Archaeological digging at Bet Guvrin

Believe it or not - I found pottery, bones, sea shell and charcoal in an underground archaeological digging site today :-) We enjoyed very much joining another trip organised by the Visiting Scientist office of the Weizmann Institute. This time we went with a large group to the national park of Bet Guvrin that belongs also to the UNESCO world culture heritage. This place and the neighbour city of Maresha in the Judean Lowlands (south of Jerusalem and close to the Westbank border) has a long and eventful history. Jews used to live there starting at least 3000 years ago. The city was destroyed by Babylonians, later Edomites made it part of their kingdom, then it had an Hellenistic episode until the Hasmoneans conquered Judea. In 40 BCE, the Parthians destroyed Maresha completely. During the Roman era, the inhabitants moved from Maresha to Bet Guvrin. After Jewish and Byzantine epoches, Bet Guvrin was conquered by Arabs. Also Crusaders built a fortress.
Long history short: whoever lived in that region exploited the soft structure of the limestone and dug huge caves into the ground that are now even open for tourists. First, we took part in a real archaeological activity! In fact, groups help there every day. Equipped with hoe and shovel, we helped excavating two basement rooms where ancient inhabitants had stored there belongings or were hiding themselves in times of war. We found really many smaller and few larger pieces of pottery, especially from amphoras. After putting the findings in one bucket and the dirt into many other buckets, we had to carry the heavy buckets out of the basement and then screened them for any smaller pieces that we might have missed. After this exciting activity, we got a tour into one of the fully excavated system of caves, even with an olive press. Another highlight was to crawl through honestly very narrow tunnels, lit only by candles, between several former houses! Underground, we also saw columbaria (many niches for pigeons).
The Sidonian burial caves from the Hellenistic time are beautifully decorated with wall paintings of real or mythological animals.
Furthermore, we entered the impressing, so called bell caves where a small hole into the uppermost hard layer of stone was the starting point for digging out huge volumes of soft limestone.
At the end of the trip, we had a good view from the hill Tel Azeka. Israel is so narrow that we could see on one side the coast line with the cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon (probably we also saw Gaza at the horizon) and on the other hand the Judean mountains nearly up to Bethlehem and Hebron in the Westbank. From the view point we also saw the valley where the battle of David and Goliath is said to have taken place. The Philistines where settling at the Mediterranean coast and the Israelites further in the hills.

It was a very interesting day full of history, archaeology and beautiful nature because now in winter the hills are green and some flowers are blooming.

Happy New Year - but nobody notices

"10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 - Happy New Year!!" Imagine the New Year starts and nobody notices it.
Bars in the hip neighbourhood Florentin were full last night, but in our bar, only the 7 of us at one table were counting the last seconds of the old year and clinking glasses at midnight. Guests at the surrounding tables did not even pause in their conversations, they just went out on a normal Thursday evening (weekend is Fri+Sat). A few bars had some "2016" decorations in their windows, so apparently some people did celebrate New Year's Eve even in Tel Aviv, but is definitely not the standard. Well, this should not be too surprising, because the new year (rosh hashana) of the Jewish calendar starts in autumn. But somehow I had assumed that the lively metropolis of Tel Aviv would not want to omit such an opportunity to celebrate. The question if "New Year's Eve is someone else's party" is discussed in the following newspaper article: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.566236.

However, we enjoyed a very nice evening in Tel Aviv in a group of 2 Israelis and 5 foreigners. Before the drinks in Florentin, we had a delicious dinner in Jaffa in an authentic Arabic restaurant (Abu El Abed - I can highly recommend it) which was neither touristic nor crowded nor expensive. Even before we ordered food, they brought us lots of amazing appetizers like tabouleh, vegetables, spicy sauces, hummus... Later we had fried cauliflower in lemon-garlic sauce, stuffed vegetables and wine leaves, labane (yogurt-cheese with spices), mokka with cardamom or black tea with nana and baklava - I am sure I will come back.

Finally: Happy New Year to all readers of my blog!

White City, Neve Zedek and sunset at the beach

After we had stayed in Rehovot on two consecutive weekends because we were a bit sick, we were looking forward very much to new trips and activities. On December 5th, we went to Tel Aviv by sherut. It was a sunny, but very windy day and surprisingly cold (15°C). Israelis were wearing winter coats.
We took part in an interesting guided walking tour through the "White City", which belongs to the UNESCO world culture heritage. Tel Aviv is the city with the largest number of Bauhaus buildings worldwide. The Bauhaus style was developed in Weimar and Dessau between 1919 and 1933. It combined fine arts, architecture and design by a fusion of handcraft and arts such that the style should be present also in every day life. The Nazis considered it as "socialist, degenerate arts". Under pressure, the first Bauhaus school in Weimar closed and re-opened in Dessau. However, the Jewish artists and architects were in danger and fled to Palestine. At that time, Tel Aviv was growing very fast and a new neighbourhood was built in the Bauhaus style that is characterised by its functionality with interesting forms and some decorations, mostly in white. The tour started on the elegant Rothschild Boulevard where one can see historical buildings next to modern towers.
After the tour with walking and standing, we were quite cold and drank for the first time a coffee in an Aroma café. Aroma is the largest and most popular chain of cafés in Israel, you can find them virtually everywhere. On the first floor of Aroma, we enjoyed both the warm coffee and the view over the Rothschild Boulevard and the people walking or jogging along.

Next, we visited the beautiful Neve Zedek, a district with a creative flair, full of cafés, restaurants, small design shops, a pretty square with dance and theatre studios around. We enjoyed walking around and ended up at the sea where we also observed the sunset before dinner in a stylish & cosy vegan restaurant in Neve Zedek. The night was still young and we joined the party at the cocktail bar of the brother of our friend and colleague Avital. He celebrated the first anniversary of his bar in Florentin, a hip part of town where many students live.
After a long and beautiful day, we took a sherut back to Rehovot although trains were operating again on Saturday evening, but the walking distance to and from the sherut was shorter and the price is almost the same as by train.