Sauchsenhausen

Today is my fourth on the continent, and I travelled into the darkest hours of history, visiting Sauchsenhausen Concentration camp just outside of Berlin. It was exactly what I expected, which means it was entirely different than I expected. Everything was normal. So everything was disconcerting. It was more saddening and disturbing than I could have ever imagined, just like everyone said it would be. A seemingly normal cobblestone – how many political prisoners, Jews, Roma, gays, passed over this stone, cried silently over it? A seemingly normal field, half brown in the winter – how many thousands stood here freezing, during 5:15am roll calls?

Everything is as it is supposed to be, according to the documentaries, the pictures, the testimony. But then there are the souls. You can’t capture souls on film or in words. They shudder in cramped wooden bunks. Their stomachs turn inward at roll call in the cold morning, after a breakfast of crumbs and water. They writhe on whipping blocks in the camp center, after failing to complete the afternoon work detail. They silently disappear, slowly snaking skyward. The camp is barren. Its victims have been erased from the book of life.

If we allow the crimes of the Nazi regime to depress us, to permanently sadden our limited time on earth, we are handing Hitler a posthumous victory – confining another soul within the walls of barbed wire that his SS erected at camps and Ghettos across Europe. The Holocaust commands us to celebrate diversity, to fill our lives with joy, and to make sure that all of humanity is privileged enough to experience life as rich as life can be. Liberation was not a single moment in 1945.

NB: I may post Sauchsenhausen pictures when I have a chance. As I've said, no words or pictures can capture the camp. Your life has to pass through the gate in order to experience the power of the site. Below, please find a wonderful and non-sequitorial shot of my unconventional arrival in northern Germany late Sunday night.


As we got closer to port, the fog became denser and denser. By the end of the day on Sunday, as we approached Bremerhaven (our destination port in Germany), we were sailing through a thick cloud turned deep orange in the midnight flood lights. 14 story cranes towered above our massive vessel, and 4-story container trucks were barely visible as they busily hummed through the misty stacks of cargo that would be coming on board.

Greetings From a Mid-Atlantic Closet!

Current Coordinates:
W 31 degrees and 08.5 minutes
N 46 degrees and 27.0 minutes

I am writing as the wind whistles overhead in a small closet on the Bridge Deck, labeled "Crew´s Post Office". The other passengers ("spare officers")and I are getting used to the boat´s regular 5-10 degree rolling as we put on our sea legs. In this little email station, where this is only a wooden desk and one computer, I am enjoying the challenge of staying balanced in the unwisely-chosen revolving chair. I can estimate how far we are rolling based on the swinging of an oversized russian calender that hangs over the desk. We can only send outgoing messages (via satellite), so I am thankful to my parents for pasting this text onto the blog site.

Today marks our farthest distance from land, and I just returned half-soaked from my daily walk around the main deck (I always go with a friend, employing the trusted "buddy system"). When I first walked outside this afternoon, the waves on our port side were sendind up a dense mist that created four rainbows in less than a minute! We have four meter seas today, which gently rock our creaking giant as she plows eastward at a steady pace of 20 knots. The ocean is simultaneously chaotic yet inspiring, heaving and unpredictable yet beautiful and relaxing. At home, our understanding of rising sea levels is often detached from the chaos and magnitude of the oceans themselves. The same oceans however, inspire awe and respect.

We will land in Germany this Sunday morning, and I hope to put up pictures and offer more thoughts when I am back on terra firma.


Sunset in Port Elizabeth, NJ. I call it "Star Wars Meets Van Gough" - it was a very surreal scene, taking in the sea of red and yellow containers stretching towards a bright red and yellow sunset! The scale of the equipment, like the 13 story crane at the right, which dwarfs the roaming 4-story truck in front of it, is something I would expect to find in the imagination of George Lucas.


The view inside the lifeboat was very reassuring as we headed out to sea. It is torpedo-shaped and orange, capable of holding all 25 people on board.


This picture requires no caption. Incredible.


A view between the stacks of containers.


Sunday was our first full day at sea. For dinner, Captain HJ Muthwill organized a smoked fish party and cheerily invited the passengers to join in. The chief engineer is the fellow in front, who was in charge of the "oven" (which was a converted barrel, in the back).

Environmental Pilgrimage: The Slow Trek To Israel

Early next week, I will board the MSC Tanzania in Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, for a transatlantic passage aboard the 300 meter freight ship. At first, I viewed the distance to Israel as obstacle to overcome. Now, I see it as an opportunity to learn. My trip will reduce carbon in the atmosphere – through planting and carbon credits – rather than pollute. I will volunteer in Europe, rather than contribute to worsening humanitarian crises that will result from climate change. I will visit sites relevant to Jewish history and my family’s roots, rather than flying over them. I look forward to spending half of a week in Berlin, followed by two weeks volunteering on an organic farm in northern Italy. I will arrive in Israel in mid-February, for a semester studying environmental science and peace-building.

My project-trip will address the reality of distance in a down-to-earth way. Long distance travel (especially by air) produces greenhouse gas emissions which ultimately contribute to rising sea levels and the displacement of future generations. Rising seas could create a humanitarian crisis in the Middle East, potentially displacing 2-4 million Egyptians living on the Nile Delta among other potential humanitarian crises in a geopolitically fragile region. Rising seas could also flood Israel’s coastal plain: Netanyahu and Abbas could draw the borders of a peaceful two state solution today, but climate change could rewrite their coastlines tomorrow. I did not want to return to Israel in a way that damaged my people’s homeland and displaced future generataions from their own.

I am not hoping to offer simple answers, but rather to share the questions that I am asking myself: what are the consequences of my actions? How are my choices and my life related with others across the world and across generations?

I look forward to writing blog posts approximately once per week, sharing the most powerful experiences and my reactions to them. When I arrive in Israel, I will be studying at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in the southernmost desert region, with a student body of 1/3 Israeli Jewish, 1/3 Arab/Palestinian, and 1/3 international students.


Many thanks to the Doris Baron Environmental Studies Student Research Fund and to the Winter Term Grant Committee at Oberlin College. This trip is only possible because of their generious support!

“Making the Desert Bloom”: Mormons, Zionists, and Tomorrow’s Water

I submitted my Udall Scholarship application last Monday, and wrote this essay about the connections between Udall's policy and my own ambitions:


When a desert blooms, the fruits of agriculture are rarely sustainable. Irrigated flowerbeds deceivingly pepper the landscape in temporary beauty. Just as the harvest season draws to a close every year, the days of intensive desert agriculture and desert flower beds are numbered when irrigation efforts overdraft water supplies. When agriculturists, homeowners, and policy-makers use water faster than it is naturally replenished, complex irrigation projects can temporarily alleviate drought but wreak serious environmental havoc.

Morris Udall favored construction of two major dams on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon National Park during the 1960s, a policy that he later regretted as myopically irresponsible. As Zionists today struggle to sustain Israel for generations to come, Udall’s maturation serves as a microcosm analogy for change that must take place. Zionists have built incredible beauty in the land of Israel, but the days of ubiquitous flowerbeds must come to a close.

Udall explains his decision to support the dams in the context of his Mormon ancestry. His ancestors were in awe of the beautiful southwestern landscape, but also built many dams to supplement rainfall irrigation:

I was caught between my Mormon upbringing, my environmentalist leanings, and my constituents’ near unanimous support for the dams. My decision finally turned on one irrefutable fact: water is life in the desert. (Udall, pg. 54)

I am disappointed that he made this decision, but inspired that he came to condemn it later in his career. Water is life, but he later acknowledged that these were band-aid solutions: expensive projects that would be environmentally disastrous and unsustainable in the long run. These particular dams would have irreversibly damaged the Grand Canyon National Park, temporarily supporting an unsustainable desert population.

Similarly, Israel’s impressive water engineering served a hugely important role in building the country, but now plays an increasingly troublesome role, undermining the nation’s future. The writer and Politician S. Yihzar poetically captured this duality of triumph and destruction:

Making the desert bloom meant doing away with the wasteland, erasing the nothingness, exploiting completely all natural resources. We felt that if we succeeded in doing this thing, if we could conquer the wilderness, do away with it, make it bloom -- in other words, if we could settle it, build it up, make it not wild, not devoid of human values -- then we would have achieved the Zionist dream.

Israel must draw down on its water use, given that the Jewish State’s water withdrawal-to-availability ratio is one of the 10 highest in the world. The once-mighty Jordan River, where Jesus was baptized, is now a trickle. The Dead Sea, a true anomaly at the lowest point in the world (400 meters below sea level) is disappearing, leaving gaping sinkholes in its wake. Water rights divide Israelis and Palestinians. The country’s largest reservoir, the Sea of Galilee, is shrinking. Israel must turn its policies around, as Morris Udall did.

These environmental crises require visionary demands of rewritten agricultural policies, impassioned calls for systemic change. They require an understanding that there is a harsh future in store if environmental limits remain ignored. When Udall looked back on his decision to endorse the dam projects, he realized that there might simply be too many people in the arid southwest. With Israel growing, it could do well to look at Udall’s thoughts. The pressing demands of constituents must be taken with a grain of salt. He sought a pragmatic balance between development and preservation. The civilizations of these two deserts irrefutably have the right to exist, but water must be used carefully if they are to exist for our children.

Udall’s self-criticism offers a clear model for the maturation of Israel’s water policies. Both heritages, Mormon and Zionist, are inspiringly rich with hardworking civilization builders. They can inspire us all to look back at our ancestors who toiled to shape the land, to eek out a basic survival. Mormon and Zionist settlers took awe in their landscapes, shaped the land, and built the societies that we must sustain for future generations. It is my dream that Israel, as a “light unto nations”, may become an example of sustainable development for the world.


An exuberant Carter beats Udall in the 1976 Wisconsin primary election. The election was so close that one newspaper actually misprinted its headline... "Dewey defeats Truman" anyone?

From the Diaspora...

Since Monday morning I have met 3 inspiring professors, 1 outlandishly friendly journalist, an impassioned CEO, and 1 cousin who I had never known existed! I have been through the bowels of several central bus stations, toured a checkpoint, witnessed the complex reality of Palestinian life on the Green Line, and I have made my way half-way around the world, back home to the Diaspora…

This entry is rather lengthy. So if your time is limited then I suggest reading the first section as a basic summary of my trip. I will add photos and more thoughts as time and internet access allow.


This Blog Marches On!!

“I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness, and will hold your hand and keep you. And I will establish you as a Covenant of the people, for a light unto the nations.” ¬ –Isaiah 42:6

This blog is not dying! We must keep the reality and wonder of Israel alive in our hearts and our minds. For non-jews, secular jews, and religious jews alike, the grassroots change happening in Israel is like none other in the world, because Israel is an absolute anomaly. Not only does this dwarf-state host the diversity of an entire continent, but its unique challenges make it a beautiful model for what is possible.
In relating the final stories and emotions of my trip, I hope to relate the sense of potent opportunity that pervaded my sojourn in the Jewish state. Yes, Israel absolutely has its faults. However, Israel also does incredible things. If it is possible for Israel to become a place of ecological sustainability, and peaceful coexistence, then forging sustainable peace must be possible anywhere. You may say that this is not possible, and indeed it is a high bar. However, the inspirational leaders I have met would be rather upset (as would I) if you consigned their passionate struggles to the realm of the naïve.
This semester I am working part-time for the Environmental Studies Department at Oberlin, and my work will focus on maintaining connections with institutions and individuals across Israel. I will write less frequently, perhaps every week or two, following the evolving thread of my passion for Zionism.
As I discussed with a mentor in Jerusalem earlier this week, I hope to create a book within 2-4 years. As I have begun to do, this opus would follow grass-roots change-makers in the footsteps of great thinkers and philosophies. As a resource, I hope this could inspire those keen on making a difference anywhere, not only Israel. Israel is a fantastic classroom, and will hopefully become the world’s teacher.


Jerusalem

I visited Jerusalem several times during my trip. I always put off writing about the Holy City because it is nearly impossible to explain, and I knew I would be back soon. So, now, I’ll do my best to relate my wanderings there. It is a city great inspiration, true wonders, deep rifts, and true difficulties.
Jerusalem is home to holy sites of all three Abrahamic faiths – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Christ is thought to have been crucified. A short walk from there, I prayed at the Western Wall, the last remaining portion of Israel’s ancient temple. After climbing steps away from the wall I could see the Golden Dome of the Rock just beyond, where Muhammad ascended to heaven accompanied by the angel Gabriel. The city is partitioned, and even the holy sites themselves are partitioned:
- At the Church, six Christian sects each control separate portions.
- At the Wall, men and women are separated.
- At the Golden Dome, also home to the Temple Mount, Jews and Muslim are separated.
This separation echoes the city’s separation in the East and West, which echoes separation felt throughout the country. Although Israel is very diverse, the vast majority of communities are homogeneous. I am pro-Israel, but do recognize that we must make changes.
Israel does not owe very much to those who want to destroy her. But, that label is not applicable in a vast number of cases. I’ll speak to this more under my reflection on seeing Barta’a with Muhammad. (One clarification: Just as Arabs deserve equal rights in Israel, Jews should be allowed to live in Palestine without threats of violence or expulsion.)
Jerusalem is not, however, a place of gloom and doom. The city is full of inspiration, not only from history and diversity. Just one example is the Church of Saint Vincent DePaul, a church offering care for children and orphans suffering from Chronic diseases.


Jerusalem International YMCA

“We are not human beings have a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
– Great Buddhist Monk, as quoted by Forsan Hussein, CEO of the Jerusalem International YMCA

"Here is a place whose atmosphere is peace, where political and religious jealousies can be forgotten and international unity be fostered and developed."
–Edmund Lord Allenby, dedication of the Jerusalem Y in 1933

Across the street from the King David Hotel, which regularly hosts world leaders including US Presidents, this YMCA promotes coexistence, peace, and interfaith dialogue.
Forsan Hussein, a young Palestinian-Israeli, has been the CEO here for 6 months. He is the first Muslim ever to become head of a YMCA. I was lucky to meet with him yesterday afternoon, and found his vision very impressive. The YMCA may become a model for Jerusalem, which may model peace for Israel, the region, and the world.


Barta’a – Living on the Green Line

From the mountains above Barta’a, I could see the alleged path of the Green line below. And, it goes straight through Barta’a. On one side there is a green-dome mosque, and on the other a yellow, but other than arbitrary landmarks it is impossible to see the line.
When I drove into Barta’a with a friend that afternoon, nothing changed after we passed over the “border”. The real border, marked by a fence and Israeli checkpoints, is significantly further into the West Bank. But would it make sense to draw a real border through Barta’a, straight through the center of a bustling market place where we stopped to walk around?
The division in Palestinian communities is not so dramatic as a border. Muhammad, the friend I visited there, explained that national services like the post office are drastically underfunded. Jewish communities have nice parks, and functional national offices. He takes his children to nearby communities so that they can play outside, because these spaces are not available in his community.
I do not want to become too political, but there are definite injustices here. This may not be institutional racism, but is a clear discrimination that demands redress.


Givat Haviva: Hashomer Hatzair

The Hashomer Hatzair movement is a progressive Zionist youth movement. It is about equality, community, and social responsibility. The movement has an educational center at Givat Haviva in northern Israel, where Palestinians and Israelis come together for dialogue work as the basis of peace through friendship. The center offers art classes, women’s studies and Holocaust studies as well.


Last Evening, and Cousin Ross

On my last night in Israel, I was hastily doing arts and crafts before I needed to leave. I sat at my cousins’ dining room table making bookmarks as I gave them pointers on how to bend wires into cute animal figurines. It was a wonderful way spend my final evening, although I could have done a more careful job with packing…
As I sat at the table with dried flowers, paper, tape, and scissors, my cousin Ross came in the front door! We had never met before, but Batsheva (my cousin I was staying with) had mentioned that this then-mystery-character would be joining us for dinner. It turned out that we are both very interested in environmental issues, specifically in Israel, and we are nearly the same age as well. It seemed poetic that even as I prepared to leave, I would meet wonderful family members in Eretz Yisrael.


On Returning to the Diaspora (written aboard the bus back to Jerusalem, via Tel Aviv):

Breaking my gaze from the window to check the time, a gut wrenching reality nudges a tear from my eye. I have gotten to know the public bus system, the “Egged”, very well, and this time tomorrow Egged and I will be shlepping my baggage to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. From there across the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and back home to the Diaspora…
Now I sit on the fourth bus connection of the night from the junction where Muhammad dropped me off. From there to Hadera. Hadera to Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Jerusalem to Efrat. Farewell nighttime Jerusalem…

Farewells, Shabbat, Gratitude and Yad-Vashem

I apologize for the delay in getting this post up. I have a spattering of journal entries from the past week, but only now have time to actually compile them into a cohesive blog post. Although these words do not convey the fast-paced intensity of the past week, it has been a period of transition, prayer, and reflection.


From Saturday Evening’s Journal Entry:

Until Shabbat began yesterday evening, the week was an intense whirlwind, actually more so than the entire trip and my life in general. Preparing to strike out on my own, I said goodbye to the Oberlin delegation, and to all of the wonderful friends we have made here. On Thursday evening I got on a bus to a Jerusalem, schlepping my 50 pound backpacking bag and doing my best to keep track of my belongings.

That night I stayed up until 3am talking to Sam, my Oberlin Zionists Co-Chair for the coming semester. We stayed in a hostel in the Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerusalem. It was very exciting to plan for the semester in our ancient capitol. Many Oberlin students are terribly misinformed about reality in Israel. We are going to do everything we can to change the scene.


Thank You:

I would never have been able to learn as much as I have so far without the generous support of many incredible people. Just a few of those to whom I thanks:

Jonathan, Yochai, Nomi, Ido – These four talented educators, from Mevuot Hanegev High School, exemplify what it means to teach. They not only have an incredible respect for their students, but also had a sincere interest in doing their best to show us Israel.

Gilad – Gilad (name change) is an Israel soldier, my age, who I have greatly enjoyed getting to know. We were both eager to learn about each other; our friendship began with conversations about life in general, but evolved into a deep examination of the conflict here. We talked about education, sustainability, personal responsibilities and respect.

Obies – I spent my first 3 weeks with a wonderful group of Obies, volunteering at Mevuot Hanegev High School, travelling, and learning all we could about the complex state of Israel.

Batsheva, Doug, Ayala, Chana, Efraim, and Yoseph – You have not only welcomed me to your family and community, but also sensitively opened my mind to reconsider the complex reality of the West Bank. Right now I do not know what I think about the occupation, but I am certainly wedged far closer to center than I had been before. One thing is for sure: if there is ever a two state solution, Jews should be allowed to live here. The vast majority of Jews here are good neighbors, offering jobs, hospital care, and other critical resources.


From Yesterday Evening, Reflection at Yad Vashem (transcribed, edited from my notebook):
I squinted as I stepped onto the Bridge to a Vanished World. Walking toward the museum’s entrance, the low morning sun sprayed my eyes. When I passed through the door to the holocaust memorial museum, everything became darker. The only natural light came through a narrow window running the length of the building. Yad Vashem – Hand and God – places sterile, cold Nazi policies alongside the faces and stories of countless victims.

As I neared the end of my two-hour walk through exhibits, I noticed a tiny mezuzah in the corner of a small room. Somewhere in the Warsaw Ghetto, somebody had found this bullet casing and carved a “Shin” into it’s now aged copper casing. The modest prayer froze my slow, deliberate, silent walk through the exhibits. It is truly remarkable that the maker of this humble Mezuzah turned a bullet, a symbol of the Jews’ destruction, into a reaffirmation of faith.

I now sit beneath the memorial to deportees, railroad tracks and a disturbingly small cattle car. The memorial is at the head of a reflection path, lined with lavender and inspiring quotations, in the Yad Vashem gardens.

My thoughts return to the Arava and Judean Deserts. There, alone, I gazed upon barren landscapes rife with historical, geological, and geopolitical struggles. I wrote about Israel’s ancient struggles to live freely in Eretz Yisrael, to hike through sterile deserts, to relentlessly defend their homeland, and to fiercely safeguard their monotheism and Jewish culture.

I sit beneath the train tracks, tracks symbolizing a terrifyingly inescapable passage to living hell. Upon arriving in Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel wrote of a “fire that consumed my faith forever.” The Nazis created a reality so evil that Jewish faith became practically untenable. Had G-d and nature “unchosen” the Jews in favor of the Aryan race? The victims of the holocaust faced not only a destroyed people, they faced a destroyed religion – a world in which, for countless victims, Judaism became impossible to believe in.

The death camps became a physical embodiment of Nazi Ideology, a landscape layering existential crisis along side real, physical pain. The trains led into a barren landscape. The world of Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka. The world of the Jew’s destruction. The world where we became powerless to defend ourselves. Many struggled to keep faith, many cursed G-d, and millions perished in terror.

That tiny bullet-Mezuzah, that humble prayer, aged but shining beneath the plexiglass, pointed me forward. We must preserve our traditions and our marvel religion in the face of a defiant world.

Every injustice is a challenge to Jews, Judaism, and Israel. Every little slice of reality that calls for compassion demands recognition and actions. I ponder the words that a prisoner penciled onto the inside of the car above me:

Here in this car load
I am eve
With Abel my son
If you see my other son
Cain son of man
Tell him I


A placard that we made for students at Mevuot Hanegev, the middle/high school where we spent three weeks volunteering.


Lavender on the Yad Vashem campus. I intentionally place this below the quotation we inscribed on our gift to the school. At Yad Vashem, where pain dominates and sorrow may triump, the winding paths of lavender offer an antidote to sadness. These flowers are incredibly small, yet in vast quantities they turned the mountaintop deep purple. And, crushed between my finger tips, the pedals let off an incredibly alive aroma.


“Architecture as pedagogy.” –David Orr
The Bridge to a Vanished World is lined with lights, leading visitors into the depths of the Holocaust. Visitors exit through the Bridge to the Living, and gaze out upon a thriving a Jerusalem.


The Memorial to Deportees, above the reflection path where I wrote in my journal yesterday.

One Cup of Tea

During the past three days I have journeyed to the Galilee and Golan Heights, met with representatives of a Druze community, and met with women who are struggling to support their community and increase literacy with an incredible Desert Embroidery project.

Desert Embroidery:

They are incredibly impressive, and just the group of passionate people that I have been looking for. Their work is incredibly brave, striving to navigate an elegant middle road between deeply rooted traditions and societal progress – traditional values and women’s rights. Their embroidery challenges gender stereotypes, builds community literacy, empowers women, and creates connections with Jewish communities.

They welcomed us with a wonderful cup of tea, and began to explain their work as we gathered in a round circle. They empower women and girls through literacy, building a stronger community and trying to make peace with neighboring communities. The parallels with Greg Mortenson's "Three Cups of Tea" were quite remarkable. There are continuing conflicts between Jewish and Bedouin communities, communities marginilized much like native Americans in the U.S. Their drive to improve their lot, contribute to Israeli culture, and maintain a positive ecological imprint is simply unbelievable. Literacy works wonders.

http://desert-embroidery.org/

Reflection from the banks of the Sea of Galilee:

“I felt my feet were praying.”
– Abraham Joshua Heschel (on marching with MLK)

I accidentally encountered a deep puddle during a late night walk along the shores of the Sea of Galilee. My feet are soaking wet as I journal from a lifeguard tower. The light breeze occasionally knocks drops of rainwater from the bamboo-mat roof, so I open and close my computer to keep it safe and dry.

I hear frogs. I hear crashing waves. I hear beetles (I think they are beetles…). I hear a stray cat. I hear wind blow and raindrops patter. A raindrop falls on my screen, and I wipe it gently away.

I could hike the perimeter of the sea in a matter of days, the sea so integrally connected to all I’ve learned here. It feeds Israel’s agriculture, but the diversion of its outflow shrinks the Dead Sea. The Kinneret is at the heart of Israel’s vitality, yet also at the core of regional geopolitical dilemmas.

There is a shiny fireman’s pole at the front of this tower. What better way to quickly escape back into the warm indoors? I look forward to hitting spongy ground below. When my wet shoes smack down on the soil below

Pictures:
Captions are below each. I really like these pictures; each one says a great deal.


Atop an extinct volcano, the peak of which pierced the clouds. Or perhaps Jurassic park. These marvelous sculptures truly came alive amongst the stunning volcanic rock. I wish I could go back and do a better job taking this picture!


The Jordan River, Yarden, where John the Baptist baptized Jesus. Stairs allow pilgrims to submerge in the holy waters. This part of the Yarden is actually not the river’s trunk, but a diverted portion, with a dam visible in the background. These diversions are a serious problem, but an agricultural necessity. As the rivers shrinks, so do Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) and the Dead Sea. This picture appears simple, but is truly stunning. We see a holy site, a modern pilgrimage site, and a dam that connects religion and history to contemporary struggles.


From the Golan Heights: the Sea of Galilee on a stormy afternoon. Notice the agriculture on the fertile banks.


Two Bedouin woman create woven products.


Shalom, our wonderful tour-guide at the Golan Heights Winery, looks out lovingly at the sea of oak barrels filled with aging wines. We went to an amazing wine tasting afterwards. For the sake of grant funding, let’s call it “field research in local agriculture and industry”.


Shabi, a biology student at Oranim college, approaches a pond. A poem is in the foreground. The poetry on this path in the botanical garden was collaboration with the literature department.


Our Druze guide demonstrates how to use a traditional coffee grinder. He met us in Osafiya, and explained that grinding coffee outside of one’s home is a sign of hospitality and welcoming.