Jul 19, 2012 - Mystical Tsfat Unravelled

The hardest thing to do in Tsfat is figure out where you actually are. The city climbs up and down a steep mountainside and each street is narrower than the next. Maps are cute but useless & irrelevant pieces of paper. Either you know that you need to make a sharp left at Yitzik's Shwarma & Gift shop and then climb EXACTLY 38 stairs before turning right at the Kabbalah Tatoo & Piercing Centre in order to get to the Khan of the White Donkey (explanation below) .... or you simply don't. In which case you end up, well, lost in Tspace. This is...

Jul 18, 2012 - Going to the Sun Road - Israeli style

When we got back into the car after lunch in Tiberias, the dashboard said the outside temperature was 51C. I took a photo for proof. That said, it didn’t seem to bother any of the camels we saw by the side of the road on the drive down, down, down, to from Jerusalem. We skirted Jericho and it’s failed PLO casino (Arafat stole all the money so they just closed it down) and headed north on Hwy 90 through Samaria and along the Jordan River valley. Our Renault Fluenze is a nice sized car. Bigger than the Mazda 3 we reserved. There weren’t any...

Jun 28, 2011 - Tsfat Tstreet Tscenes

Tuesday June 28 Tsfat (Zefat) Tstreet Tscenes The medieval flowering of Tsfat led to the mystical city on a mountaintop becoming the home for Kabbalah. The expulsions of Jews from various European cities brought some of the leading thinkers to Tsfat and, in turn, has allowed many hundreds of otherwise homeless people, to this very day, to make a living selling little pieces of red string on the streets of Jerusalem. Jeff Katz was our ex-pat Torontonian-now-in-Israel for 30 years guide the past 2 weeks when we were with our fellow Hebrew U....

Jan 3, 2010 - Day 3 - Zefat and Tel Aviv

We woke up early this morning and had our last meal at the Astoria Tiberias. We then drove about 25 minutes through the Galilee to Mount Arbel. We hiked up the mountain to the top where there was a gorgeous view. The majority of the hike was on the way down. We more or less scaled down the mountain about halfway and then took the trails down the rest of the way. Aside from the gorgeous views, there were caves in the sides of the mountain. Some of us ventured inside one and then we got to an area that had been fortified by the Jews when the...

Jan 5, 2009 - Day 5-Tiberias to Zefat to Tiberias

The alarm went off at 6:15am even though our wake up calls were for 6:30am and 6:45am. I wanted my 15 minutes of sleep! The breakfast was good. I loaded up on chocolate croissants and pound cake. I didn't really like the bagel I got from Bonkers Bagels so Kevin ate it. We drove to Tzefat (Zefat). While we were waiting to go to our first place, Sarah D. threw up. She continued to be sick and was taken back to the hotel. We continued to this area where we sat with the other buses and listened to this hip Rabbi talk about Tzefat and describe...