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Showing posts from July, 2013
Below is the letter my father wrote to his Sunday School class at Bayshore Baptist Church in Tampa, FL that I mention in my post below.  His letters are the inspiration for what has become this blog from Israel. Letter to Bayshore and Friends 20 July 2013 Dear Friends, I was sitting in the passenger seat in the van yesterday at Shikhin with my computer in my lap putting in record points. I can hear the sounds of human voices and of tools clanking and clinking twenty yards away. A whole swarm of men on bikes pedal past, speaking to one another in Hebrew, but keeping their eyes on the path and the man ahead. Bike paths are the new thing this year on the park lands.  As I sit there I spot three sturdy men about 50-60 years old walking toward me, but not in biking clothes.  I was not sure where they were going, but they were walking towards me after all, almost marching in step.  I waited, and when they arrived at the van the man in the middle smiled and said, "

Second Post 2013

Dear Family and Friends, I missed writing last week because the weekend was completely filled with obligations, some welcome and others just plain tiring.   Friday was our first kiddish celebration: a welcoming of the end of the work week and the beginning of Sabbath rest with a little service that entails blessings in Hebrew over candles, “fruit of the vine,” and bread, some readings from the Bible and a book of prayers (the readings are our own idiosyncratic additions), a singing of Psalm 133:1 (“Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters live together in unity.”), and then a round of hugs accompanied with the blessing, “Shabbat Shalom” or “Sabbath peace.”   Dinner follows.   Last Saturday we took our first weekend trip to Sepphoris and Capernaum and ending with a dip in the Sea of Galilee.   It was blazing hot.   This was the first year we’ve gone to a pay beach, which means we had access to a clean area under trees with chairs, a grill, bathrooms, and ma

First Post 2013

Dear Family, Colleagues, and Friends, I traveled without incident from Birmingham (where I met Claire Oldfather), Atlanta (where we met Aaron Carr), and JFK (where Rachel Stivers-Bender joined the group).   “Without incident” does not include Aaron’s upgrade to business class, my sore tailbone, or the loss of one piece of luggage, which has since arrived.   So everyone and all things are safe and sound where the temperatures are hot but cooler than Birmingham and the view of Shikhin nestled on the edge of the Bet Netofa Valley surprises the eye like an unexpected postcard from Tuscany.  Then you see the thistles. We landed July 2, set up stores and collected our surveying equipment on the 3 rd , and on Independence Day made our first trek to the site, only to discover that someone had blocked the gate we used last year (and out of which some cows escaped) with large stones.   Naturally we moved them.   We judged that enduring a Moshavnik’s ire is preferable to strippin