Mystery Photo #23: Assisi, Italy and Mount Tabor by our connection.

       The Mystery Photo #23 depicts the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi  An aerial view of the Basilica appeared on this 1920 travel poster in the photo below to the right. But this town of 25,000 people with 3700 residents within the surviving medieval walls of Old Town contains many other churches and landmark sites. Below on the right is the Roman facade of the Temple of Minerva converted in the first centuries of the Common Era to a Christian church. The bell tower on the right is called the Municipal Tower.



    





The First Mozarella di buffala cheese in Wisconsin -- our visit to the source.

     On Memorial Day, the holiday, we made a drive from Milwaukee to visit a very interesting family in Plain, WI. This story has been written in the Jewish Chronicle and in the Journal Sentinel, both newspapers in Milwaukee, WI.  When my husband read the story he decided to call the farmer since they shared a common background in Israel. When Dubi answered the phone, my husband asked him if he spoke Hebrew, then told him he thought Dubi might like to speak some Hebrew to someone other than his wife. Dubi asked, "Do you think I am meshugeneh?" My husband said, "Well, I don't know you well enough to say. But your story is sure meshugeneh."  The story written below has all sorts of morals for modern times.

     Dubi Ayalon is a sabra (born in Israel), was a lieutenant colonel in the Israel Defense Force, spent a short time as a police officer, and then became a high school teacher and later administrator at an Israeli school for troubled teens. He has 3 daughters with his first wife,  divorced but participated in raising those daughters. He met his current wife when she was visiting Israel. She is a daughter of two Israelis who now live in Chicago, where she grew up. Dubi and Mihal have an 8 year old son together. When his daughters were adults, Mihal wanted to come back to the US to be close to her parents who would be able to be grandparents to her son. Dubi got on the Internet and saw a farm for sale in Plain, Wisconsin. The idea of living on a farm looked attractive to Dubi. After his previous work and careers, he was looking for the peace and quiet of the countryside. Besides that the current owner of the farm had tried to place a lighted Christmas star on his silo, but apparently the typical 5 pointed star was too hard to make. The original farmer had just put two large triangles of rebar together and strung them with Christmas lights, unintentionally making a very rough but clear Star of David. Dubi regarded this as an omen. He did ask his in laws to drive up from Chicago to look at the place. But they lived in the city and didn't know much about farms. They reported that it looked OK to them, but they were not farmers and I don't know how well they looked in the house. Dubi bought the farm sight unseen, and arrived in the winter to find the farmhouse basement full of water with damage throughout the house. The first task was to get the house habitable.

     Mihal was a well respected naturopathic doctor in Israel and after arriving in Plain, she was able to find an opening at a clinic in Prairie du Sac and also the University Hospital in Madison was happy to offer her one day a week to treat cancer patients with her acupuncture. Dubi had intended to drive a truck in the US, but he had previously injured his back in a fall from a camel back in Israel, and he reinjured it falling on the ice shortly after arriving at his farm. Therefore, he knew his back would not allow him to become a truck driver. Mihal saw something written about mozzarella di buffalo and raising water buffalo to sell their milk for cheese. She told Dubi, "You have the farm, the pasture, the barn. Why don't you consider this as an occupation?" Dubi thought about it and began to do some research. He called a water buffalo farmer he had heard of in Israel, but after he told his story, that gentleman just called him a yored, the derogatory word for someone who has left Israel. "If you are in the US, you ask the US for help!" and he hung up on Dubi. Next Dubi called a water buffalo farmer in Vermont. (There are only 3 water buffalo farms in the US and not all even sell their milk.) Even though previously Dubi had thought all Americans were arrogant and loud and unlikely to be of help, this farmer offered a lot of help and even first hand observation of his whole process at his farm in Vermont. Dubi decided to proceed and purchased a few animals from California and Florida. His bull, named Armondo, was a magnificent animal of Italian stock. Now Dubi had to figure out how to care for his new small herd, how to get them through the first winter, and then how to milk them -- all gargantuan tasks. After all these animals derive from animals that live close to the equator in Asia. They could not be expected to winter well here. Dubi had never done any farming of any kind. He wasn't sure entirely how to take care of them, so to be sure they were warm and clean in the barn for much of the winter, he was applying bedding (straw) to their barn area floor 4 times a day, but he still didn't know if that was enough. He asked one of his farmer neighbors in Plain to come and look at his animals and see if they thought he was doing it right. For the first time in his life he learned from this practical farmer that it wasn't the process that was important but the result. The farmer took a look at his animals and said, "Well, they look clean. I think they're all right!"

     Dubi had to outfit his pasture fence with an electric wire along the top because a regular Wisconsin fence wouldn't hold these animals. As Dubi says, "Water buffalo do what they want to do. And my biggest nightmare is that the whole herd decides to go shopping at Costco in downtown Spring Green." He found that he had to supplement his pasture grass with grain, but the diet shouldn't be too rich. At first he didn't have the combination correct and some of his herd got sick.

     He has spent almost 3 years teaching his current milking herd HOW to be milked. When it came time to milk his heifers, he had to make major changes in the facilities. A normal cow stanchion will not hold a water buffalo; it just is not strong enough. He had to have special reinforced ones designed. He had to cement two steel rings in the cement floor near the hind feet of the water buffalo cow so he could chain her feet to them. Otherwise he was getting kicked hard frequently. These water buffalo cows did not like being milked.  They were purchased from various farms where they had been raised for butchering or just as a hobby. None of these animals had ever been milked, ever heard or felt the machinery that suctions their udders, nor had their own mothers ever known any such machinery. Dubi felt that he had to win these animals trust in order for them to give him their milk. He named every animal, and some will allow him to affectionately stroke their heads. He plays music for them in the barn, and he sings to them in Hebrew. He calls them for milking by inviting them to dinner in Hebrew. But milking is still a hard and kind of scary job to be carried out twice every day. He is nervous about it every day and even though not a religious man he prays before he goes to the barn to do the milking. He picks up his son from school rather than allow him to ride the bus home because the bus would deliver the boy home right in the middle of afternoon milking. Dubi would not be able to pay him any attention at that time. He says it is harder than any of his previous jobs, including leading men into battle.

The herd in the barn

One of the water buffalo milking cows

     He now milks 7 cows. He has another 15 yearlings, most females, that will come fresh this year. He is breaking even at 6 cows and has a goal of milking about 25 cows for 8 months a year. After that time he lets them go dry so that he can go back to Israel to visit his three daughters. And he cannot ask any neighbor farmer to do his milking as a normal Holstein owner would. The best he can hope for is that one of his neighbors will agree to come in to feed them and bed them during the winter off season.

The yearlings, separated from the adult herd

What an expression!

Armondo with the ring in his nose and the big brown eyes.

     Then there is his 2000 pound bull, son of an Italian line, named Armando. I personally met Armando. Dubi invited us into the barn and put some grain in a small trough, and held it through the gate at our end of the barn. Water buffalo are very very curious. Many, including Armando, came over to first check us out and then to nibble some of the grain in the trough. The gate has been retrofitted with 4 inch pipe bars and is bolted to one of the main pillars in the barn with large bolts and steel plates. As Armando approached, I looked into his large deep brown eyes, and I thought, "Here is an animal who knows the answer, the meaning of life." He starred and snorted a little bit. One was tempted to put one's hand through the pipes and give him a little pet, but then shortly before I did such a stupid thing, he put his horned head down and butted that pipe gate with a fair portion of his 2000 pounds behind the butts. Meanwhile Dubi calls to two of his favored heifers, Shelly and Sherri, and he affectionately knuckles one of them between her eyes, cooing in Hebrew to them. Dubi agrees that he should be afraid of Armando, and says, "Armando will kill me some day. I know it, and he knows it." And yet he often approaches Armando in the pasture carrying only a baseball bat. So far Armando has respected him and has never attacked.

Would you face him with only a baseball bat and Hebrew words?

From The Jewish Chronicle: Amy Waldman.
“A water buffalo teaches you modesty,” Dubi said. “She will not give milk until I find a way to make her, to bring her to the place where she’s willing to give me milk. There is no other way. You cannot chain them and beat them and order them.” This is something he learned first-hand, after he forcibly milked one cow, who had repeatedly kicked him when he initially tried to milk her.
“She won’t listen anymore,” he said. “Water buffalo remember.”


Ayalon has learned to rely on local experts and his neighbors for help with technical questions. But when it comes to figuring out how to get a 770-pound animal with sharp, curved horns and a strong will to stand still long enough to let a skinny man relieve her of her milk, Ayalon has turned to a different expert.


“[Nineteenth century German philosopher Friedrich] Nietzsche used to say that there are two types of behavior,” he said. “The king’s moral and the slave’s moral. The king’s moral means he will say, ‘I want this to happen.’ The slave moral will find a way to make the thing happen. I’m in the slave type of moral. I need to find a way that the king is willing to do exactly what I am asking him to do — and the water buffalo is king.


“Raising buffalo is as simple as that,” he said. “It’s holding the power without any power in your hand. End of Jewish Chronicle quote.

Three of the cows

The herd

     Cedar Grove Creamery located about a mile from the farm, buys all of Dubi's milk. They have brought in a cheese maker from a creamery in Vermont who knew how to work with the bufalo milk from a farm there. It is apparently a little tricky to make the cheese from such high butter fat milk. We recently attended a cheese and wine night at Larry's Market in Brown Deer WI, where a cheese author spoke about his book: Gordon Edgar/ Cheemonger: Living on the Wedge. We asked both the author and Larry about our local Wisconsin mozzarella di buffala. Larry remarked that the first he had bought might have been a little tough. But right now none is making it to Milwuakee, being purchased locally in Central Wisconsin, and being sent to Chicago and other area chefs. Mr. Edgar thought that perhaps the few creameries that work with buffalo milk should try to make some aged cheeses because they would last longer and might be easier to work with, and would also fill another niche here in Wisconsin.
     Is it worth it? Dubi thinks so. He has disdain for the boring local Holstein cow, which he says has no personality. He says Holsteins are just 4 sticks with a bag. And his milk sells to Cedar Grove Creamery for 5 times that of the price for cows' milk, or about $100 per hundred pounds of milk. The water buffalo milk is very high in butter fat, about 4 times or more of cows' milk. Each of Dubi's heifers gave about 15 pounds of milk a day during their first year of being milked. The fresh mozzarella cheese is prized in Italy to use on pizza. In Italy also aged cheeses are made from the milk but they usually are not imported here. Having met Dubi and eaten lunch with him and his family, listening to his very strong opinions punctuated by 4 letter English epithets, still I know of his highly educated status. It is not surprising that he combines a farmer's life out in the hinterlands of the dairy state with Nietzsche. I have heard that his Plain, Wisconsin farm is on the tour for many folks going to the sites in the area, such as House on the Rock, and Governor Dodge State Park. If you get a chance to visit this location, do it. It is fun to see the water buffalo for yourself, but it is also a treat to meet Dubi and put the story with the man. Both are remarkable and unforgettable.

Moving Anniversary!!

On Friday June 10, my husband and I celebrated our 44th Wedding Anniversary. And there is also a celebration if you will, or more correctly a remembrance of the Israeli 6 day war. Yes, indeed the two anniversaries coincide. My husband and I were married on June 10, 1967 by a traffic judge in Madison, WI at the City Hall. My parents and sisters came up and we had some Israeli friends there as witnesses. I recall that the day before I had found time to go to a department store and buy a new dress to be married in. On that Saturday morning, my husband went over to Lowell Hall, the girls' dorm where he worked for meals for both of us. He took care of the swimming pool and needed to make sure the chemicals were correct for the weekend. Meanwhile I was back at our apartment doing my hair and painting my fingernails. I went down on the street when I saw my parents' car on State Street. Our appointment in the judge's chambers at the City Hall was at 11 AM. One of our Israeli friends photographed our hands with the marriage rings on them, and then a photo of us signing the marriage certificate. In the background on the wall of the judge's chambers was a white faced, black rimmed round institutional clock. As we signed the certificate, the ceremony was over and the clock read 11:09. Short and sweet!
     After that we all went out to a restaurant out at a shopping mall on the west side of town. Then my family left to go home. My husband had spent the week before the marriage getting our apartment organized, painted and with some new living room Danish modern pieces. We were having a party that night of all of our Israeli friends who were going to school, or who were on postdocs at UW in Madison. People brought food, and I had purchased beverages and paper plates, and cups, and made perhaps a dish to pass as well. But there was really not much celebration of our wedding because it was an evening in the 1967 Six Day war in Israel. The Israelis were keeping up to date with the occurrences as well as they could back in Israel and all wanted to share the latest information. I remember that the War was winding down on June 10 and so generally news was good. But our party was not a wedding celebration but rather an information and social occasion for Israelis, to share worries and commiserate about that war.

     From the Israeli News Service at the 40th Anniversary of the Six Day War.

1967 Six Day War - 40th Anniversary of Jewish Rebirth  (celebrated 4 years ago in Jerusalem)
by Daryl Temkin, Ph.D.
I wonder who will remember one of the most important events in modern Jewish history?


I am afraid that for most of the Jewish world, yet alone the non-Jewish world, this calendar date will lapse with barely a blink.


In Israel, events are marked by their Hebrew calendar date, and this year, the anniversary of the Six Day War comes out on May 15th, one day following the historic May 14th, 1948 date of Israel's creation. This is significant only because in the Arab world and for Arab student organizations on university campuses across America, May 14th is commemorated as the "Catastrophe Day". At many universities, there will be a week-long series of fiery anti-Israel speeches along with heated anti-Israel marches and vulgarity screaming anti-Israel demonstrations.

In contrast, in Jerusalem, the celebration for the "The Day of Jerusalem" marking the fortieth anniversary of the 1967 - Six Day War and the reunification of Jerusalem is commemorated by one of the most beautiful and moving ceremonies one can imagine. The main streets of Jerusalem's center city are closed to traffic. Tens of thousands of young and old fill the streets briskly waving hundreds of full size Israeli flags, and musicians are posed every few blocks with loud speakers filling the air with their songs. As the musicians play popular Jewish melodies, the streets become a dance stage for well choreographed circle dances and line dances -- each song with its own special dance steps. The joyous group singing on the street and the intense community dancing is a unique sight. Following the hours of this street event a community singing march to Jerusalem's Old City begins. The march proceeds through the Old City's ancient gates and cobblestone streets leading to the Western Wall - Kotel Plaza. It is estimated that several thousands of people file through the Old City's picturesque and narrow passageways to join in the hours of singing, dancing, and speeches commemorating the Jewish return to a united Jerusalem.


In Jewish tradition, the number 40 has its own significance. It often refers to a stage of maturation and accomplishment. The biblical Flood rains stopped after 40 days, Moses was 40 when he confronted the Egyptian taskmaster, Moses was 80 when he confronted Pharaoh. The Jews were in the desert for 40 years prior to entering the Land of Israel, Rabbi Akiba was 40 when he began his study of Torah, and 40 is the number of weeks leading to human birth. And now, this forty years of Jerusalem's unification is a monumental and historic moment marking the miraculous victorious Six Day War.


1967 was quite a different time. Israel had yet to reach its 20th anniversary. It had already experienced two wars. One, upon its creation, by neighbors who demanded that the nascent state be destroyed immediately and the second war, eight years later, when its neighbors decided to cut off and strangulate Israel's supply lines.

Prior to 1967, relatively few American Jews even expressed an interest to visit Israel. Israel's first decades watched an immigrant absorbing country developed at a slow and struggling pace. With minimal resources, Israel invested in military protection knowing that its Arab neighbors were preparing for another attempt to destroy it.


During the 1960's, international support for Israel was tenuous at best. Israel's neighbors were actively buying the most sophisticated weapons available. The world knew this but continued to make it difficult for Israel to compete. Prior to 1967, the volume of belligerence and anti-Israel hate speech from the Arab world was becoming more and more deafening. Egypt's President Nassar made his intent clear to the world -- that Israel's days were numbered. The theme of pushing the Jews into the sea became a steady crescendo on the Arab street. Time, Newsweek, and other publications reported military statistics comparing Israel's military strength to that of her threatening Arab neighbors. Israel was heavily outnumbered and out-armed in every military category. The military comparison charts appeared as if an ant was being compared to an elephant.


The American Jewish community, as well as much of the world, was bracing for the annihilation of the Jewish state. There was no imaginable way for Israel to survive the sheer numbers and mighty force of the expected Arab attack without the military support of the United Kingdom or America. But that super power support was not to be found.


Once again, the Arabs cut off the supply lines to Israel, a clear act of war, and without hesitation, the leadership of Israel commanded the Israeli Defense Forces to launch their attack.


Within hours, the entire Egyptian air force and all Egyptian air fields were disabled. In days of fighting, the vast number of Jordanian, Egyptian, and Syrian tanks became useless heaps of scrap metal. And then the Israeli forces entered the Old City of Jerusalem. After very costly and deadly hand to hand combat battles against the Jordanian Old City soldiers, in shock and awe, the Israeli paratroopers found themselves standing victorious in front of the ancient Western Wall of the Temple Mount. The famous and emotional phrase spoken into the Israeli army radio transmitter was the announcement, "Jerusalem is in our hands."


The world had gone to bed envisioning that by the next morning Israel would have been wiped off the face of the map. The resulting news was quite different. In six days, the Sinai Desert, the Gaza Strip, the Jordan West Bank, the Golan Heights, Jerusalem's Old City, and its surrounding areas were fully under Israeli control. All of the menacing Arab armies had been destroyed or forced to retreat.


West Point military analysts speak of the Six Day War as an inexplicable military victory. "Miraculous" was the West Point officer's explanation for the Israeli Defense Force's victory over what was believed to be impossible odds.


In 1967, it was still okay for an army to achieve an absolute victory. Subsequent to that date, Israel has not been allowed to defeat its enemy. In future wars and conflicts Israel would unbelievably be pressured by world powers not to accomplish a full military victory, to neglect enemy aggressions, and to even provide the enemy with guns and ammunition.


1967 was a time that Israelis were not told that they are "tired of fighting and tired of winning battles". Jews at that time understood that when their enemy says that they are going to kill them, the enemy means what it says and Israel does not wait to be attacked.


During that time, no one believed that the enemy could be appeased or that, if victorious, the enemy would responsibly stop fighting at the original 1947 UN lines. It was understood throughout Israel that there was only one thing that the Arabs had hoped to achieve, and now after 40 years, that goal of the destruction of Israel has not been relinquished.
Following 1967, respect for Israel and the Jews soared throughout the world. Slumbering and even non-identifying Jews began to proudly identify with the Jewish people and the Jewish State. Israel had accomplished a victory of good over evil, and few in the world had any doubt about it.


Forty years is a time of great significance. It is a time of reflection and rebirth -- 1967 marked the rebirth of the Jewish people, their values, their mission, and their right to exist and to contribute to this world. World politics has tried to reframe this Jewish Israeli victory into a defeat, and it is up to us to prevent history from being erased, eroded, or confused. The 1967 victory was a victory for humankind. The lessons of that era have not changed and therefore must not be forgotten.
--------------------


Daryl Temkin, Ph.D. is the founder and director of the Israel Institute which is devoted to teaching the historic and spiritual importance of Israel as well as presenting discussions concerning contemporary issues confronting the Jewish State and the Middle East.


(IsraelNationalNews.com)
 
This year the number for both our marriage and the Six-Day War was 44 -- 44 years ago these occurrences happened. Unlike the introduction of the above newspaper article, I will never forget that historical event in Israel, because it was so intertwined with my own personal life celebration -- a wedding.

Serendipity Finds a Family!

     I have had a strong interest in my family history for many years and thanks to former geneaologists in the family and some of my work, I have many branches of my family researched back up to 2.5 centuries. I have also worked on my husband's family and interviewed his parents and wrote a lot that they said down. But my husband never had much interest. In fact when he had to translate for the above mentioned interviews he would lose patience and then so would my interviewees. But this last summer a distant cousin visited us in Milwaukee and mentioned that there was a family member in Boston. Hubby called that person and learned of another individual with the same last name but who was thought to just be a friend of the family. After many phone calls back and forth between the Boston relative and many other possible relatives, a detailed family history was found. We were still not sure if this history was correct but finding a Duma Voters' List in Kishinev, Moldova which included names of voters and also the father's name helped us confirm the connections in this extensive family tree. After two months of multiple phone calls to family members now in Israel, sometimes to people who were elderly and had never learned Hebrew, spoke only Russian or Yiddish, we felt reasonably sure about these family connections. My husband decided to hold a family reunion in Israel this time when we visited there. We were able to host a gathering with 35 members of the family, 2/3 of whom never knew of the other branch's existence. Four of these attendees were in their 80s. My husband arranged a luncheon at Helena Restaurant inside the National Park at Caesarea in Israel. This venue is very nice, located right on the Mediterranean. It not only provided good food and an area that allowed us some separate space, but it also allowed attendees to also visit the National Park: ruins of the old Roman city of Caesarea. We posted the printed family tree on a wall of the restaurant in our little room and it became an immediate draw to people as they arrived. Each one wanted to find their family branch and point it out to others that were studying the tree. My husband gave an introduction and then had a representative of each family speak about what they knew about the family as a whole and where they fit in.
     Our lunch table was placed into a large square with people sitting around the outside. So we did not put name cards at the place settings. But I think if we did this again we would have to do just that. As much as our known cousins frowned at the contemplation of being mixed with other unknown relatives, that is probably what should have been done. For the most part people just sat down with their own known relatives and stayed there the whole afternoon. After the mixing at the posted family tree there was little other mixing. I tried to stir things up and went around to each family group like the mother of the bride at the reception,and struck up conversations and made introductions and utilized by digital recorder to record what people had to say. Of course if we put name cards at the table we would have to be sure that we paid attention to native languages. There were 3 people there who were over 80 years old, sort of the patriarch/matriarchs of their branches. We would have to make sure at least one family member was near them that could translate either into Russian, or Yiddish from the Hebrew that was the base language being spoken.
     One family member is Chaim Gutman who is an oncological surgeon. He comes to the US often for surgical meetings and will be in Chicago in June. We may be able to get together with him although I know the schedule is pretty full when you attend a medical or surgical meeting. The day is full of educational meetings and maybe even presentations you do yourself and the evening is also filled with dinners with colleagues and committee meetings. We will see what we will if there will be any time to get together.
     I met one young woman who kind of attached herself to me. She was the girl friend of one of the young cousins who asked to attend the reunion. She was quite intrigued in how I got interested in researching my husband's family. She asked if I had done the same for my own family and I said that I had, although in the case of my own family, I also inhertied a lot of family information from others who had gathered it. She asked what my background was; was I a history major that prompted such an interest. When I told her that I was a retired internal medicine physician, she said that made her even more intrigued. She is in medical school and just starting her clinical training. In Israel medical school is 6 years and includes the premed studies, the preclinical sciences and the clinical training years in that 6 years. She is a very nice young woman and I will definitely try to stay in contact with her.
     I think this gathering was a very good effort and a success for the first such meeting of this large family. We didn't even invite the younger generations because the group would have been too large. Another time I think I would like to have a good old fashioned American type family reunion picnic. Before I didn't know of any places that provide enough parking room and picnic tables for such a venture unlike here in the US. But now we know of a couple places where such a picnic could be held. Then we would be able to have all the younger members and their children because they would have a place to run around. I don't know if these newly discovered family members will get in touch at all, but I think it is a good first attempt. Maybe in another year or two we can try the larger complete family picnic.
     Here are a few pictures of our restaurant, our table arrangement and some of the family members.

Helena's is in the center, a very nice little restaurant with good food.

Our room with its square table. Mediterranean Sea beyond the windows.

Moldova

      I wanted to describe our visit to Moldova on our recent Eastern European trip. Also here are a few photos of the country.

Soroca, Moldova, built on the hills overlooking the Dniester River. Note the Communist style housing on the hillside. Soroca is built on several hills along the Dniester River.

Like a Bird by Asaf Solomon

Bird's Eye View

"Asaf Solomon, a dedicated Galilean, nature lover, and farmer, photographs the land of Israel while flying over it in a powered paraglider, a picturesque craft that gives the passenger a sense of freedom and tranquility, as well as the opportunity to take photographs from an unorthodox angle."
 
The above introduction is from the Magazine Eretz. We have his book "Like a Bird" showing his magnificent photographs of the land of Israel from the sky. Patterns, birds, nature and archeological landmarks vy with each other to produce a view of Israel that I have never seen. I have been there 7 or 8 times and of course my husband lived there until he was 33 years old. But every time we go to that little country we find something new to see. There is a new national park, or some new event to see. This little country unbelievably has 60 some national parks. They do a wonderful job of preserving their important holy legacy -- holy in three religions. But this book shows still a new view. I recommend you get this book if you can find it. It is in Hebrew, but that doesn't matter; you will just miss out on the short titles of each photo. But the photographer Asaf Solomon has a website and you can see a few of his views there. This book is a wonderful coffee table book of a smaller nature and will certainly arouse interest and conversation in your home.
 
"Like a Bird" by Asaf Solomon. 2009 Kinnaret, Zmora-Bitan, Dvir -- Publishing House Ltd. St. Or Yehuda 60212, Israel  ISBN 978-965-517-351-2
http://www.kinbooks.co.il/

     The above photo is taken from the jacket cover of the book. It is copyrighted and printed here with permission of publisher and author. It is my favorite. It shows the Star of David plowed up in a field, in the Hula Valley in the north of Israel. We have been there in the fall of the year when 10s of thousands of cranes are stopping there on their yearly migration from Europe to winter in Africa. In this photo, the tractor is scattering seed just on the Star of David outline. The cranes are therefore landing and feeding on the Star. For a lover of Israel and a birdwatcher like me, this is a wonderful photo.

The Spy Network!

Russian Spies in the Family! (Names changed to protect our relatives and friends)
    

    We recently had more overnight Israeli house guests. This time it was a first cousin, once removed to my husband, Amos, on his father's side of the family. Emma, the cousin, and her husband Dimitri grew up in Communist Bessarabia, which is now the independent country of Moldova. They lived in the capitol city, Kishinev, and immigrated to Israel in the 1980s. Dimitri was more or less a favorite "nephew" of my father-in-law Moshe. Moshe helped Dimitri and Emma get settled in Israel and helped Dimitri get a good managing job with the electric company in Israel. Emma is a pediatrician who practices in Israel. They now have two grown sons and grandchildren. We had become friendly with Dmitri and Emma and had hosted them before in our home in Milwaukee. They seemed a very nice couple and we thoroughly enjoyed their company. We had even traveled with them from Virginia where we were all at a family bat mitzvah to our home in Milwaukee, through Gettysburg and Niagara Falls and other stops along the way. On that trip we stopped in downtown Chicago on the way home, and we took them up on the Sears Tower to see the view. Then Emma asked us if we could leave them in downtown Chicago and they would catch a bus up to Milwaukee at the end of the day. They wanted to do some shopping, she said. We offered to wait for them and go entertain ourselves for a while and pick them up at a set time. "No," she said that wouldn't do. They insisted on staying by themselves in the big city ostensibly "to shop."

Armaggedon

                                          Entrance to Tel Megiddo National Park

                                           Model of historic Megiddo, Museum at the Park

    In this post, I raise the topic of Israel and that little country's many, many biblical and archeological sites. Many of the approximately 70 national parks are related to the poignant history of this little piece of our planet. My sabra husband and I had visited Israel many times, usually staying in Natanya, a Mediterranean city about halfway between Tel Aviv and Haifa. In our treks around the little country we would always take Route 66 inland to access Nazareth, the Galilee, Tiberias, and the Hula Valley and Golan Heights even further north. In all those trips we drove past a site that I had never noticed or realized what it was -- Tel Megiddo. It sits right along this major highway which runs along the eastern side of the low hills that blend into the Carmel mountains along the Mediterranean sea. That route at that particular site apparently coincides with Via Maris, the ancient Roman road that led from Egypt to Damascus and Mesopotamia. The importance of that road, and the strategic importance of a fortified city at this southeastern point overlooking the large Jezreel Valley in Northern Israel made this site a fortified city 5000 years ago. It was conquered twice by Egypt in the 15th century BCE and again in 605 BC. These two battles and sieges were recorded in Eygyptian hieroglyphics and the second one in the Old Testament of the Bible. King David was there and King Solomon refortified it after one of its destructions.  But it was destroyed many more times because archeological digs at Tel Megiddo show at least 26 layers of destruction and rebuilding. During all these rebuildings the same area was always used as a sacred area, probably transitioning from a circular altar where there were animal sacrifices and perhaps early on even human sacrifices, to more familiar sites of worship that would have served King Ahab and King Josiah of the Caananite kingdoms from the Bible. Its site includes huge stables built to house chariot horses for King Ahab, and a very complex waterworks, with cisterns, and a 70 meter underground tunnel hone into the rock to reach a spring that was outside the city walls.  Ahab turned Megiddo into “Ir Rekhev” and built the impressive water works. Israelite Megiddo fell to the Assyrians in 732 BCE and was finally demolished by the Egyptians in 609 BCE. An Ivory Palace was discovered there with the largest hoard of Canaanite objets d'art and jewelry made of ivory every discovered in any Caananite site. When we stopped to visit this site and walked among the ruins, I felt something similar to what I had felt when gazing at the Old City of Jerusalem. I was overcome by a sense of awe at the tenacity and strength of human culture that would keep reconstructing this city time after time, when destruction should have ended its existence. It is a testament to humanity even if one ignores the religious importance of these sites.

                                           Jezreel Valley through the Gate of the City
      

                                           The Sacred area of the ruins, Jezreel Valley in background

                                          A public grain silo from King Jeroboam, (8th century BCE)

                                          The Southern Stables, built in King Ahab's time for chariot horses.

                                           The Jezreel Valley from Sacred Site, Tel Megiddo

                                           Jezreel Valley agriculture, Nazareth in distance

                                           Sacred area from above, with circular altr to right.

                                     
                                          Shaft entrance to tunnel to spring, Tel Meggido

                                          Exit to spring, Tel Megiddo

     Then I began to research this site. Har means a small hill or small mountain and the name of this city was always Meggido which some have said means Assembly. So this name of the place in Hebrew and Arabic is Har Meggido. The name for this place in Greek, is Armeggedan. Recognize the name. Yes this is the site that the prophesized final battle between good and evil at the End of Times will take place. It makes sense that a city of such importance in BCE history would be the place where the final battle would be predicted to take place. Multiple times my husband and I drove past this site without knowing its importance. Enjoy the photos of this site that I have posted here.


     One of the most important archeological sites in Israel from the time of the bible, Tel Megiddo is a beautiful and impressive national park near the town of Afula. Megiddo was important in antiquity: it is mentioned in Egyptian writings and is forecast to be the site of Armageddon in the Christian Book of Revelations. Recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005, the impressive remains of several civilizations draw many visitors and pilgrims.

House Guests: Israeli and American culture mix.

     Last week my husband and I had an Israeli couple as house guests for the whole week. The man and my husband go way back -- to infancy in Israel. Hubbie was the first born child to Kibbutz Avuca in Pardes Hannah, Israel, in 1936. This kibbutz had been formed by new immigrants to Israel from several shtetls in then Bessarabia in Eastern Europe (now the independent country of Moldova), most people originating in Kalarash and a few members from Dombroven. These young adults had been bitten by the Zionist movement in the 1930s and joined the youth movement Gordonia to learn agriculture in a camp funded by the Jewish Agency before their emigration to Israel. This group of people were very close and established the socialist community known as a kibbutz in about 1934. They received land near Pardes Hannah, Israel and worked that land. They did not have a completely set off village as most kibbutzim with more money did. So in the beginning, they often occupied living space outside of the kibbutz owned buildings. But the children were tended in a nursery as was typical of the time. The firstborn child, my husband, became the child of the whole kibbutz. He was adored and doted, and probably spoiled. But within 2 years there were 7 children and our house guest last week was the 7th child. He is the furthest on the left lower corner of bottom photo, and my husband is the child next to him.
     Unlike my husband,  Ami (name changed) stayed in Israel. He served in the military and was teaching the use of grenades when one went off and severely injured him, causing loss of hearing, and loss of some vision, and multiple shrapnel wounds requiring several surgeries. He later became a lawyer and then a judge in Israel. He is now partially retired. His wife was a nurse. Ami met her while undergoing all of his reconstructive surgical procedures. My husband had not been in touch with him for some time but he came to visit my mother in law when she was aging and entering into an assisted living arrangement in Israel. My husband ran into him on that visit and renewed acquaintances. Recently an acquaintance was renewed before our trip back to Moldova as Ami has a cousin still living in Kalarash. We learned that Ami and his wife were coming to visit another cousin in Minneapolis and asked them to come visit us as well.

     We showed them some of American culture which was entirely new to them, of course. We were happy to show them at least America as it is represented in our little Midwestern sliver of the wider scene. The first day my husband took them to the state capital in Madison, and up on Bascom Hill. They saw where my husband and I met and where we used to live on State Street, and just in general got an impression of the city often voted into the top 10 of the most pleasant to live in the United States.

     The second day we took them down to Chicago, went up on the Willis Tower, visited Navy Pier for lunch, and drove around to view the lovely Lake Michigan waterfront of the Windy City.  We returned to Milwaukee and a surprise for Ami and his wife, The Israeli Tzofim (Scouts) Youth Group is traveling around the US for 2 months and were performing in Bayshore Town Square. We stopped there on the return from Chicago and witnessed a very entertaining song and dance show. And confirming the Small World Theory, one of the 10 young people was a friend of Ami's grandson. They got to visit together after the program.

     The next day included attendance at my husband's annual retirement picnic and a visit to the Mitchell Park Conservatory Domes. The following day we took them to a Brewer Baseball game against the Houston Astros and explained in detail the rules of a game that is totally foreign to Israelis. A stop on the way home at Kopp's for their famous hamburgers and ice cream demonstrated the Milwaukee institution that Doc Severson used to visit every time he was in town conducting the Milwaukee Pops Symphony. (He always used to ask the audience from the conductor's podium, "Does anyone know today's ice cream flavor at Kopp's?" and the audience would fill him in.)

     The last day with us, we dropped them off at the Milwaukee Public Museum to see the butterflies, the dinosaur exhibits, the Streets of Old Milwaukee, and European Village exhibits and an IMAX show on the oceans. Mixed in between all these activities were lengthy discussions in Hebrew about life in Israel, life here in the United States, and the differences and similarities of the two cultures. I improved my Hebrew a little bit again by hearing so much of the language. These two spoke English but of course it is easier for my husband to explain things to them in Hebrew. Although Hubbie admits that now he has an immigrant's English which he regards as less than perfect and a Hebrew that is horribly outdated. This living ancient language has had to modernize to accommodate modern technological society and many new words are unrecognized by my husband. 

     We were together for a week and there was only one brief period of contention. This occurred when we were at Kopp's. We had taken them to several restaurants for dinner. The ordering process was always a bit tedious and lengthy, because, very reasonably, they really wanted to know what they were going to eat and to make a very personal choice from the menu, while my husband tended to want to choose for them because he felt he knew what would be best. One of the recurring discussions revolved around how to order the steak. Israelis always order steak well done, and grilled steaks can not be well done or the outside of the steak is like shoe leather. We always tried to get them to modify this order and at least say, medium well, tending toward medium. But it was difficult. Many times they just ordered fish. But the night of the Kopp's visit, my husband wanted to demonstrate an American hamburger done as only Kopp's can do them. Also anyone familiar with a busy Kopp's knows that when you step up to the grill counter to order, you have to be ready to go and spit out your desires rapidly because there is a line of people with similar desires behind you. This is not the time to be discussing the menu or changing your mind. After my husband had ordered everything, the guest wife decided she wanted the chicken instead of a hamburger, so the clerk had to change the order on the computer and then Ami began to think again about what on the menu list overhead he wanted. My husband, as he will admit sometimes happens, .... he lost it and raised his voice and told them he wanted them to try the hamburger and that was that. I stepped in and quietly told the clerk to change one hamburger to chicken and then ordered the sides and the drinks. Everyone was a little subdued after that public argument, but we survived and no one held a grudge. It should be noted that this disagreement was more than the usual Israeli disagreement. I learned long ago shortly after I got married that Israeli discussions often look like arguments to someone who is not accustomed to the heated repartee that occurs in this somewhat hot-headed Mediterranean country. We had lots of discussions like that during our guests stay, but that is different. This public disagreement was not in that category. It was a definite strong chastisement by my husband and made everyone uncomfortable for a while.

     Still it was a pleasant week. We enjoyed showing off our home. We enjoyed showing off what Milwaukee and Wisconsin has to offer. Looking back on the visit, it is interesting to contrast our two cultures. My husband of course is now as American as they come, loving football, the NBA, and even golf tournaments, but I must remind myself of his origins. And I must remind myself about how different and yet how much the same all we human beings are.