Plus

Plus

From Greek Orthodox churches to bountiful harvests, Lankika de Livera discovers Israel- the land of milk and honey
The Promised Land
This is truly a "Promised Land". A land that has been transformed through the sheer hard work of its people into salubrious climes. Sandwiched between the Mediterranean Sea on the west, Syria in the north, Jordan in the east and Egypt in the south, this is Israel..

Lush green mountains meet the blue waters of the Sea of Galilee. Tiny yellow wild flowers dot the velvety green slopes giving them a golden hue. Interspersed with the grass and the soil is the cream Jerusalem limestones, a characteristic part of the country.

This is the stone that is used for parapet walls, houses and high-rise buildings, in short, every kind of construction. Jerusalem limestone is tough and granite like, and huge blocks of these have been used to build walls for centuries in these ancient cities. Thus the cityscapes are all soothing to the eye as the cream coloured buildings blend unobtrusively with the rest of the landscape.

The air is cold at times and one has to be in winter clothing in January and even wear wind-breakers too. But suddenly through the drizzle, the sun shines brightly and many, many times we watched rainbows making beautiful arches in the sky. Once we even witnessed a double rainbow.

Hi-tech bio-technology is the highest income generator of this land. Israeli agricultural expertise is priceless. Although the soil is arid in certain areas and many deserts surround the country, the Jewish people have ingeniously transformed their soil so as to yield many different crops. They now export fruits and vegetables to Europe and other far-away countries. The Jaffa oranges we sometimes buy here in Sri Lanka, come from Jaffa, in Israel.

Israel has few rivers and very little fresh water. Sea water is desalinated and used most of the time. Rain is looked forward to, as a very precious reward. The flourishing acres and acres of orchards with trees are laden with oranges, lemons, peaches, avocado, plums, olives, dates, bananas and every other conceivable fruit that grows in the cool as well as dewert climes.

The shops have an abundance of such fruits and vegetables, neatly packed in cardboard boxes. There are even packed cactus fruits and luscious bell peppers of different colours and giant cauliflower, broccoli and a whole host of other vegetables. The fresh dates tasted so heavenly, juicy and succulent, very different to the dried dates that we buy here in Sri Lanka.

Woolly sheep graze on the green mountains and at mealtimes, people eat a variety of cheeses, milk, yoghurt and salads. About ten different kinds of olives are grown here and lots of olives are used in their cooking, not to mention olive oil.

From the vineyards come the delightful wines. At Cana, where Jesus did his first miracle, turning water into wine, our "Superlink" group from Sri Lanka bought a lot of this delicious wine. To this day, the wine produced in this area is so special that visitors who come to Israel from all over the world make it a point to buy it and take it back home.

The ancient city walls of thousands of years ago still stand, done with the cream coloured Jerusalem limestone. Some of the streets have these as cobbled stones for the roads. There is a very tall wall called "The Western Wall" or "The Wailing Wall" to which the Jewish people go to say their prayers. They believe that if you place a wish written on a scrap of paper in-between two stones of the wall, the wish will come true. We saw millions of tiny bits of paper stuck on the wall.

The only fresh water lake in the country is the Sea of Galilee. Its surrounding environment is breathtakingly beautiful. The Sermon on the Mount was delivered near here. The haunting beauty of the Mount of Beatitudes has to be experienced. I could not take my eyes off the landscape for it was the most beautiful place in the country for me the green mountains coming down to the water’s edge, the blue waters and the blue skies.

We took a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee, windy and cold, the sea gulls and albatrosses circling everywhere. It was a tremendous experience. Unforgettable too, was a meal in a restaurant by the Sea of Galilee where the main course comprised a huge fish caught from there along with their flat breads, salads and accompaniments. It was delicious. Here we fed the sea gulls with this flat bread. The gulls swarmed around us squawking and fighting for the pieces of bread we threw at them from the pier.

Earlier in our journey we had visited all the places of significance in the life of Christ. Each church had its own style. The domes and the colourful ceilings and windows in intricate stained glass were very beautiful. The arches, domes and architecture are a dream for any lover of architecture.

The ornate gold and wood work and stone carvings in the Orthodox Greek churches, with their equally ornate light fittings and carvings and accessories were a lovely sight. The many many mosaics (pictures done out of tiny pieces of coloured stone) on the church walls were also remarkable.

Our Jewish guide Moshe Nov made our trip extremely memorable and educative with his knowledge and valuable insights. We were also taken for lunch to a "kibbutz", a place where community living is practised.

There are about a hundred families, all Jewish mostly of the farming community who live as one family, in a large area of land. There is one huge dining room for hundreds of houses where they sit together for meals. They share the profits they make.

The large acreage of land they live in gives them room for cultivation, farming and ample space for housing. The kibbutz when we were hosted to lunch was called the "Nirdavaid".

The unbelievably blue"Asi" river snakes its way through the homes of the kibbutz and far away one can see the lush mountains. We fed a multitude of fish in this river with pieces of bread for which the deep green, orange and white Shelducks came swimming for in competition.

Our able tour leader Rodney Koelmeyer saw to it that all the border crossings were done with minimum hassle. Since the war goes on in the north of the country, which is very far away from where we visited, it was safe travelling.

We flew to Amman airport in Jordan and crossed the border. We could visit Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem which is in the Palestine- controlled area -without any difficulty. It was a chance in a lifetime to see this "Land of milk and honey"where hard work has done wonders.

Back to Plus