It’s still gray in New Jersey. I heard great news: it’s raining in Israel! As you will be able to see from my photos, Israel is a pretty dry country. It doesn’t rain all summer. Last June we drove down to the sea to go for a hike in Ein Gedi, a beautiful oasis near the Dead Sea. The above photo, taken from the car, shows the mountains on the right of the Dead Sea and some of the shrubbery by the sea. The Dead Sea is the lowest spot on Earth.
In this photo you can see the sea. We stopped the car for a bit, and I took this photo.
Here is Ein Gedi. It’s a great place for hiking, nature viewing, taking a dip. There’s a short and a long hike; we took the short one, but to my daughter it felt like the longest hike of her life.
Please click on the photos to really get a good feel for the area.
Some of the waterfall areas were crowded with people enjoying the water, but this little area we had to ourselves.
On the way back my husband and boys took a quick dip in the Dead Sea. My daughter fell fast asleep in the car, so I waited with her. Even though this is my 5th trip to Israel, I still have yet to take a dip in that salty sea!
Meet some of the delightful critters we saw at Ein Gedi (hyrax, ibex and tristam grackle):
It’s cold and gray and *not* snowing (we got just a sprinkle) in New Jersey (I like snow, it makes me happy), so I am reaching into the archives and bringing you this tall, pretty flower (agapanthaceae or agapanthus, thank you to my brilliant European blogger friends, Ilana-Davita and Jientje) that I photographed last July in the City of David outside the Old City of Jerusalem.
Today’s Flowers is hosted by Luiz Santilli Jr. Thank you, Luiz, for this lovely and fun meme.
Sunday in New Jersey was bleary, gray and rainy. So instead of posting a new photo I went back in the photo files to early July, when we were about to explore the tunnels in the old, old City of David (learn how old by reading my previous post on our tour of the City of David). In this photo, my daughter is seeing how high the water might go up on her body when she travels in the wet part of the tunnel. In the end, my daughter and I went through the dry section of the tour, while my husband and two boys enjoyed fifteen minutes of sploshing around in the water to get to the other side.
Thank you to Mary for this meme where one can post any photo with a lot of red or a little red. Happy Ruby Tuesday!
Benji at What War Zone? is hosting Haveil Havalim 193, Not Your Father’s Edition. If you click on it, you will see a photo that I’m not too crazy about (and some may find offensive?). But earlier this week he was posting about a cat called Humusface. If you click on that one, you will get a much cuter photo, but you won’t get a blog carnival with the best of the Jewish blogosphere, including two of my posts.
Why are there so many stray cats in Israel? My husband told me the British brought them over in the 1920s and 1930s to combat the rodent problem. When I was first in Israel in 1980, my aunt admonished me not to pet the stray cats. They were pretty straggly looking. As the economy has gotten better in Israel over the last thirty years, the stray cats have started to look better, as you can see by the kitten I photographed in the Old City of Jerusalem last July.
I took this photo last July at the Jaffa Gate outside the Old City of Jerusalem. I’ve wanted to post it, but I needed to rework the face in Photoshop so her face is no longer recognizable.
Why is she looking up, but holding the prayer book in her hand? Is it a book of Tehillim (Psalms)? What is distracting her?
Riva Ben-Ezra started Dulce Catering as a means of serving the smaller events in people’s lives – Shabbat dinners, birthday parties, Sheva brachot*, and other small gatherings. Based in Hashmonaim, Israel, Dulce Catering makes mouth-watering meals for small groups, artistic dessert platters, and eye-catching birthday cakes for your special occasion. All food is strictly kosher. Dulce also packages gift baskets for Purim and all year round.
For the past year Riva has run the first and second grade Beit Yeladim on Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, cooking and baking with them as an extension of their informal education process. She believes that teaching children to cook gives them independence, self-satisfaction, and is an excellent way to express their creativity.
Before moving to Israel, Riva and her family lived in Highland Park, New Jersey.
How did you get started in catering? I love to cook, and especially to bake. Someone has to eat all that food! Seriously, after the birth of Renatya (my second child), I wanted to find a more flexible work schedule, something that would keep me at home more and would be the creative outlet I felt was lacking in my present profession (veterinarian).
What types of catering do you do? I am not interested in giant cookie cutter affairs (pardon the pun) – I like to see the expressions on people’s faces when they eat my food, and I like to give people the feeling of being spoiled by receiving a scrumptious meal as a gift. For that reason, I prefer to do family dinners, sheva brachot, and other parties of less than 50 people. I also make designer birthday cakes and Purim baskets customized to your theme. My newest venture is children’s baking workshops and birthday parties for lower-elementary-school-aged children. Those are a lot of fun. I sell homemade ricotta cheese as well.
Where would you like to see your business in five years? I would love to have my own kitchen storefront to sell takeout and baked goods and a web site where people can order meals for their friends and family overseas. I would also like to expand to personal chef work.
What would you recommend to someone interested in catering? It isn’t just making good food. You need a strong business sense, willingness to put in a lot of unpaid/unrecognized hours, and you have to be a real people person. You must also be a stickler for detail, and be an extremely organized person. As Ina Garten says, it doesn’t matter how good the cake is if they don’t have forks to eat it with.
Herb Garden Outside Kfar Blum Kibbutz Hotel Dining Hall, Israel
The best of the Jewish and Israeli Blogosphere:
Baila hosts Haveil Havalim #187.
And Eric hosted Haveil Havalim #186 (my apologies to Eric for getting the link up this late; it’s been a busy week).
Nof Ayalon entrance into Modiin: The houses on left are Buchman, homes on right are Buchman Darom
Here is a photo of Modi’in, a new town in Israel, photographed from the distance. You can see that the fields abut tall buildings. The sky in Israel looks like this all summer; we didn’t have to bring raincoats. It doesn’t rain until fall.
Here’s how a street looks when we are driving in the town.
Right outside Modi’in will be a new railway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. One will be able to get from Modi’in to Jerusalem in about 17 minutes.
A playground in the center of town
One of the great features of Modi’in is a string of parks that run through the town. We played in this one for over an hour. It was nice to see dads out with their kids in the late afternoon.
If you live in one of these apartments, you are so close to the park. I took this photo from the playground.
A note from Baila, a blogger who lives in Modi’in:
Modiin is a planned city, planned and designed by the famous Israel architect Moshe Safdie. When he flew over the Modiin hills, and saw the valleys, he decided to use the natural contours of the lands. Modiin is a bunch of valleys where the shops, schools, medical centers, shuls, and of course parks etc are placed, and on either side of the valleys are rising apartment building and homes. There are currently about 70,000 residents, with plans for expansion up to 120,000 to 250,000 (depending on who you talk to and read).
Thank you so much, Baila, with all your help with this post. Baila also noted that the Maccabees reportedly lived in this area (2000 years ago).
If you’ve made it this far, and you are wondering about nature in Israel, a great place to visit is the Hula Valley Nature Reserve. I’m adding this here because I had some comments last time asking about nature tours in Israel. I’ve never been to the Hula Valley Nature Reserve, but it’s on my list for next time. We did visit Ein Gedi, where I photographed a hyrax, an ibex and a grackle. And I have a photo of Banias that I am saving for a future Sky Watch.
Views of the area near the Kinneret, also known as the Sea of Galilee, in Northern Israel: I took these photos in late June while on our two week trip to Israel. The top one shows the hills of the Golan, with cars on the right parked near a Kinneret beach. Before Israel took over the Golan Heights in 1967, snipers would shoot down at the inhabitants of this area indiscriminately. The middle one shows the lake itself, with the Golan Heights in the distance. The bottom one is the beach at Ginosar, a resort on the Sea of Galilee. The old boat one sees gives tours on the lake; as this area is important to both Jews and Christians, I wonder if they tell one set of stories to Jews and another to Christians? And what do the Japanese tourists hear?
Update: if you want to hear a little more about the tourist tales, please read my comments below (comment #16, #20, #34). I love all the interest! Wish I could take more photos of Israel.
Riva Ben-Ezra started Dulce Catering as a means of serving the smaller events in people’s lives – Shabbat dinners, birthday parties, Sheva brachot*, and other small gatherings. Based in Hashmonaim, Israel, Dulce Catering makes mouth-watering meals for small groups, artistic dessert platters, and eye-catching birthday cakes for your special occasion. All food is strictly kosher. Dulce also packages gift baskets for Purim and all year round.
Visit the 
