April 5, 2018

“Don’t let them stamp your passport,” I was told by countless people. “Israel doesn’t have many friends in the Middle East and there are plenty of countries that will not let you in if they find an Israel stamp in your passport.” This flashed through my mind as I went through a second quarantined airport security check for all passengers bound for Tel Aviv. It was only for this one gate, for this one destination. All of our carry on bags were rechecked, our bodies rescanned. Hours earlier, my camp stove and fuel bottle that I needed for the trip were seized by TSA security agents prior to checking my bags in Denver. I had flown with them before without issue. Maybe it got missed in security on prior trips, or maybe security was tighter now, going to Israel.

Leading up to my departure, I had the normal trip anxiety, unrelated to any of the current news headlines. Things just didn’t seem to be lining up, and for a moment, I wavered, fearing maybe it was a sign. I nearly canceled the trip all together when my friend Yuval told me that he would be out of town the day I was to arrive in Tel Aviv and I would have to figure out other accommodations. Normally this would not be an issue, however it was the end of Passover and all public transportation was shut down. Yes, I had a bike but it was fully dismembered for the flight and would take some time to put back together, not an easy task after 18 hours of travel, arriving late in the evening. Honestly, it was just one more thing that felt off.

I put out a plea on the Facebook site “Bikepacking Israel” and within an hour, I received nearly a dozen offers for transport and lodging, from complete strangers. Maybe this place wasn’t so scary, I mused, as my confidence and comfort slowly seeped back in. When my flight got pushed a day due to inclement weather, everything fell back into place. I arrived in Tel Aviv to the open, outstretched arms of my friend, Yuval. Actually, to say that we are friends is a stretch. We met 1x in Nepal in late 2016.  He is 49, married, with 3 kids and at the time was working for an NGO doing relief work in Nepal after the earthquake.   He approached me from behind as I was getting money from a cash machine. I thought I was being robbed, but it turns out he noticed my bike and just wanted to talk cycling. But I mean, c’mon…who approaches someone at a cash machine, from behind? Since then, we have exchanged maybe a half dozen messages. We are not close, however, he invited me to his home like I was his American brother. And that’s how I felt when I got off the plane.

To be honest, I didn’t know much about the Middle East. I had grown numb to the news stories that seemingly proliferated the headlines, much the way one can tune out most anything that doesn’t directly impact them. There seems to be a continual newsfeed about Israel dating back as far I can remember involving tense border relations with Syria, Palestine, Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank. The words “bombing”, and “terrorism” for most of the people living in the west, are synonymous with the Middle East.  However I never thought much about them because it was always “over there”.

Israel, and the greater Middle East is the Holy Land. Every chapter of the Bible was written about this area. The history dates back thousands of years and one could spend months reading all the information, and a lifetime trying to understand it. After World War II, Britain found itself in intense conflict with the Jewish community over Jewish immigration limits in Europe. Its people had been displaced. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish Holocaust survivors and refugees sought a new life far from their destroyed communities in Europe.

On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, declared the establishment of a Jewish state to be known as the State of Israel.  The following day, the armies of four Arab countries— Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, and Iraq—entered what had been British Mandatory Palestine, launching the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Contingents from Yemen, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Sudan joined in. The apparent purpose of the invasion was to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state at inception, and some Arab leaders talked about “driving the Jews into the sea”. The Jewish people turned back all their invading enemies and built a country out of the ashes and memories of their heritage.  Almost immediately, an influx of Holocaust survivors and Jews from Arab and Muslim countries flowed into Israel.  During the first three years, Jewish population increased from 700,000 to 1.4 million. By 1958, the population of Israel rose to 2 million.  An official Jewish state was born.  But there seemingly would never be peace.

Recently, President Trump ignited tension and protest in the region when he promised to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, informally signaling to the world that the US was siding with Israel over Palestine in their claim to this holy city. This happened at a time when things seemed to be simmering down, at least by Middle East standards, conveniently 2 weeks before my arrival.  This is not the calm, Buddhist experience that I had in Tibet, Nepal, and India. “Don’t go to Israel.”

What is it about fear that can be so paralyzing? Is it just fear of the unknown? We only know what we’re told and most of us never question it. We see videos of terrorism, bombings, rocket launches.  “Don’t go to Israel.”  Maybe they were right? My friends, my family, the news media. Maybe this was a bad idea? But ultimately, I was curious to know what all this fear was about.  I wanted to learn more about the culture, the people, the history, and the heritage.  Things that  could not be learned or felt through any text book but only on the ground.  I remember all the stories about Jerusalem, the Red Sea, Moses, and Jesus. I was enthralled by the confluence of the entire Christian, Muslim, and Jewish religions in this region.

Another breaking headline comes across my phone.  The United States is threatening military action on Syrian president Bashar al Assad over United Nations reports that his regime used chemical weapons on thousands of his own people.  Things were again heating up.  A quick look at Google Earth showed that Syria and Israel share a border in the north and and its capital Damascus is less than 15 miles (as the crow flies) from the Golan Heights in Israel, the place I would be starting my trip. The Golan Heights are claimed by both Israel and Syria and although they were annexed by Israel in 1981, the annexation is unrecognized by other nations. Due to this contested nature, much of the area is taken up by military zones and minefields left over from previous wars. I am told that tourists in the area should never deviate from marked trails, due to the danger of stumbling into minefields or firing areas.  Here comes fear, creeping in.  Am I just being foolish?  Don’t go to Israel…

1. 

   My proposed route through Israel

   

   How to pack a bike that flies for FREE (Hint: cut it in 1/2)

   

   All the trails are well marked

   

   Hooked up with a local cycling group

   

   Poppies!

   

   

   Druze pita

   

   People talk about eating their way through Italy?  Nah…I’ll take Israel

   

   Yuval’s kids and neighbors

   

   A Jewish Moroccan party

   

   

   My first Hebrew lesson, all characters of the alphabet spelled phonetically

   

   My first Hebrew professor