. There are metal D-shaped rings hammered into the rock in places to help you on the descents but it’s probably also worth having at least 20m. of rope. A guide is recommended.

        

Amitai in Nahal Darga, photos AdirChai Haberman-Browns, used with permission.

You should also read this article http://www.jpost.com/Travel/AroundIsrael/Article.aspx?id=135713

Roman Bath House from Herodium

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One of the most exciting new installations that I saw in the Israel Museum’s renovated archaeology galleries was the display of a part of  the laconicum (hot dry room) next to the calderium of the Roman bath house that was found at Lower Herodium. I arrived to see the museum staff putting the final touches to the installation that shows clearly all the components: the hypocaust, the underfloor heating system where the floor is supported by stone pillars (pilae stacks) and the clay tubes in the walls to let the heat pass through; the plasterwork and fresco paintings on the wall; the mosaic floor.

Nearby is another square mosaic floor with a geometric, intertwined circle and pomegranates (one of the 7 species that grows in the land of Israel and characteristic Jewish motif of this period) in each of the corners. You can see this mosaic on site at Lower Herodium in the main tepidarium if you climb onto the roof of the bath house (though I learned that the one in the museum is the original and on site is a copy). If you look to the right, there is another mosaic in the small tepidarium designed as an opus sectile pattern of tiles.

I didn’t see any other artifacts from Herodium being readied for display – I was hoping to see the 3 sarcophagi that were discovered.

Upside Down, Jerusalem

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A newly acquired piece of art, a polished stainless steel hourglass 5 meters tall stands in the plaza at the highest point of the Israel Museum campus. Commissioned by the museum from the London-based Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor it is called “Turning the World Upside Down, Jerusalem”. Kapoor is known for creating visually striking works that inspire interaction. Depending on where you stand you can frame the museum’s buildings, the trees and the sky in the polished surface and the effect is to invert the images, a play on the duality of the heavenly and earthly Jerusalem. And that’s what I did and captured in this photograph (note that the photo is upside down).

New Israel Museum

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Today I had the opportunity to visit the Israel Museum before its official opening to the public on July 26th. There have been a lot of changes, to the tune of $100 million and these improve the visitor experience immensely.

James Carpenter Design Associates built new entry pavilions at the entrance to the museum that are connected by a covered “route of passage” to a new gallery entrance pavilion which acts as the central hub giving access to the Museum’s 3 collection gallery wings, Archaeology, Judaica and Art, from a main Cardo. Each of the new buildings is basically a glass cube shaded by cast terracotta louvered shade panels that diffuse the bright Mediterranean light and still allow the visitor a view of and interaction with the exterior. With this design the new pavilions resonate with Alfred Mansfeld and Dora Gad’s original modular and modernist design. I am pleased to offer an architecturally focussed tour of the new Israel Museum, including highlights like the Shrine of the Book, that has been called “a milestone in the history of world architecture”.

In the above photo, the view from the Carter Promenade looking back towards the entrance pavillions; below, looking up the hill to how the new gallery pavillion fits into the plan.

Light and glass comprise the firm’s signature architectural focus. The passageway has a wall of glass and is covered by a swatch of translucent glass panels that were designed and made especially for the project. Outside above the passageway a stream of water cascades down the hill over the glass panels. During the day the water and glass let light into the passage which animates the wall with a moving pattern and at night the light illuminating the passageway lights up the water stream above.

Efrat-Kowalsky Architects redesigned the interior gallery spaces of the existing buildings and the way the museum has organized the art and artifacts suggests some interesting connections among objects and between the particular and the universal. The emphasis is on what cultures have in common and there is an attempt to place Jewish history and practices in a broader context.

One example is a very impressive new installation in one large room that focuses on the 5th to 7th Century where part of a restored synagogue is displayed, the facade of the interior of the synagogue with its particular decorations and objects and a beautiful mosaic floor. Next to it a Byzantine church and across the room the michrab or prayer niche from a mosque. Roughly contemporary structures, they are placed in a way that highlights both their distinctiveness and their commonality.

The new galleries and displays are stunning. The museum is a wondrous place to explore.

Oskar Schindler’s grave

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Oskar Schindler died on September 10, 1974 in Hildesheim, Germany at the age of 66. He had requested to be buried in Israel and his Schindlerjuden survivors arranged for him to be buried in Jerusalem. You can visit his grave in the Catholic cemetery on Mount Zion. For those with GPS the coordinates are 31.770164, 35.230423

The cemetery is on the main road, Ma’ale HaShalom that goes to the Mount Zion parking lot. The cemetery has 2 levels and Schindler’s grave is on the second, lower level. There are a set of steps on the left side of the cemetery after you enter that let you descend to the lower level. The grave is right beside one of the paths, recognizable from afar because of the many stones on the gravestone. It’s a Jewish custom to put a small stone on the gravestone when you visit a person’s grave. On his grave, the Hebrew inscription reads ‘Righteous Gentile’, and the German inscription reads ‘The Unforgettable Lifesaver of 1200 Persecuted Jews’.

In 1962 a tree was planted in Schindler’s honor in the Avenue of the Righteous at Yad Vashem. Oskar and Emilie Schindler were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations in 1993.

In 1999 a suitcase belonging to Schindler was discovered in the attic of the house in Hildesheim, containing over 7,000 photographs and documents, including the list of Schindler’s Jewish workers. The contents of the suitcase, including the list of the names of those he had saved and the text of his farewell speech before leaving his Jewish workers in 1945, are now at the Holocaust museum of Yad Vashem in Israel.

Before or after visiting the cemetery you may want to visit the small Holocaust museum on Mount Zion.

Related articles

Jaffa

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If you want to meet up with a friend in Jaffa all you have to say is “Meet you at the clock tower”. The clock tower in Jaffa is one of seven built by the Ottoman Turks in 1908 on the occasion of the silver jubilee of the reign of the Sultan abd al-Hamid II. From there you can explore the Flea market and shops and restaurants. There’s a funky restaurant called Pua on 3 Rabbi Yohanan Street. For what some people swear is the best humus go to Abu Hassan’s. For a truly middle eastern taste try the stuffed breads at Abulafiya’s.

There is something else that Jaffa is known for and that is the shamouti orange which is known throughout the world as the Jaffa orange. The shamouti was a new variety developed by Arab farmers after first emerging in mid-19th century Palestine as a mutation on a tree of the Beladi variety near the city of Jaffa. Orange exports grew from 200,000 oranges in 1845 to 38 million oranges by 1870. Today the orchards described by a European traveller in 1872  “Surrounding Jaffa are the orange gardens for which it is justly extolled…” have disappeared in the face of urban development. But walking through the alleyways of Jaffa you can find an incredible sculpture by the environmental Israeli artist, Ran Morin, called Orange Suspendu that reminds us of the connection between the city of Jaffa, the earth and the orange tree and its fruit. Morin has 2 other tree sculptures that are worth seeing in Jerusalem, one at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus and one in the Olive park near Kibbutz Ramat Rahel.

From Jaffa, walk north along the promenade to Neve Tzedek, the first Jewish neighborhood that was established outside the walls of Jaffa in 1887 and that some 20 years later grew into the new city of Tel Aviv. Along the way drop in to the old Jaffa train station, that is being renovated and developed into a cultural, artistic and commercial area. For a guided tour of Tel Aviv-Jaffa please contact me. It’s possible to incorporate riding a Segway along the whole length of the promenade as part of your tour.