Israel Trip: Part 2, Day 1 on our Tour in Israel “Up To Jerusalem”

Rodger and I joined the “Friends of Israel” tour in New Jersey and went through all the rigorous screening required when leaving our country to go to Israel. There were many long waits and we were required to show our passports several times before boarding the plane. I guess the United States just didn’t want us to leave. The flight was a little over eleven hours. Rodger and I were not allowed to sit together in the same row, but we were across the aisle from one another the entire flight. Rodger was sitting with two Israeli men, a father and his son. The son was preparing to enter the Israeli military upon his return. Every person, man and woman, is required to serve in the military at age 18, women for 2 years and men for 3 years.

During this flight I had contracted some kind of intestinal problem and was in the bathroom every 20 minutes. Thankfully the Lord placed me in an isle seat only three rows back from the bathroom. I am now intimately acquainted with the inside of the Continental Airlines lavatory. By the time we reached Tel Aviv in Israel we were completely exhausted ready to take a nap, but that did not happen. I guess Israel didn’t want us to come in.

Upon arrival at Tel Aviv, we were summoned to several checkout points, our carry on luggage was searched, and we were asked questions about the reason for our visit. We had to show our passport several times and it took a long time to get out of the airport. Thankfully there were no pat downs or embarrassing personal searches.

As soon as we gathered our luggage we boarded our tour bus with all the other people who were on the tour with us, 43 total. We arrived in Israel in the morning hours. Our guide Murium Feinberg-Vamosh was there too, ready to begin traveling to our first destination, which was a visit to the ancient port of Joppa, sometimes, referred to as Jaffa. Miriam is Jewish but not a believer, who was born in the United States and moved to Israel to go back to her roots; she speaks Hebrew fluently and works as a reporter for a prominent news paper in Israel and is a guide in her spare time. She is married to a Jew who was born and raised in Israel. Our bus driver is a Jewish man named Ruvin, we did not know if he was a believer, but he was a very friendly man and a great bus driver. He managed to maneuver the bus in places that were not easy for cars to go. The FOI leader, Bill Sutter said that we saw miracles every day with his driving. He would drop us off at one place, leaving us there while we walked to another place some distance away and picked us up there. We never back tracked anywhere, it was a well organized tour.

Joppa was the town from which Jonah sailed before he was swallowed by the big fish and where Peter visited Simon the Tanner. In the pictures you will see Simon the Tanner’s house that overlooks the Mediterranean Sea. Acts 10:5-6, Jonah 1:3

After leaving Joppa we traveled to the Roman city of Caesarea Maritime on the Mediterranean Sea, located about 30 miles north of Joppa. In the Scriptures we read what happened at Caesarea Maritime. We saw here Herod’s palace, his chariot race arena, and an amphitheater where stage productions were performed. We also saw an ancient Minaret in an Islamic Mosque, which is the tall pointed round structure shaped like a rocket. Herrod’s palace was immense. As you will see from the pictures, Herod had everything he needed there and all the entertainment he wanted.

· Philip the evangelist preached and lived in Caesarea (Acts 8:40).
· Peter was sent to baptize Cornelius, a centurion of the Roman garrison in Caesarea (Acts 10).
· Peter came to Caesarea after he was delivered from prison (Acts 12:19).
· King Herod Agrippa of Judaea died at Caesarea, being "eaten of worms" (Acts 12:19-23).
· Paul visited the city when he arrived or departed by ship from the harbor at Caesarea (Acts 9:30; 18:22; 21:8-16).
· Paul was imprisoned at Caesarea for two years before sailing to Rome to appear before Caesar (Acts 23:22-26:32).

Next we went to Independence Hall in Tel Aviv where we saw the room where the decision was made to make Israel a Nation. This was prophecy fulfilled the day that the Jews got their nation back after centuries of being without a homeland. We saw the room where Israel declared they were a nation and that they now had a homeland. The Scripture that comes to mind here is Isaiah 68:8. God brought forth a nation in a day according to prophecy. Other Scriptures that possibly pertain to the miracles of the Lord with Israel are: Isaiah 11:12 and 43:5-7. There is a picture of a chart that shows which nations were for Israel and which were against. Those highlighted in green were the nations that voted yes to give Israel the land. The world felt appalled at the treatment of the Jews in World War 2, which motivated them to give the Jews their own land and their own nation.

In the picture the man speaking in 1948, was David Ben Gurion the first Prime Minister of Israel. The picture on the wall behind Ben Gurion is a man named Hertzl, who had a dream and worked for the eventual formation of a nation of Israel, but never lived to see it happen. 

After all this we ended the days tour at Maagan Holiday Village a Kibbutz located on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, where we spent three nights. The word Kibbutz in Hebrew means “the Gathering”, a collective community based on agriculture. They were Jews who no longer wanted to work for Arabs but wanted to work their own land earning their own living, in a communal formation. The only way they could make it farming was to share the land and work closely together, more like a family, getting away from the culture of the Arabs. Joseph Baratz was the man who came up with the idea of the Kibbutz, he said:

“We were happy enough working on the land, but we knew more and more certainly that the ways of the old settlements were not for us. This was not the way we hoped to settle the country—this old way with Jews on top and Arabs working for them; anyway, we thought that there shouldn't be employers and employees at all. There must be a better way.” 

Everywhere we looked there was dry ground and huge rocks. Occasionally we would see some green, a small grove of trees or some crops, but nothing like our area of the world where green is everywhere around us all year around. Even though it was a desolate looking place, it was intriguing because of the history and connection to the Bible. We felt a sense of awe that we were really in the place where Bible events happened. I asked Rodger to pinch me on a number of occasions, he just turned to me and said, “yah me too.” 

A chill ran through me as I looked around the room where prophecy was fulfilled in the forming of the nation of Israel. God is always faithful in keeping His promises. Israel is proof of this fact. God said, Isaiah 45:17 “But Israel shall be saved by the Lord with an everlasting salvation; You shall not be ashamed or disgraced forever and ever.” Jeremiah 31:3 also says; “The Lord has appeared to me of old saying: ‘Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with loving kindness I have drawn you.’” It was a faith building experience to know that God had promised once that He would bring His people back to Him in the end and return their nation to them. He returned their nation in 1948 and there is more to come for Israel as God works in their hearts and makes them the final carriers of the gospel of Jesus Christ at the end. The Jews around the world who were never born there and have never lived there have been returning to their heritage, the land of Israel, since that prophetic occurrence of the rebirth of the nation in 1948. That is wondrous miracle.

Our Kibbutz room on the Sea of Galalee, was a small one bedroom apartment, complete with bathroom, kitchen and living room, facing the Sea of Galilee with a patio, picnic table and chairs. People from all over the world come there for vacations. I didn’t like the beds much. They were comfortable but they were split in the middle because in the Jewish tradition, the man is not suppose to touch the woman during her “unclean” time of the month, so the beds were two beds each wider than a normal twin bed, pushed together to make one large one. One night I scooted closer to Rodger to cuddle and the beds separated and I went down to the floor in a heap landing on my elbow. Rodger said it was like the parting of the Red Sea, he and I laughed, but we had to be aware not to sleep near the center of the beds. When we went to the Dan Panorama in Jerusalem there were the same kind of beds, but these were on carpet and didn’t roll.

All the breakfast food was Kosher, they could not serve milk with meat, so there was no meat at the morning meal but there was milk. At the evening meals there were meats but no milk. This practice comes from the Levitical laws that disallow boiling a lamb in its mother’s milk. A little of a stretch for me, but that is their culture and it was that way everywhere we went. I don’t recall seeing any fat people, not one obese person to be found in all our travels there.

An Ancient Minneret on a Muslim Mosque at Caearea Maritime.





Independence Hall in Tel Aviv
The world map indicating which countries supported Israel.
Herrods chariot race track at Caesaria Maritime on the Mediteranian Sea
Our Kibbutz on the Sea of Galilee