Travel to Israel
Pilgrims, Prophets, Poets and Pop Stars Visit the Holy Land through the Ages
by Israel HighWay Staff

On the eve of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot (begins Thursday night, June 1), it is fitting to recall the visits to the Holy Land made over the centuries. It is written in the Torah and repeated in Shavuot prayers, "Three times a year you shall appear before Hashem… on the festival of Matsot (Passover), on the festival of Shavuot, and on the festival of Sukkot." Thus, the custom of pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Jewish Temples dates back thousands of years.

Ever since Abraham was commanded to leave his home in Ur (probably near today's Baghdad) and travel to Canaan (also called the Holy Land, Eretz Yisrael, Palestine, Israel) the land has been a magnet for the Jewish people. The Israelites left Egypt, made several bad moral turns in the desert, and 40 years later arrived in the land of Israel, in what can truly be called the first Birthright trip. The Jews who were exiled after the destruction of the first Temple in 586 BCE returned to the land of Israel 70 years later. And, almost 2000 years after the destruction of the second Temple in 70 CE, the Jews returned again.

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Teen Tourism in Israel on the Rise 6 Years after Intifada by Lois K. Solomon

Six years after the intifada choked tourism to Israel, Jewish teenagers are planning a momentous return to the Holy Land this summer. Teen tour groups report skyrocketing sign-up rates. Many of these groups canceled their tours beginning in 2000, when the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat encouraged an uprising against the Israeli government. The cancellations proceeded through 2002, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks discouraged many tourists from flying. But increased airport security and fewer suicide bombings in Israel have spurred many Jewish parents to send their children on what many see as the most important experience of their teen years.

Although South Florida teenager Daniel Wultz was killed after a recent bombing, parents say they feel overall security has improved. (South Florida Sun-Sentinel)

[Editor's note: Travel to Israel by young adults is also on the increase. The 100,000th participant in the Taglit-birthright Israel program will be announced today in New York. She is a 26-year-old who works in the communications department of the NASDAQ stock market.]

Israel a Willing Partner in Peace

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, saying Israel "cannot wait for the Palestinians forever," said his country would seek "other alternatives to promote our future." Speaking last week to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, Olmert said once the Palestinian leadership has renounced terrorism and recognized Israel's right to exist, peace talks can begin.

Recent elections among the Palestinians put Hamas, a group on many countries' lists of terrorists, in control of the Palestinian Authority. In the past Hamas has said Israel should not exist and has yet to formally change that stance.

"A Palestinian leadership that fulfills its commitments and obligations will find us a willing partner in peace," Olmert said. "But if they refuse, we will not give a terrorist regime a veto over progress or allow it to take hope hostage." He later said, "Our deepest wish is to build a better future for our region, hand-in-hand with a Palestinian partner. But if not, we will move forward but not alone." (UPI /Combined Jewish Philanthropies)

Israel Foreign Minister Livni: Israel Concerned About Darfur Situation by Herb Keinon

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met with African ambassadors in Israel last week and said that Israel cannot be apathetic regarding the suffering in Darfur. "Israel is following with concern the situation in Darfur, especially the humanitarian ramifications that are affecting millions of innocent civilians. As a nation that suffered greatly in the past, Israel cannot be apathetic toward the suffering of others," she said. (Jerusalem Post)

Israelis Celebrate Jerusalem Day by Robert Berger

Thousands of Israelis marched through the streets of Jerusalem, celebrating the 39th anniversary of the reunification of the city during the Six Day War in 1967. They waved national flags, as they marched to the Western Wall in the disputed Old City, the last remnant of the biblical Temple.

The Palestinians want the Old City and the rest of East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, but the message of Jerusalem Day is that the city is Jewish.

"Well, we have to show that Jerusalem really belongs to Israel, and that it is the heart and soul of the Jewish people here," said Yaakov Friedman, who immigrated to Israel from New York 12 years ago. "Every year, we say at Passover time, 'Next year, we should be in Jerusalem.' Well, here we are, praying and hoping that Jerusalem stays united."

At a Jerusalem Day ceremony on a Six Day War battlefield, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made it clear: "Jerusalem was born Jewish," Mr. Olmert said, and, today, more than ever, he said, it is Jewish, complete and united. (VOA News)

See Also: The Dream They Traveled To - Yerusalem

On Jerusalem Day, the Ethiopian community commemorated the 4,000 who perished on their way from Ethiopia to Israel. The memorial ceremony took place at Mount Herzl, the future home to the national monument commemorating the Ethiopian Jews who fell on the way to Israel. The monument was donated by the World Zionist Organization and will be completed within the coming year.

The annual memorial ceremony takes place on Jerusalem Day symbolizing the community's yearning for Israel's eternal capital. Tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews began the arduous trek to Israel with one word on their lips - "Yerusalem." (Jewish Agency)

British Union OKs Israel Boycott

Britain's largest union for college teachers approved an Israel boycott. On Monday, the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education voted 106-71, with 21 abstentions, in favor of the measure. The boycott applies to Israeli lecturers and academic institutions that don't publicly declare their opposition to Israel's presence in the West Bank. (JTA)

See Also: American Group Condemns British Academic Boycott of Israel

The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest general science society, today urged a British teachers association to withdraw a motion calling on its members to boycott Israeli scholars and academic institutions that do not publicly declare their opposition to Israel's policies in the territories. The group stated, "This proposed boycott [is] antithetical to the positive role of free scientific inquiry in improving the lives of all citizens of the world, and in promoting cooperation among nations, despite political differences." It added, "Free scientific inquiry and associated international collaborations should not be compromised in order to advance a political agenda unrelated to scientific and scholarly matters." (Medical News Today)

Israelis Love Their Books. June 7: Israel Book Fair by Tzvi Zinger

8,405 new titles – books, journals, cassettes and CDs – were released in Israel in 2005, according to a new report released in advance of Hebrew Book Week. The annual festival will open June 7 and, despite the name, will last 10 days. This year's theme is Developing the Galilee and the Negev, and the fair's main event will be held in Beer Sheva, in the presence of Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who is scheduled to hold a public reading.

The National Library at Hebrew University in Jerusalem reports that 6,840 books were released last year, as compared to 6,436 in 2004. In addition, there were 915 journal titles and new newspapers, and 650 non-book titles, including cassettes and CDs, appeared last year.

Other figures: 5,788 new titles were published in Israel last year in Hebrew, 567 in English, and 183 in Russian. There were 92 new titles in Arabic, as opposed to just 62 in 2004. (Ynet News/SomethingIsraeli)

Melody Is the New 'Ambassador' by Merav Crystal

A brand new Israeli diplomat has been born. Energetic, fluent and with head full of curls, Melody Sucarovich (25) was declared Saturday as the winner of "The Ambassador – Five continents" reality show, broadcasted by Israel's Channel 2 TV. The show aimed to find an ambassador who would represent Israel abroad, as part of the "Israel at Heart" organization.

Sucarovich immigrated to Israel from Germany six years ago. She is currently studying for her MBA and is fluent in several languages. She beat 13 contestants and climbed all the way to finals.

Among the complicated missions, the participants were asked to give a speech in front of African delegations and to survive a rough interview by MSNBC's reporter Rita Cosby.

Editor's note: The winner walks away with the "ambassador" title and a year-long job working for the New York-based non-profit organization, Israel at Heart. (Ynet News)

Israeli Doctors Deliver New Smiles by Laura Wiessen

When Dr. Eyal Winkler, Dr. Yitzchak Zilinsky and Dr. Yigal Shochat, three experienced plastic surgeons from Israel's Sheba Medical Center, arrived in Huancayo, Peru this past February, they knew what to expect. Waiting outside the rural local clinic were about 70 children, all suffering from some variation of cleft lip/palate disorder.

After hearing about the visit from the Israeli doctors, these children and their families flocked to the clinic, for free, quality treatment for the potentially life-threatening defect. For most of them, this would be their only opportunity.

The mission to Huancayo, in the Peruvian Andes, was the sixth cleft lip/palate mission to the developing world for Sheba. Winkler has been leading the Sheba team since 1998, when Interplast, an international organization providing free reconstructive surgery for people in developing nations, asked the hospital to join them on a mission to Katmandu, Nepal. After the Nepal mission, Winkler and Sheba administrators decided that they wanted to operate these missions on their own. As hospital CEO Dr. Ze'ev Rothstein explains "our policy is to extend help wherever it is needed." So they created "Operation New Smile" - with the goal of providing needed plastic surgery and medical care in the Third World. (Israel21c)

Gideon Hausner Students Earn $52,000 for Charity

In 1999, a program was begun at the Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School to teach students about philanthropy. "Avodah L'Olam," in which the students do their own fund-raising and advocating for causes that are important to them, has since been moved to the high school level, with both the East Bay and South Bay having their own youth foundations. With the program now in its sixth year at the Palo Alto-based Hausner, 38 seventh-graders this year raised a record-breaking $52,000. Money was directed to Israeli hospitals and charities, local, international, Jewish and secular charities. (Jewish News Weekly)

Baltimore Teens Raise Funds to Improve Others' Lives in U.S. and Israel by Joe Rosenberg

Last week's issue of the Israel HighWay included a story about Voices: The Teen Giving Cycle, through which Chicago area teens decide how to allocate funds to worthy causes in the U.S. and Israel. Joe Rosenberg, an Israel HighWay Student Advisor, is co-chair of a similar teen program that has two distinctions: it pre-dates the Chicago program, and the funds allocated are raised by the teens themselves.

As Baltimore teens, we have seen our parents working hard to raise the much-needed funds for our Jewish community, and now we are following that example with a campaign of our own!

Last year, in its second year, THE ASSOCIATED: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore's Teen Campaign raised more than $15,000 from teens in Baltimore. This year, the Teen Campaign, chaired by myself and Jenna Weinberg (pictured), is working hard to achieve its two-pronged goal; to raise $18,000 to be allocated through the Teen Grantmaking Initiative, and to fulfill its mission statement:

"To enrich the Jewish lives of high school students, and to increase the level of teen involvement in the Jewish community by providing leadership opportunities and education about fundraising and philanthropy, thus preparing today's teens to be tomorrow's leaders of the Jewish community."

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Does your community have a similar program where teens play a role in grant allocations? Let other Israel HighWay readers know about it. Email info@israelhighway.org.

Jewish Teens Bring Seeds of Peace Alumni to Bay Area Schools
by Alexandra J. Wall

Dimitry Shvartsman recently stood before a classroom and told a group of rapt teenagers what it felt like to attend the funeral of one of his closest friends. His friend, who was 14, was killed on an Israeli bus, a civilian victim of a Palestinian suicide bomber. "To sit there at the cemetery and see how a mother buries her child," he said, his voice shaking. "It's very hard." He also passed around numerous photographs of exploded buses, reduced to metal skeletons, surrounded by body parts and blood.

The students barely had time to digest his presentation before Hurriyah Ziada started to speak. She told the same group how it felt not to leave her house for an entire month because of an Israeli-imposed curfew. "You can't leave your house until further information," she said. "You don't know when you can go outside again. For one month, I only saw soldiers and tanks shooting from my window." She then passed around photographs of buildings reduced to rubble.

Shvartsman's family immigrated to Israel when he was 4 from Ukraine, and he now lives in the Israeli town of Afula. Ziada lives in Ramallah, on the West Bank. Though both have vastly different views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they learned to listen to each other, see each other as human beings and even become friends at the Seeds of Peace camp in Maine. Late last month, they told their stories to 12 different classrooms at Berkeley High, Albany High School and Marin Academy. Their 10-day visit to the Bay Area was initiated by two high school seniors who are active in Jewish Youth Community Action (JYCA), an East Bay-based social action group for Jewish teens. (Jewish News Weekly)

Yoga Practitioners in Israel Call for "Peace Through Yoga"

Yoga can help kickstart a dialogue between the Israelis and Palestinians to herald peace in the troubled mideast, a national convention on yoga, attended by about five hundred teachers and practitioners of the system, has stressed.

"Yoga emanates a positive energy that can help kickstart a peaceful dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians", Hani Rosen, the Director of the Israeli Yoga Teacher's Association (IYTA), said. "When you practice Yoga, it touches upon better feelings, which is opposite to war, opposite to aggression and you seek inner happiness for yourself and also work not to harm your surrounding," she elaborated. It may sound like "an utopian dream" but it is worth trying by bringing together the two populace, she added.

India's Ambassador to Israel, Arun Kumar Singh, addressing the participants said, "Yoga is a part of continued engagement between the two countries." (The Hindu - India)

First MDA Branch to Open in Arab Sector in Sakhnin

For the first time in Israel, Magen David Adom will open a branch in an Arab community. With a donation of some $750,000, collected by the MDA Friends Society in Britain from the Jewish community there, the city of Sakhnin will enjoy a brand new building that will station MDA crews. Over the past few months MDA has prepared the groundwork for the opening by training medics, drafting volunteers, collecting blood supplies and teaching young mothers first aid.

CEO of MDA, Eli Ben Tzayen, said, "The foundation of this building in Sakhnin represents MDA's core values, Israel's national first aid and rescue organization, of equality and availability of MDA anywhere at anytime."

The new, modern structure will contain training classrooms, a volunteers club, treatment rooms, and blood-giving stations. (Jerusalem Post)

Schechter Students Visit Israel on 8th Grade Trip

Nineteen eighth graders and their chaperones from the Solomon Schechter Day School in West Hartford recently journeyed to Israel on the annual eighth-grade trip. They explored the north, making stops at Acre, Rosh Hanikra, Tsfat, and the Jillaboon and slept at Kibbutz Hanaton. They marked Yom Hazikaron in Connecticut's sister region of Afula/Gilboa. They traveled south and stopped at a kosher McDonalds in Ra'anana. They explored the Negev, staying at the beautiful kibbutz of Mashabei Sadeh, celebrated Yom Ha'atzmaut there with a fireworks show, participated in an archaeological dig, visited Beersheva and slept in a Bedouin tent. After climbing Masada and swimming in the Dead Sea, the group concluded the trip touring Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The students were joined on their trip by a group from the Manhattan Schechter.

"I was moved to tears two times during our trip," said one of the teacher chaperones. "The first time was while we celebrated Yom Ha'atzmaut on a kibbutz in the south. Our students joined the kibbutzniks for hours of rikudei am [folk dancing]. The second time was during our trip to the Kotel. I watched as our students touched, kissed and prayed. After both of these experiences there was no doubt in my mind that American Judaism continues to be a thriving and successful institution." (Jewish Ledger)

Tel Aviv-Los Angeles Survivors Join Teens on March of Living

The Tel Aviv - Los Angeles Partnership initiated a "journey" to Poland in which Holocaust survivors and teens from both Tel Aviv and Los Angeles took part. The Tel Aviv group consisted of 20 survivors and 16 teens from different high schools around the city. The Los Angeles group consisted of 60 teens and 15 survivors.

The main purpose of the trip was to bring the first and third generations together, and enable the survivors to have some "closure" regarding their collective and individual pasts. (Jewish Agency for Israel)

Veteran Israeli Hoopsters Play for Charity in New York
by Aaron Kaplowitz

When Doron Jamchy catches fire on the basketball court, not even the New York Fire Department can contain him. Fortunately for the NYFD, Jamchy never found his rhythm as a group of New York's finest beat a team of former Israeli basketball stars by 71-57 at Columbia University on Sunday afternoon in a charity fundraiser.

Proceeds from the event went to Migdal Ohr, an organization that provides a shelter and education for over 6,500 abused, impoverished and orphaned children in Israel and to the Thomas R. Elsasser Fund, created to support the families of New York City firefighters who died non-line of duty as active members of the FDNY.

"The game was only part of the whole event," said Jamchy, Israel's all-time leading scorer, who led the Israeli squad with 12 points and was named Most Valuable Player for the visitors. "We [all] won before the game even started." (Jerusalem Post)

Soccer Star Eto'o Visits Israel

Cameroon soccer star Samuel Eto'o wrapped up a three-day visit to Israel last week with a visit to Jerusalem-area holy sites. Eto'o, 25, led Barcelona to its first European soccer championship in 14 years last week. He said he is on a goodwill mission to the Holy Land to promote coexistence between Israeli and Palestinian children and speak out against racism and violence on the soccer fields. Eto'o was the guest of the Peres Center for Peace. (AP/Ynet News)

Teenage Israeli Tennis Sensation Peer Takes Istanbul Cup and Rockets into Top 30 by Rami Hipsh

Shahar Peer is used to outdoing even her own expectations. During her first season on the senior circuit last year, the 19-year-old said she hoped to break into the top 100 in the world - she ended the season in the top 50. At the beginning of the current season Peer said she hoped to work on improving her technique and become a worthy opponent to the world' s top players.

Yesterday Peer picked up her third title of the season when she beat top seeded Russian Anastasia Myskina 1-6, 6-3, 7-6 in the final of the Istanbul Cup to pick up a $30,000 pay check and vault to No. 26 in the world.

"This is my biggest victory," said Peer. "To beat someone ranked as high as Myskina, this was an amazing end to the tournament. I never gave up and I kept believing in myself. It's great to win another tournament just before the French Open so I'm going to go to Paris really high on confidence." (Ha'aretz)

Israelis Do the Riviera. Israeli Cinema at Cannes Film Festival
by Naomi Pfefferman

Amid the celebrities and paparazzi crowding the Cannes Film Festival last week, Katriel Schory roamed the bustling boulevard Croisette like a proud parent. "Israeli cinema has never had such a presence here," Schory, director of the Israel Film Fund. Yes, Moshe Mizrahi was nominated for the top prize with his 1972 romantic drama, "I Love You, Rosa," and Amos Gitai competed five times with his edgy, political films, winning a 2000 award for "Kippur."

"But I've attended this festival for 30 years, and we have a higher profile now than ever," Schory said. "We're receiving unprecedented recognition in multiple sections of Cannes." The festival will showcase 15 movies — up from nine in 2005 — some during the first-ever Israel film day, he added.

Two Israeli students, selected by a jury that includes American director Tim Burton, will vie against 15 peers in Cannes' student competition, perhaps the most prestigious of its kind in the world. (Jewish Journal of Los Angeles)

A Government of Killers Editorial

By rights, Florida teenager Daniel Wultz should be home watching the basketball playoffs and celebrating the end of a school year. Instead, he's become the symbol of all that's diseased and dangerous in Palestinians' approach to governance and their relationship with Israel.

There will be no peace and no true Palestinian state until kids like the 16-year-old Wultz can walk the streets of Israeli cities without fear of random murder. Wultz died two weeks ago from wounds sustained in an April 17 falafel-stand suicide blast in Tel Aviv.

The bomber, recruited by Palestinian Islamic Jihad from the jobless youth crowded into tenements around the West Bank town of Jenin, was just five years older than Wultz. After Sami Salim Mohammed Hammed set off the bomb that killed himself and 11 innocents, his mother praised his death as if he'd achieved something good, instead of wicked murder.

Still, contrary to the assertions of some U.S. House members who embraced draconian anti-Palestinian legislation after the death of Wultz, whose cousin is the House Chief Deputy Majority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia, Hamas didn't orchestrate the bombing. Hamas has observed a cease-fire for more than a year.

But Hamas might as well have detonated the bomb. A Hamas spokesman praised it to the New York Times as "a legal and natural reaction to the Israeli crimes." Hamas may hold the majority in the Palestinian parliament after January elections. But as long as Hamas fails to see how corrosive and wrong terrorist tactics are, it's impossible to criticize Israel's decision to move unilaterally to erect additional security barriers and internal borders. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

Middle-Eastern Quagmire by Jared Miller

Why should we be involved in Iran? Well, for starters Ahmadinejad's foreign policy is less than charming. He is no friend of Zionism. This puts the already hard-pressed Israel in an even worse situation. In fact, one of the goals of Ahmadinejad's administration calls for the destruction of Israel, which he refers to as a disgraceful stain. This coupled with the fact that he is a strong believer that the Holocaust is a myth, or at the least not entirely true.

But the most important reason for keeping our eyes on Iran is the fact that the country has been trying to develop nuclear weapons. Although Ahmadinejad denies these accusations, saying that "[there is] no such policy and this [policy] is illegal and against our religion." Iran currently claims that it is developing nuclear technology not for weapons but for civil uses, such as nuclear power plants. However, if Iran is not trying to develop nuclear weapons, then why is Iran's nuclear program shrouded in mysteries? For what purpose do they need underground research facilities?

The only course we can feasibly take is to hold our ground. I'm not calling for pacification or a withdrawal from Iraq. That would be one of the most dangerous things we could do right now; especially with an ambitious nuke-seeking leader such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran. (Jared Miller is a student at the Union-Endicott NY High School) (Tiger Eye)

Actually, they never left. The rabbis of the Mishna lived in the land of Israel in the first and second centuries CE. The Amoraim of the Gemara lived in Israel and Babylon between the 3rd-6th centuries, and the Talmud has many stories of the travel by the sages to the land of Israel. The travel to Israel continued through the Middle Ages.

The Aliya of Three Hundred Rabbis

Many people believe that the history of Zionism started when Theodor Herzl convened the First Zionist Congress in 1897. But, actual Zionism started much earlier. When Saladin conquered Jerusalem in 1187, a wave of Zionism rippled across Europe. The first reaction to this is the immigration group dubbed: "Aliya of Three Hundred Rabbis." In this Aliya, a group of three hundred rabbis left southern England and France for Palestine. This immigration could be interpreted as very early Zionist action. The rabbis' main purpose was to strengthen the Jewish community in Jerusalem. At first they succeeded and enriched Jewish community there. Although this would seem like a joyous success, the fate of these rabbis is unknown. Some historians believe that most likely they died, along with their communities, in the bloody war between the Crusaders and the Muslims over the land of Israel. Even though in the end the "Aliya of Three Hundred Rabbis" was ineffective, it spurred an active period of Aliya that lasted through the 13th century. (Submitted by Barry Feinstein)

How did the Jews of the Middle Ages even know about conditions in the land of Israel other than the tales from the Bible? Their imaginations were nourished by visitors to Israel, particularly travelers and chroniclers like Benjamin of Tudela, who left his home in Spain in 1160 on a pilgrimage to Eretz Yisrael and traveled the world a century before Marco Polo. After visiting Rome and Constantinople, Benjamin set off across Asia, visiting Syria and Palestine before reaching Baghdad. From there he went to Persia, then cut back across the Arabian Peninsula to Egypt and North Africa, returning to Spain in 1173. In all, he visited over 300 cities. (Wikipedia)

Benjamin described his visit to Jerusalem: There are about 200 Jews who dwell under the Tower of David in one corner of the city. The lower portion of the wall of the Tower of David, to the extent of about ten cubits, is part of the ancient foundation set up by our ancestors, the remaining portion having been built by the Mohammedans. There is no structure in the whole city stronger than the Tower of David. The city also contains two buildings, from one of which - the hospital -there issue forth four hundred knights [Crusaders]; and therein all the sick who come thither are lodged and cared for in life and in death. The other building is called the Temple of Solomon; it is the palace built by Solomon the king of Israel [a common, mistaken belief]. Three hundred knights are quartered there. (Voyages of Benjamin)

Great Jewish scholars of the era visited Eretz Yisrael , and in some cases moved there. Moses Maimonides (the Rambam) left Morocco in 1165 and visited Palestine before settling in Egypt. He was buried in Tiberias when he died in 1204.

Nachmanides (the Ramban, 1195-1270) arrived in the Holy Land when he was already 72 years old and found a devastated land, the result of the Crusader-Muslem wars. In Jerusalem he couldn't find 10 men for a minyan. He wrote to his son: "Many are [Israel's] forsaken places, and great is the desecration. The more sacred the place, the greater the devastation it has suffered. Jerusalem is the most desolate place of all."

The Jewish sage immediately began to rebuild a Jewish community, complete with synagogue and yeshiva. Jews began to move back to Jerusalem. The synagogue thrived for the next 300 years. Eventually it was destroyed by Jordanians after the 1948 war, but today, the Ramban Synagogue is rebuilt.

The Jerusalem-born Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534–72) settled in Safed, in northern Israel, and made it a center for Kabbalah study. It became a magnet for more travelers to Eretz Yisrael, still today.

Non-Jewish Pilgrims, too

By the 19th century, Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land were common, and different countries established their own compounds in Jerusalem for their citizens. Today, several Jerusalem neighborhoods still bear the names of these areas: the German Colony, the Russian Compound, and the American Colony.

The American community had a most unusual diplomatic representative, Warder Cresson, a Philadelphia Quaker born in 1798. President John Tyler nominated him to serve as the first U.S. Consul to Palestine in 1844. Four years later, Cresson converted and became an Orthodox Jew, taking the name Michael Boaz Israel ben Abraham. He returned to the United States to tie up loose ends, but in May, 1849, his wife took him to court, and succeeded in having him declared mad. He appealed the decision, and the May 1851 trial was one of the most famous cases of the time.

Michael Boaz Israel returned to Palestine and attempted to establish an agricultural colony in Emek Refaim (today a Jerusalem neighborhood). He married a Sephardic woman and lived the life of a pious Sephardic Jew. He became a prominent leader of the community and when he died in 1860, he was buried on Jerusalem's Mount of Olives. (Jewish Encyclopedia)

Innocents Abroad

Too bad Cresson died before Mark Twain got to the Holy Land in 1867. Twain probably would have enjoyed his company. Twain's travels through the Mediterranean region was chronicled in Innocents Abroad with great wit and irony. Interestingly, in almost all of his ports of call Twain wrote about the state of the Jewish communities.

Twain found an abandoned Holy Land: "We traversed some miles of desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given wholly to weeds - a silent, mournful expanse... A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. No landscape exists that is more tiresome to the eye than that which bounds the approaches to Jerusalem... Jerusalem is mournful, dreary, and lifeless. I would not desire to live here. It is a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken Land... Israel sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies... Israel is desolate and unlovely. And why should it be otherwise? Can the Curse of the Deity beautify a land? Israel is no more of this work-day world." (Innocents Abroad, especially after Chapter 50)

100 Years after Cresson

In March 1948, a young college student received his degree and decided to sign up as a foreign correspondent for the Boston Post. Within a month, Robert F. Kennedy (later senator and presidential candidate) found himself in the thick of the fighting in Palestine. Kennedy's biographer, Arthur Schlesinger, wrote, quoting from Kennedy's letters, "He was considerably impressed by the Jews. 'They are different from any Jews I have ever known or seen.' As for the Arabs, 'I just wish they didn't have that oil.'"

The Jews in Palestine, Kennedy continued, "have become an immensely proud and determined people. It is already a truly great modern example of the birth of a nation with the primary ingredients of dignity and self-respect. Many of the leading Jewish spokesmen for the Zionist cause in the United States are doing immeasurable harm for that cause because they have not spent any or sufficient time with their people to absorb the spirit." (Robert Kennedy and His Times)

Bobby Kennedy never forgot that trip. Twenty years after Kennedy wrote those words, and one year after Israel's victory in the 1967 war, Robert Kennedy was shot down during his presidential campaign by a Palestinian assassin who sought revenge for Kennedy's support for Israel.

Other Statesmen

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had a life-altering experience at the world-renowned Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, and the Children's Memorial in Israel. She had been researching her Jewish roots prior to her September 10, 1997 visit, and she felt a strong connection to her people while at the museum and memorial. Albright paid tribute to the people of Israel "for remembering at Yad Vashem," saying that she will never forget her visit. Seeing the museum and memorial was not only a deeply emotional experience for the recently discovered Jewess, but it served as a master history lesson for her. "The history remembered here is at odds with all we would like to believe about ourselves and about our world. It is a history of unbearable sadness, unrelieved suffering, and unbelievable cruelty…We must never allow ourselves to be at peace with the Holocaust or to believe we have somehow mastered its lessons. We must never allow ourselves to forget," said Albright. "As your guest in this sacred place, moved by love, I pray for an end to intolerance, the nurturing of knowledge and a coming together in peace."

In December 2001, shortly after the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York City, the sitting NYC Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, and New York Governor George Pataki flew to Israel with the mayor-elect, Michael Bloomberg, on his private jet. The three left behind a financial crisis, a mayoral transition and a country on the highest state of alert in order to show their support for Israel. The federal government approved of this trip, despite the fact that three significant public officials would be flying together in the same aircraft. The three men's trip included visiting sites in Israel that were recently attacked by suicide bombers and meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other government officials. "It is an appropriate time to show the people of Israel that our prayers are with them," said Mayor Bloomberg.

And Now for the Entertainment

Pop star Madonna caused a worldwide stir upon her trip to Israel in September 2004. She toured with 110 people, only five of them musicians. Also known by her adopted Hebrew name "Esther," she spent the majority of her tour in her lavish hotel with her 2,000 fellow Kabbalah students in a room which she converted into a synagogue.

Before leaving Israel, Madonna made a pitch for tourism to Israel. "It is no more dangerous to be here (in Israel) than it is to be in New York," she declared, "and I would like to emphasize that I feel very safe and very welcome."

The late Superman, Christopher Reeve, visited Israel in 2003 to promote his cause of stem-cell research. Reeve spent time praying at the Western Wall and raising awareness of and funds for his program. Although difficult for Reeve to speak, he spoke about the commendable research that is taking place in Israel to help victims of paralysis. Superman passionately asserted in Hebrew, "Hakol efshari! Everything is possible."

(Some of the profiles above were submitted by Amanda Bier.)