Touring in Israel including the Galilee and Tel Aviv

22/2/26   Kinneret  and Gesher in the Galilee 22/2/26

Last week Telfed had a tiyul (tour) that took us to the Kineret Collage south of the Kineret. Here we had an old guy who lives on a kibbutz nearby and he came from Perth.  He told us the story of this The Battle of Samakh. This is the final battle of the Battle of Magiddo. The ANZACs charged before dawn  and killing 98 Turks with Germans for a loss of 17 Australians. This was the final battle after that basically Kemal Ataturk was brought to the region to organize an orderly retreat. A few of the killed were Aboriginals and this is what the Statue is about.

The grave was supposed to have a cross on it but it was decided that it was better to keep it neutral and the hat on the back of the saddle is to stop people putting children on it. Visitors from Australia come and the grandchildren of the Aboriginal who fought in the war have also  visited. Samakh was an important station as it was the place that the coastal engine ended and a bigger locomotive was put on the train to take it up the mountain into Damascus. There was a turntable  to turn the engines around here. 

Afterwards we were taken to Gesher where their are 3 bridges across the Jordan River one from medieval times, parts of which could be Roman. The the Turkish railway bridge of 1904 and the third bridge was a British build bridge of 1925. Nearby is also a British Taggart Fort for the garrison of the area.

In 1948 about 2 weeks before Israel independence the Kibbutz Gesher members saw the British abandoning the fort and grabbed it they also destroyed all 3 bridges. The kibbutz was able to fend off the bombardment from the Jordanians . Later the Iraqi's arrived  and crossed the river further south.  However they never took the fort and were defeated.

You also learn the story of Naharyim the meeting of the 2 rivers the Yarkon and the Jordan. In 1926 Pincus Ruttenberg starting building a Hydropower Station. It started providing power in 1932. This power station worked till 1948

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20/10/26 Hod Hasharon and Tel Aviv.

Tessa arrived at us  on Wednesday evening 15/10/26  and on Thursday I took her on a direct bus from Hod Hasharon  to the Tel Aviv Art Museum. This museum has about 12 exhibition halls and we spent most of the day there. We saw Ilana Dotans; Shelf life painting of modern everyday things in  charcoal graphite like an egg box of plastic bubble wrap.   We then went to see the thing that was crowded which was Noma Bar : Look Again. This kept us so fascinated that we had to look at each picture and figure out exactly what we saw. A picture a dog including a cat. The face of a man included a fish and a worm. This artist lives in London and is a well known illustrator of book covers and magazines. Including some novels I have read.

The last exhibition was called Year Zero . On the eve of WW2 Dr Karl Schwarz the first director of the Tel Aviv museum went to Europe and persuaded many art collectors to send the painting to Tel Aviv for safekeeping before it was confiscated by the Nazis. He had been appointed by Meir Dizingoff the first mayor of Tel Aviv from 1922 till his death by assasination in 1936. Tel Aviv had only been established in 1909 on empty sand dunes  along the sea shore. This has paintings by Marc Chagall, Alexander Archipenko, and Kathy Kollowitz. This was the start of the museum.  Sometimes whole families were wiped out in the holocaust and never claimed their art back.

We walked from there to Dizengoff Circle through cool shaded streets with old Tel Aviv buildings around us. At the circle are hundreds of photos of people and soldiers killed since Oct 7th 2023.

We took a bus to a metro entrance and  it took us underground to the entrance of Petach Tikva where it is on the surface. Since the metro started a few years ago all along this road the old flats have been replaced by taller buildings. Residents are attracted by this quick way  to get to Tel Aviv to work. In Petach Tikva we went to the open air shuk (market) where you can get vegetables and fruit far cheaper. Some of the fruit is already ripe and must be eaten in a day or so. From there we took a bus  to the exit of Petach Tikva and I pointed out that most passengers mostly men, were going to the Arab village Kfar Kassem and all knew each other.  I must have looked old as they gave us their seats.  We changed buses and took a Hod hasharon bus home in time for dinner.

Friday I took Tessa for a long walk around our neighbourhood to see Ramot Hashavim which was an agricultural Moshav mostly egg farmers, established in 1934 by "Yekkim" German Jews who left Germany as soon as Hitler came to power and could take with them all their assets and possessions. As they could support themselves and had useful skills, they were allowed into Mandatory Palestine by  General Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope  the British High Commissioner. We visited the Museum of the Lift . This is in the open with an example of  the big box people had made and packed their possessions into  and was later kept for storage. You see pots and buckets that come with them. Pictures of the origin families that arrived always dressed in suits with ties and jackets.  There is also a photo of Toscanini who visited Palestine  to inaugurate the Palestine Orchestra (later the Israel Orchestra) in Tel  Aviv in December 1936 and again in April 1938 after which he went to the USA as he could not work under Mussolini. The picture was taken of him visiting Ramot Hashavim. There is also a picture of Dr. Haim Weitzman who was Israel's first President which must be later when he looked very frail and died in 1952.

Friday night Astrid and I made the main courses of dinner and we had supper in Tel Mond at Adam's new house. Here we introduced Tessa to our son Adam and Hadas and  boys Lavi and Yoav and baby daughter Yael. Because farmers are pulling up Mango, Lychee and Lemon trees and they no longer pay to grow, he was able to get those 3 trees already established to transplant into the garden. Which looks as it is old and establish when he got it 2 months ago.

Saturday we were up early to visit the Kibbutz for brunch in their dining hall. We wanted to get there very early and back early to avoid the traffic. Tessa had a chance to talk to Jules, Nitsan and also to see Barry's new house and meet Barry Jo, their daughter Orrly and Itay and 2 young sons Tomer and Eden.  I noticed that there is a new banana plantation and Barry told me that because  of climate change and warmer weather they can grow bananas under a shelter and in the first year there is fruit to sell as there is a big demand for bananas here.

Sunday I took Tessa to see Kfar Saba as there is a direct bus there and we saw the Gee Mall where we had coffee and rugelach. This mall is full of international type shops that you see anywhere in England but just the products cost more in Israel.  We returned via Magdiel and visited the main synagogue that was founded in 1924, Across the road is a building that was the original local council office till later on, 4 neighborhoods  joined to become the town of  Hod Sharon  in 1964, and a city in 1990. Today parts are full of high rise building and a train directly to Tel Aviv and Herzliya.  Finally we went to Falafel Kaduri which has a wide reputation and many passing through Hod Hasharon stop for a falafel. So we had falafel for lunch. After that Tessa took a bus to the station and trains to Binyamina.