Tour

The girls back ship-bound, were going-south, to their Kibbutz. I would visit them-later. After that it was me and Mr. NY, and the other - Mr. California who did-not make a big-impression upon me. But it was the five of us through Christmas and New Years. Mr. NY stuck with-me. He was a fountain of information. He did it-all for us-all; found the rooms, restaurants, churches and sites to-see, arranged the transportation, and with not-even a cell-phone, did-all the talking.

"Israel is a bit of a mixture of things. Haifa is like the states, a bit like Athens. It is quite nice. Israel is sort of a melting pot for Jews from all over the world. They speak Hebrew. The signs are both printed in Hebrew and English and some in Arabic as well. Israel should be quite an exciting place because there is perhaps no other countries in the world quite like it now. There seems to be great spirit and national pride. It is a frontier in a way, perhaps like the American frontiers of the past. Well there are conjectures."

I was in Israel proper now, landing in the city of Haifa. Mr. New York found us a place to stay for a while, and we touristed at least some of the sites. We probably visited Elijah's Cave, as one of the really singular historical sites. By my almost membrance, somewhere was the old middle-ages, mini-cities of strict orthodox where-rules, the age of stone. These people stoned-people. I was told it was dangerous. We visited synagogues. Mr NY made me wear a yarmulke; though I don't remember ever seeing one before, let alone know the what of it. It was old times in the old city, not just church time. I had seen old by the millennium, but had never seen anyone actually living in-it before, actually.

Have been in Israel for two weeks now and in Jerusalem for a week. We left Haifa on a Wednesday and hitched to Tel Aviv. We left Tel Aviv on Friday by bus and came to Jerusalem. I have been traveling with a Jewish fellow from New York. We are a bit of an incongruous pair, since he is always well groomed and dressed in coat and tie. The weather was simply awful when we arrived on Friday. This fellow I am with is a bit of an organizer and a tourist, so I have been seeing some of the sites. It was from Haifa on the bus to Jerusalem and deserty country in a winter storm, trees one-time in the road, and had to be removed with the help of-us the passengers, to get through. So it already was past curfew when we reached Jerusalem and getting dark and everything shut-down, and no buses. The Sabbath begins at nightfall on Friday and lasts until nightfall on Saturday. There were no cars. But we found a renegade taxi, a few of these flying the streets, like swerve-dodge incoming prayer meeting missives. There were no lights. It was like a war-zone. We had to make it to a boarding house. And we made it. It was Mr. NY. He did it all, as I was - as lost as a lamb - in a fux yard-sale.

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