Zichron Ya’akov and Be’er Sheva

This was a somewhat weird day with a lot of miscommunications, but I’m glad to say, it all worked out in the end  (and gave us an excellent opportunity to strengthen our “go with the flow” skills!).

Last night at the Hotel Orit, we saw at check in that you could wash and dry a load of  clothes for a small fee. It was late afternoon when we checked in, so we asked would it still be possible to do a load of laundry. Of course, of course, no problem. We gave them our clothes and went on our way. This morning we were getting ready to check out and we still hadn’t gotten our laundry back. So, we asked about it and she said, rather shocked that we wanted it, well it’s not dry yet. What? we asked. It’s impossible to dry it so fast , they said. We went back and forth like this for a while with them insisting that they dry clothes on the line and it takes a while and us saying that they should have told us that last night. Finally, she asked, exasperated, “What do you want me to do? Put it in the dryer!? “ Well, yes, that would have been nice…last night! But, too late now, so we took our bag full of soaking wet clothes and checked out. We laid the clothes out by the back window of the car to dry, completing our vagabond look perfectly J

We have been trying not to backtrack, but we really wanted to visit Zichron Ya’akov and had not had a chance yet, so we drove a half hour back north to get there (it was well worth it).  Zichron Ya’akov is one of the very earliest Jewish settlements in Israel, so we first went to a museum that told the story of these early settlers from the First Aliyah. The story of the Second Aliyah (under the British) is a commonly told one here, but you hardly ever hear anything about the idealistic, Zionist, people who decided to leave mostly Russia and Poland (as anti-Semitism was growing and pogroms were becoming more common) and come to Turkish ruled Palestine. The museum presented the story of one family, who came and settled in what became Zichron – a son in his twenties, a daughter in her teens, and parents (the mother expecting twins). In the first years, their lives were bitterly hard. The Turks tried hard to keep them from buying land, but they finally managed. However, even once they had land, they knew nothing about farming, there was no infrastructure, disease was widespread (one of the twins died of malaria), and they thought about giving up and going home.

Within a few years, the Baron Rothschild began to support the community. He wanted them to make perfume from flowers (in other communities, he tried to get them to produce silk from silkworms – he didn’t realize that they should be growing foods which are native to Israel, not fancy European goods for export). He also sent overseers to the settlements who treated the residents terribly. Finally, he told the residents that in order to continue to receive his financial support, they had to sign over the rights to their land to him. This was an interesting angle on Rothschild, who is usually painted as a philanthropist, and nothing more. It definitely highlighted why the best kind of Tzedakah is when the giver and receiver don’t know who one other are. The family we were following refused to sign.

We followed the family through several other trials and tribulations, and when we got to the final room of the exhibit, we were surprised to see a video with the son and the second twin being interviewed as older adults – it was a true story! In the end, they made it and stayed in Israel – an amazing story of strength and faith.

In the basement of the museum, they had a special exhibit where the kids could dress up in clothes of the time of the First Aliyah. The kids had a blast with this, trying on different outfits – socialists, religious, fashionable, etc. Really fun !

One of the legacies of Rothschild’s schemes to make Palestine into a producer of fine European goods, was that he convinced some settlers to start producing wine. So, now, one of the things that Zichron Ya’akov is known for is its wineries. Next stop was the Tishbi winery for a tour and tasting. The Tishbi winery was started by a family by the name of Chamiletski, Once, Hayam Bialik, the national poet of Israel, came to stay with the family. He was so grateful for their hospitality, that he thanked them by giving them a gift of a new last name (I guess he couldn’t give them a bottle of wine, for obviously reasons). He named them Tishbi, which is an acronym for “Resident from the town of Benyamina” and the Tishbi family has run this winery ever since (it is still a family business). We had a great tour – one interesting fact was that in the barrel room (where they store the wines in barrels), the barrels are stacked floor to ceiling in rows, but none are stacked where you could touch them from the entrance way. The reason for this is that in order to be kosher, the wine can only be touched by people who are shomer Shabbat and shomer mitzvot (keep the Sabbath and the mitzvot), so they need to make sure people like the tourists and the other winery workers don’t accidentally touch any of the barrels. Normally, the grape harvest in Israel starts in August, but for some reason, this year the grapes will be ready in 2 days, so the winery was busy getting ready for the first delivery of grapes (which are grown all over Israel).

We then went in for the tasting. This was SO nice. The woman gave the kids chocolate to keep them happy while we tasted 8 different wines (all reds). In general, Israel is not known for great wines, but we tasted a few that we really liked (especially the Syrah and another blend that doesn’t have a label yet since they just started bottling it). We bought a bottle of the Syrah for a friend of Eyal’s who we would be staying with that night in Beer Sheva (more on that in a moment). She also gave us samples of the jams that one of the granddaughters (maybe great granddaughters) of the original Tishbi is now making at the winery. The jams are made with wines, for example, we tasted a cherry and shiraz jam that was amazing! Of course we bought some of this too.

 

By this point the kids were getting hungry (and we wanted to be responsible drivers) so we decided to stay at the winery for lunch. We had delicious pastas, pizza, and Caesar salad, homemade sour dough bread and more of the yummy jam. All is all a delightful visit.

The outside of the
Airforce museum

We set out then for Beer Sheva, a couple of hours drive south into the dessert. As we got closer, we started to see Bedouin tents up on the hills and camels too (I wonder why people raise camels now a days). We had hoped to go to either the Bedouin museum or the Airforce museum in Beer Sheva, but we drove right past the former and arrived at the latter with only 10 minutes until closing time, so no luck.

Looking at bridal
magazines while we wait

We then arrived at Eyal’s friend’s hair salon at the appointed time and waited a while (looking at Israeli bridal magazines) as he was very busy with work. He then set us up with his brother who took us on a walk to a museum that was closed and then he had to go back to meet someone. It eventually, and awkwardly, became clear that he did not realize that we were expecting to stay with him. Once we all realized this, he assured us that it was no problem and of course we could stay, but we decided we were better off in a hotel so as not to impose. There is apparently only one hotel in Beer Sheva (the Leonardo), but luckily they had a room available for us! (including breakfast in the morning and a pool). We went back and forth for a while with Eyal’s friend – him insisting we should stay with him and us insisting we would stay in a hotel, and finally compromised on going out to dinner with him and the next time we’re in Beer Sheva we will stay with him. It was about 7:30 by this point and he had one more client to finish up with, so we went on ahead to his friend’s restaurant (for him to meet us there later). The friend at the restaurant treated us like kings and sent out tons of food on the house, including a fried potato thing called abunafga (??) and lots of pickled vegetables of various sorts (the beets are the best). We also tried Hummus Ful (which is like humus with refried beans in it). Around 8:45 Eyal’s friend had to leave to go to his cousins wedding, so we went to the hotel. Coincidentally, there was a wedding going on there too, and we watched it out our window in the courtyard below.

Looking out the window at
the wedding below

So, to make a long story short, a lot of things today did not work out quite the way we planned, but they worked out anyway. And…we have a great bottle of wine if anyone wants to come over and drink it with us!.