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.

Chanukka sameach!

Happy Chanukka! Today is already the last of the 8 days of Chanukka. It was also celebrated in the physics faculty. Every afternoon at 5pm, people from the whole faculty met in the entrance hall and somebody lit candles on the chanukkia (nine-branched candelabrum) according to the day. At first I was surprised to see nine branches instead of the famous seven of the so called menora. It becomes clear with the (hi)story.
After fights against the Hellenistic occupation and an altar for Zeus in the temple, only a small jug of consecrated olive oil was left that was expected to be just enough to light the candles in the temple for one day. In the end, the miracle was reported that it lasted for eight days. For this reason, on Chanukka, one more candle per day is lit. So on the first day, the central candle is lit that is in turn used to light the first candle (in total 2). On the second day, the central candle plus two regular candles, and so on until on the eighth day, all 9 candles shine. There are even 9 candles below the traffic lights of the main street of Rehovot.
Since oil plays such an important role, the traditional Chanukka food is fried in a lot of oil: sufganiot (doughnuts/Berliner) and levivot (potato/vegetable pancake, jiddish latkes). In fact, these two specialities and other sweets were served every day in the physics department! (This compensates for all the Spekulatius, Lebkuchen, Plätzchen that I do not eat during the advent season...) Today I was at a conference that ended with amazing sufganiot, not only filled with jam, but with other sweat creams and decorated with chocolate on top.
While somebody lights the candles, one of the traditional Chanukka songs is sung. In the physics department, every day somebody also gave a little speach, for example once a Jewish physicist told about his childhood in North America, where Chanukka has to "compete" with Christmas. He also highlighted that Chanukka is less commercialised. Children often receive dmei chanukka, small presents like chocolate coins and a sevivon (spinning top) with 4 sides that show the letters נגהפ/ש (nun, gimel, he, pe/shin) for "nes gadol haya po/sham" (a big miracle was here/there, depending on whether the player is in Israel or in the diaspora). Today at the Hebrew course we also received a spinning top and sufganiot made by our teacher!

Only once the tradition appeared weird to me when 2 orthodox men walked into a pizzeria, installed candles in the chanukkia and asked a guest to light the candles. But for this, they put a kippa on his head although he does not wear a kippa otherwise.

Apart from that, chanukka as the festival of lights creates a cosy atmosphere on the dark "winter" days. Religious and historical traditions seem to mix with the ambition to create the most delicious and fancy sufganiot...

Israeli-German chamber music ensemble

So good that I took my viola with me to Israel! It did not take long until I found a chamber music ensemble here. Niv, who plays the violin, and Renan, who is a pianist, have recently moved from Haifa to Rehovot to continue their studies at the Weizmann Institute, and they were looking for 3 more chamber musicians to found a piano quintet.
So far, the three of us have been practising Schumann's beautiful "Märchenerzählungen" (originally for clarinet, viola and piano, but the version with violin sounds also great) in the music room on campus. In order to complete the quintet, now we have found an German violinist, Ilja, who also attended the Hebrew course, and an Israeli cellist. Soon the Dvorak rehearsals will start. Up to now, we have been rehearsing in English. Maybe I know more music vocabulary in Finnish (due to 1 year in YS, the university orchestra of Helsinki) than in English. I hope that sooner or later my Hebrew will reach a level that allows for rehearsals in Hebrew!

Sick abroad :(

Being sick is not nice, and being sick abroad might be an adventure. Luckily, Israel is known for its high medical standards. However, so short after our arrival in this foreign country, our immune systems still need to learn how to fight against the local viruses and bacteria...

Some weeks ago, my stomach suffered from some food I was not used to, but after one day, I was fit again.
While November is the typical time in Germany for a cold, it surprised me that both of us caught a cold here at 25°C. Even worse, my sore throat turned into an inflammation in the ear. After several days of pain, I looked unsuccessfully for precise information about doctors in Rehovot online, so I asked colleagues if they could recommend me someone. I called the number a colleague gave me, explained my ear ache in a mixture of Hebrew and English and got an appointment for the following day. When I arrived, the doctor's receptionist could not find me on the list. She asked me to come with her to a separate room. It seemed quite strange to me. Then she explained me I should go 2 streets further, enter building no. 4 and ask on the 3rd floor for a treatment of my ear. Okay, so I walked to the other street, entered a big building and found many people on the 3rd floor. In fact, it seemed to be a medical center as they are apparently typical in Israel.
The receptionist spoke less English than I Hebrew, so I tried to explain her my story how I was sent there from the other place in Hebrew (just 2 days before I had learned how to form the past tense of some verbs...). Luckily, I had prepared a list of words like "health insurance", "inflammation",... beforehand. Then she asked me if I wanted a
 רופא אף אזן גרון (nose throat ear doctor). Another patient had cancelled his appointment, so I did not need to wait, but she led me directly along the long corridor with many doors of many doctors' rooms to the specialist and explained him my situation with the German health insurance in Hebrew (I understood only very few words). The doctor asked me if I could speak English. I was very relieved that my extremely limited knowledge of Hebrew would not be needed in this situation. The doctor was very friendly, asked why I moved to Israel, how I like working at the Weizmann Institute (his wife also works there), if physics was a difficult subject and with so few women... Quickly, he found a diagnosis, prescribed some drops from the pharmacy and then wondered about the reimbursement procedure with my German health insurance (for 3 years abroad). Then he concluded that, because I am so nice and he is so nice and he does not like bureaucracy like signing a form for the insurance, he would not take any money!
Instead he wished me shabbat shalom and that I should enjoy my postdoc time in Israel!

Archaeology and hike in the desert: Mamshit

Two weeks ago, we were lucky to get the chance of visiting the desert again! Uri, the oldest son of Yossi (the professor who had picked us up from the airport), was planning a trip to the desert with his friends and he offered us two seats in his car :-) In total, we were eight people: six Israelis and us, so that we learned a lot about the country and had a long conversation about politics in the car.
We drove to the Mamshit National Park with an archaeological site (UNESCO world heritage) and a hiking trail trough a valley.  The ancient city had been founded 2000 years ago by the Nabateans, a people who lived in the desert and had an extensive trade network on the Arabian Peninsula and in the Levante. Their most famous city is Petra in Jordan.  At Mamshit, one can also find Roman pillars from the time when the Nabatean kingdom became a Roman province. In addition to living houses with mosaics on the floor and a tower, we also saw a street of the former Nabatean market and a Byzantine bathhouse - all very impressive!
Then we walked through the Wadi Mamshit, the valley of a dry river. Only due to the recent rainfalls, there were few ponds. We even saw a few animals in the desert: marmots, birds, lizards, insects, rock hyraxes (looking a bit similar to a marmot/marten), a fox and camels (from a nearby camel farm)!

 

Sun, rain and sandstorm

What a climate zone with 30°C in November! When we arrived here in mid October, the temperatures climbed even above 30°C and it was so humid that we were already sweating from doing nothing. Even at night it was still too warm for us. In our second week here, the rain season started. Rain here is not the same as rain in central Europe. When it starts, it is no drizzle, but immediately an extreme rainfall that might be switched off as suddenly as it started. In the last week of October there were also strong storms that caused short power outages. However, after the first rain of the season, it did not cool down very much. At least it is less humid now and temperatures in the past week (first week of November) ranged between 20 and 30°C.
On Wednesday it was quite grey and the view was not very clear. At first we thought that it was just cloudy and foggy, but later we learned that a lot of sand from the desert was in the air due to strong winds from the north of Saudi-Arabia. This caused a severe air pollution and such a restricted sight distance that some flights had to be cancelled.
In fact, our apartment gets dusty very quickly when we leave the windows open. After the sandstorm, in particular our balcony was covered by a layer of red-yellowish sand - now we know where it came from.

Anyway, it is a funny feeling to walk outside all the time in a t-shirt although it is already November. I won't complain!

Old Jaffa, concert and Rabin

On Saturday, October 31st, we visited the old part of Tel Aviv: Jaffa, an old Arabic harbour and trading town that now belongs to Tel Aviv. From the Jaffa hill, one also has a nice view of the coastline of Tel Aviv.  You can find mosques with minarets, a synagogue and churches in this part of town - and  a lot of tourists. Indeed it is a beautiful district and quite a contrast to modern Tel Aviv. In Jaffa, we walked through paths of old stones, from the main square on a hill down to the lively harbour where we watched the sunset.
Directly after sunset, we were surprised by a sudden, very loud sound: from the mosque! The imam was starting his prayer, amplified by loudspeakers on the outer part of the minaret.

Later in the evening in a different neighbourhood, we had a delicious dinner in a restaurant located directly opposite of the entrance of a large synagogue. The place was full of young people and we were lucky to get the last free table. We ate eggplants and eggs in a spicy tomato sauce and green Jericho beans.

Afterwards, we walked along the elegant Rothschild boulevard towards the concert hall. There I listened to an overwhelmingly beautiful concert by my former class mate Igor Levit from Hannover who is now a world-renowned pianist, the designated conductor of the Berlin Philhamornics, Kirill Petrenko, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Inside the concert hall, it nearly felt like being in Europe.
Meanwhile, Matthias was walking around, taking pictures and by chance ended up at the square in front of the town hall with a crowd of people and music. Then Bill Clinton spoke. It was in honour of Yitzhak Rabin who had been killed exactly at that place 20 years ago by a Jewish extremist after Rabin had signed the Oslo Accords for peace with the Palestinians.