Aliyah Diary 14: Traveling with the Kindness of Strangers

by tostien · November 2, 2024

Article Outline:

Received My Israeli Driver’s License
The Security Fence
Portal to Alabama
Ein Shaharit / Nahal Prat
My First Experience Tremping (Hitchhiking)
Rishon L’Zion Lake and Ocean
Camping at Palmachim Beach
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Received My Israeli Driver’s License

Arriving on the plane did not make me feel Israeli. Done that many times and I was … gently cajoled into doing this after my wife and kids all ganged up on me and I was at a point where I could do my job almost fully remote.

Two accomplishments make me feel like I’m “part of the land” now:

1) I cannot remember – did I hear Bircas Kohanim only about 5 minutes ago in davening? [This is the prayer where the descendants of Aaron bless the congregation – in the U.S. it’s done only on holidays so it’s a big deal – call all the kids in … stand under their Daddy’s tallisim … 5+ minutes of song] In Israel, the practices of the Vilna Goan are largely followed as his followers set forth the “Founders Principal” over here.

2) I received my Israeli driver’s license. Now that is a special accomplishment that fits nicely in my wallet and is something reserved for citizens. It may have blended in with the junk mail and my wife might have saved it from a certain garbage can in a nice cubby outside.

Some features of the driver’s license – the picture is clearer than the U.S. though black a white. My name is there in English and Hebrew … my full middle name is on every legal document here though “optional” in America. My birth date in both the Hebrew and Gregorian calendar are there, it requires that I have “spectacles or contact lenses”, and it expires in 25 years! On the one hand it costs a lot more than in the United States – on the other hand, if you don’t have to renew it every four years it actually costs a lot less in money and time.

The Security Fence

Now, on to traveling with the kindness of strangers. My first story is about walking around my own community – nearby are some cliffs with rock climbing and repelling. According to someone on the internet I can walk there from my neighborhood so I set out to do so:

I left the car in the picture so you can see the scale of this cliff. It’s 2000 shekels, no matter how big the group, to rappel down this thing. Who’s with me?

Okay, so that’s the view from within the security fence in my neighborhood … Google Maps says there’s a way to walk down there … the gate is locked. I’m looking at it – is there a way around? A way through that I can wiggle into? I pick up the lock a bit to see if it’s really firmly locked … I have a thought about the bolt cutters I left in America … nah … bad idea. Oh well, let’s keep walking up this dirt road within the security fence.

I’m past the fence by about 30 meters and a car pulls up to me, “Hello friend, how are you?” (Literal translation.) Okay, neighborhood security just checking things out … “Oh, I live in the neighborhood. I’m just going for a walk.” He responds, now in English … “you know people try to go over the fence – the gate is locked … “

“What? Me? Nev… never! No sir, I would never to do that!”

The following day I was telling this story to someone at dinner and he said he’s on security patrol and that gate gives them the most trouble with people trying to go through … ohhhh… I was on camera the whole time. Tee hee.

(The fence does end at a certain point though the hill at that point goes down at about a 75 degree angle and it’s just not that worth it to me … had to hold my daughter back though.)

Remember, this is an article about traveling with the kindness of strangers. I’m getting there.

Portal to Alabama

Okay, so getting closer to the cliff isn’t going to happen without a two mile backtrack and trek across the road so I keep following inside the security fence to see where it will lead me. Gone at the $2 million houses overlooking the cliff and in comes the dirt path and slanted light posts:

Then comes some new construction in the next neighborhood, under the national bird of Israel, the crane:

The views are beautiful and there’s water down there:

… and then, what the heck is that? Looks like someone’s car fell down the cliff:

I didn’t know it at the time. That was the gate marker for the portal to Alabama. I keep walking … turn a corner and there’s this:

Followed by this:

Now, my head has limited space for new vocabulary and while I did not think it useful at the time, the first new word I learned when I arrived was the answer to an innocent question, “What sound does a dog make in Israel?” thinking I hear, “woof”. What’d you expect?

Oh no – dogs in Israel go “hav, hav! Hav hav!” I named this dog “Wally” because he’s like a big wall. You don’t go past this wall – though I’m curious what would happen if I tried. He’s a Doberman connected by a Tom and Jerry’s strength metal chain to a dog house cemented to the ground.

Behind the dog is a horse, some roosters, ducks or something … cows maybe? Then there’s the broken furniture and tarps …

My family didn’t believe me, that just outside our pre-planned laid out community of houses with a centrally located synagogue and pre-placed walkways and community buildings, we have a portal to Alabama. (There’s a hole in my story because the dog says, “hav, hav” so it can’t really be Alabama.) So I took my daughter there who said, “I’m hot, I’m thirsty …” and within 10 seconds of finding Alabama another smaller dog who comes out to greet her and she’s got this dog lying on it’s pack while she rubs her tummy. (She was lying on her back – we know it’s a ‘her’.) We named her Sparkle. My daughter was no longer hot or thirsty.

Now, the kindness of strangers part – I’m conflagurating visits, though on my way back I stopped in someone’s sukkah for water far from my house and just outside of the other side of Alabama. I got to practice my Hebrew with a man visited from Dimona where Israel doesn’t have it’s nuclear weapons that it doesn’t have and there are interesting black Americans who moved there many years ago as part of some rastarfarian Jewish renewal revival something something. I asked him about them and learned the N-word in Hebrew doesn’t have the same connotation as it does in America. That’s not the point. The point is that you can just stop in and have a conversation with some guy and sure, that’s normal.

This is the other side of Alabama:

Ein Shaharit / Nahal Prat

A ‘normal person’ goes to Nahal Prat which has paid entry into a river passing through the desert in the Judean hills. The river has he only greenery around and ‘pauses’ for a variety of beautiful shallow pools along the way where you can swim, even in the summer desert.

Now, when your family travels with an Israeli, the Israeli says things like, “if we start at the other side there’s no entry fee.” Okay, sure. What do I know?

Also, she says, “My husband is the one that handles the logistics and I’m not good at it. Can you do that?” That’s cute. She asks me to get the GPS coordinates for Waze. Sure. My job is done.

Halfway down a steep mountain, a usually bit less steep than the one by the security fence in my neighborhood, she asks why I don’t know which trail to take … why we don’t have backpacks … why we don’t have a liter of water for each of us … why does she keep guessing where we are and asking people. What do you mean? You’re the Israeli. You brought us here and isn’t there just one trail down to the water like you said? Don’t we go back up now? There’s more than one trail? There was no indicator when we began … like any American park has … no map, no bear warnings (or whatever you got here)

… ohhhh … that‘s what you wanted me to figure out ahead of time!

What Israel does have is at the beginning of the trail (well, the end of the trail for normal people who pay the entrance fee), is this guy:

His job is to make sure you have proper footwear because ain’t nobody gonna listen to a sign. It’s with this other person’s permission that I can post this … this other person being American who came to this hike in flip flops:

This kind gentlemen said, “our feet are about the same size” and switched his hiking boots for flip flips until we came back. Well, until the others came back – I went out the easy way.

The stories continues after this slideshow from the hike:

In the Northeast U.S., once you’ve hiked one deciduous forest, you’ve hiked them all. Israel wins on hikes. The Bedouin herding goats was an extra bonus. Do you know goats smell just like goats milk?

Okay, so the guide at the beginning let us borrow his hiking boots. That’s some kindness of strangers though it gets more fun.

My First Experience Tremping (Hitchhiking)

The rest of my group, including many kids, decided they’d see one or two pools and then head back up the mountain at the 75 degree angle going for, I don’t know … ever. Down was hard enough. I decide I’m going to see some more scenery and pools of water and I have something against going back the way I came, anywhere (it’s how I found a concert in Jerusalem by accident). Seems like such a waste – I want to go a different way and experience something new and see what I might find. Apparently there’s a black trail somewhere to some other exit from the park to a parking lot and … never trust an American who estimates how far something is in kilometers. “It’s just about a kilometer that way” says some nice American because wherever I go, it seems the rest of America is. My wife cautions that I’ll be far away from our car … okay, two miles maybe … I’ll just walk back along the road and be there about when you are, anyway.

I am glad I did this most of all because when I did make it back to the car – only about a minute before the group – they said I made the right choice.

After a load of more beautiful scenery and pools, I made it to … the parking lot. Filled up my water bottle and looked at Google maps … which, by the way, is only good for walking directions. Do not use it for driving in Israel unless your car can handle punching through a guard rail, then a mountain, and landing you safely on the other side. Google Maps does that quite often in Israel. At traffic circles it will also say things like, “take the second exit” whereas Waze will just say, “continue straight” or “make a left at the roundabout” being actually helpful. Conversely, with Google Maps, two wrongs make a right – I once confused “the second exit” with “straight” instead of left and found I road to where I was going rather than the through-the-mountain route.

Okay, so Google Maps says it’s a 26 minute drive and two and half hour walk. Ummm… wha? Oh shoot, you have to go up a winding road to the top of the mountain, walk along a highway, and then go back up the another winding road to the other parking lot. Okay, time to hitchhike. Never, ever do this in America … especially not the way I did which is perfectly safe over here.

I ask a few people … problem is they are Americans and they think I’m crazy. I wait about … no one else seems to be coming or going so, alright, let’s start the walk and see what happens. At the first big hairpin turn up a hill part of the road up the mountain there’s a staircase to bypass the hairpin – I guess that’s dangerous with cars who can’t see you? Up the staircase … it’s a trick. It’s actually just a banister that you can hold onto while hiking up a windy 75 degree incline.

I do so and that “the bear goes over the mountain, the bear goes over the mountain, and you know what he saw …” song in real life. There’s another parking lot! Okay, let’s try this. Ah! Here’s a kindly looking gentlemen with a gun. Perfect. I feel safe.

No, really. In America you don’t know where that gun is going to be pointed or who is going to be shot. As someone told us here … there was someone breaking into a house near his and he had his gun on the person while security was called. Security arrived so he put his gun down. He’s just a civilian and doesn’t want to get in any trouble. The security guys ask him what’s he’s doing? Keep your gun on him! No ID was checked, he was never questioned … he’s some guy with a gun and it’s another Jew so it’s all good. We’re not shooting each other.

Back to the story – he’s got a gun, a rundown minivan, kids in the back (who needed some screaming at), code of Jewish law on his center console, blue and white tzitzis hanging out of his white shirt just under his long beard and kippah struga. Long beard, underweight … you can picture him well now. I can’t really hear who he’s talking to over the phone while I’m waiting for his answer – his kids wouldn’t be quiet long enough. Then he says he’ll take me.

Good thing he did … the drive over the next mountain and over the next mountain and so on until you see the scoreboard posted with the prices at the entrance would have been killer to walk up. Then we’re on some road in the middle of nowhere and he says I should get out and get in that other car which is just two guys in a sedan which isn’t beat up and was really sketchy because they weren’t carrying weapons. Wait … whatever.

These guys speak English and take me to the other side of the mountain. They taught me some fun Hebrew things like that if you say “michpachti” rather than “mishpacha shel-li” which both mean “my family”, you sound like you’re reading from literature. I arrive back at our car just in time to see my mishpacha shel-li.

Rishon L’Zion Lake and Ocean

We brought a paddle board from Costco … so we went to find a lake. In the Galil that’s fine … we didn’t want to travel that far so we went to a man-made lake behind a mall in Rishon L’Zion. It’s small and you need a permit … and it’s not big enough to be worth figuring out how to get a permit.

So we continued on to the beach. Wow – 40 minute drive to a beautiful beach. It was fairly empty mid-week and like most of my experiences at beaches in Israel, lifeguards were on megaphones yelling to me something in Hebrew that I couldn’t understand. <shrug>

Camping at Palmachim Beach

One of my kids got this wonderful idea that we should go camping. My camping stuff didn’t make it onto our lift but for an automatically unfolding tent. I made sure that made it on. Putting up and taking down tents is my least favorite part of camping so I love this thing … it’s my first time doing this in Israel so forget the cooking anyway … let’s just go sleep on the beach and see how it goes.

American campsite: drive up to the gate, pay for a permit, put the permit in your car, drive to your camp site with a table, fire ring, and line of sight (or close to it) to the bathroom, shower, and dumpster with electricity and spiders.

Palmachim beach: drive back and forth down the road (this is typical around here) until you find a bunch of cars … must be around there. It was night-time so we saw this:

See any signs? No. See any parking spots? Also no. There’s plenty of cars parked on the street though it says not to. It’s Israel … no one cares.

Then you carry all your stuff through the opening in the gate for about an American estimation of a kilometer until you get to the beach and you just … pick a spot and set your stuff down. Kind strangers guided me there and someone next to our site came right over and asked if we needed help setting up our tent. That was really nice and very unAmerican of him. At an American campsite it’s … don’t look too much at someone else … you never know if he has a gun.

Thanks to my Coleman popup tent from Amazon, there was nothing to do after it popped open except to get in.

This is the beach scene at night:

… and during the day:

. . . and there are no toilets, no electricity, no running water, no tables, no security with rangers shining their flashlight at you and warning you not to do this or that … it’s closer to roughing it with a lot of nice people around you.

Sometimes the signs do matter – got my first parking ticket parking outside the parking lot along with about a dozen other cars. In the light now I see there’s another bigger parking lot down a ways … (should have used Waze, not Google Maps) … if we could carry our stuff that much further to the beach.

On our way out I could not for the life of me get the tent to collapse properly back into the package. Two guys heading out to scuba-drive spent about 10 minutes helping get it back in. I’m telling you … wherever you go, people are there to help.

I listen to a Podcast called, “Streetwise Hebrew” … I’ve listened to the “ka-dai” episode about four times now hoping to remember something. It’s one of those words I heard all the time in yeshiva though couldn’t use it out of context – it means something like, “is it worth it to do…” It’s apparently normal to say, “ma ka-dai l’ochel?” at a restaurant … “what is worth ordering?” rather than just choosing from a menu. I asked a guy which tree was “ka-dai” to buy (foreshadowing the next diary entry).

I’m starting to understand the culture – there aren’t so many signs here. You are meant to ask others, help others, and get advice even if, since there are few signs, few can give you exact directions anywhere … so you ask more people. It’s very much into, “let’s help each other out” rather than “RTFM” (read the fine manual).

Aliyah Diary 14: Traveling with the Kindness of Strangers

Received My Israeli Driver’s License

The Security Fence

Portal to Alabama

Ein Shaharit / Nahal Prat

My First Experience Tremping (Hitchhiking)

Rishon L’Zion Lake and Ocean

Camping at Palmachim Beach

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