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Rabbi Jamie, Jonah and Jim Ottinger will be posting "blog" updates from their Israel Bike Ride! Visit back to this page soon.
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Prologue: With less than 18 hours before we head down the hill to the Denver International Airport, there is a lot going on. Jonah is trying to finish opening all his bar mitzvah cards and gifts, I am labeling and packing. …and the snow if falling! By the time we get over the Atlantic, 24 inches will have accumulated in and around Evergreen, CO. Meanwhile, the forecast for Tel Aviv when we land in Israel is 76 degrees (Fahrenheit) and sunny.
On route to the airport, with biking shorts packed in the back, the skiers are headed in the opposite direction towards the ski areas. Still, no regrets. We are very excited!
Blog 1: Day One of the Israel Ride 2009 – Rabbi Jamie and Jonah Arnold
After 4 full days of touring from Modin, to Jerusalem (e.g. Yad Vashem [Israeli Holocaust Memorial and Museum], New City, Old City – four quarters, ramparts and the Western Wall), we made it to Tzfat (Safed), the mystical city in the upper Galilee. Today was our first day of biking. We got out of bed by 4:15 AM, prepped ourselves and our bikes for a full day of riding. We left a rain-soaked Tzfat by 6:00 AM, winding down slowly drying streets off the mountain of this centuries old center of Jewish life. Then we headed north, climbing up, up, up …to ride along the border with Lebanon, riding through the forests at the base of Mount Meron, and then down, down, down into the once-swamp-and-mosquito-filled, now farm-filled Hula Valley – with several pit-stops along the way. At one of the breaks overlooking the Hula valley, we got a history lesson about the valley and the politics and ecological impacts of draining (and re-flooding) the narrow valley.
In the 1930’s JNF made plans to drain it to a) get rid of malaria carrying mosquitoes, and b) make some precious room for farmland, thinking that the soil would be nice and rich. They consulted some Dutch experts, but the report was not good. They discouraged the project. JNF did it anyway. By the 80’s it was clear that it was a bad idea, and they began to re-flood swamp areas, little by little. Lots of interesting history…
Anyway, after riding for 40 miles…lunch! Jonah loves lunch. The food is soooo good here. The tomatoes actually have flavor and go great with the many kinds of cheeses and salads. We stopped at one of the many archeological remains of towns and synagogues that date back to early Talmudic times (between the 2nd to 6th Century CE). This was the time of the flourishing of synagogues, after the Jerusalem Temple had been destroyed. We took some pictures before they made us get back on our bikes.
From there we rode along Jordan River down to the Kineret (Sea of Galilee). It was a beautiful ride, mostly downhill (Thank God), since the Kineret is the lowest fresh water lake/sea in the world, over 100 meters below sea level. By then our backsides were pretty sore. Actually, way before then. Still the views of the landscape sprinkled with all that history, Jewish, Christian, and Moslem, helped distract us from the butt pain. And, we made it, here, at Kibbutz Maagan on the southern shores of the Kineret.
Maagan is a very nice kibbutz, with great rooms spread out over the grounds, not in hotel-like tower. The Hotel we stayed in while in Tzfat was also very cool, but very different. The Ruth Rimonim Hotel is built into the old city walls of Tzfat, with nooks and narrow hallways and lots of stairs since it is built into the side of the mountain. Oh yea, and the food there was great too.
We took lots of photos and will send them soon, we hope.
BLOG 2:
Another early morning today. On our bikes by 6:30 AM to get an early start for another long day of riding. As you can imagine, with some 42 riders, ranging in age from 13 to mid-60’s, we don’t all ride as fast as Ayal, Israel’s Number one ranked rider (who spent most of his day riding up and down the route changing flat tires and encouraging riders). So we have 2-3 different groups. The shomrim (guardians) ride around 40 miles. The Tzofim (Scouts) ride 50 – 80 Miles at a reasonable pace. The Halutzim ride between 70 -80 miles each day and a faster pace and sometimes with a more challenging (steeper) route. Different strokes…but each of the groups are treated to the beauty and bounty of the fertile Jezreel Valley, riding down from the shores of the Kibbutz to the ancient crossroad-town of Beit Shaan – where you can see remarkable remnants of an Roman city complete with an amphitheatre, main street, temple, courtyard, etc., not to mention temple, and lookouts from the time of King Solomon, as well as remnants of ancient Egyptian and Canaanite cultures from centuries earlier. And from Beit Shaan, we go west, through the Jezreel valley, through JNF forests, the ancient city of Megiddo, to a very modern kibbutz on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Yam l’Yam, from sea to sea in one day, entirely by bike. What a day!
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