We spent the night in Caesarea, originally an ancient Herodian port city located on Israel’s Mediterranean Coast about halfway between Tel Aviv and Haifa. To beat the heat (which comes around by 9am), we woke up early and hopped back on our tour bus to visit the Roman ruins about fifteen minutes from our hotel.
Shortly after we arrived back to the hotel, Dr. Rachel Korazim (pronounced rah-kel not ray-chel) painted us a vivid picture of the impact of the Holocaust on Israeli society. We grabbed a quick lunch at a hummus place in the middle of literally nowhere (the hummus is everywhere). Before catching the bus, we stopped at a small fruit stand that was trying to get rid of all of its fruit before Shabbat in a couple hours, and I bought from it a large quantity of nectarines, green grapes, and figs. Never had a fresh fig before prior to this date, but I’d say they rank in my top 6 favorite fruits of all time.
Hopped on the bus again and drove all the way to Nof Ginosar, a small kibbutz that overlooks the Sea of Galilee in the North of Israel. A Kibbutz is type of living community based on adherence to collectivism in property alongside a cooperative character in the spheres of education, culture and social life. The living community operates under the premise that all income generated by the Kibbutz and its members goes into a common pool, and this income is used to run the Kibbutz, make investments, and guarantee mutual and reciprocal aid and responsibility between members. Kibbutz members receive the same budget (according to family size), regardless of their job or position. In terms of education, all children start equally and are given equal opportunity. Reminds me of the time I spent two nights in a commune in Virginia during Spokes. We actually didn’t stay in the kibbutz but at the hotel the kibbutz owned that sustained the community.
Big mistake to eat so much fruit at 3pm because after another 90-minute lecture given by a Bedouin woman on Bedouin society in Israel, I encountered the largest Friday-night meal to-date. Shabbat dinner, buffet-style. The pictures below show only 5% of the whole spread.
After dinner, we clearly needed to do something to digest all that food, and lucky for us, Maje had a “special activity” planned for us at 7:45pm. The activity was a series of theater games essentially; quick games I used to do as warm-ups before a show or in the Intro to Acting class I took Freshman fall (which I will be TA-ing this upcoming semester!), and we were thoroughly digested by the end of the activity.
In case you’re wondering, my other top six favorite fruits are papayas, nectarines, grapes (but the crunchy kind), cherries, and blackberries.
Note: Pictures 1, 2, 3, and 6 were all taken by Wilson Spearman (again). What a mans.