Haifa (Tuesday May 19, 2009)

We are now in the beautiful port city of Haifa on the Mediterranean Sea at our Dan Panorama Hotel. The bus ride from Jerusalem to Haifa took about 1 hour and 50 minutes. You get the feel for the small size of the country when most of the major cities are 2 hours apart. The width of Israel is even shorter and a large part of Israel is the West Bank and dessert. We could see many cities and towns outside our window to the East with many mosque towers, which we presumed were in the West Bank. Later we could see the Mediterranean coast as we approached Haifa. Most of the landscape on the trip was rocky soil with irrigation farming and in the distance there would see city buildings. We saw cows, sheep, horses, chickens as well as fields of grapes, fruit trees and vegetables. The Dan Panorama hotel in Haifa is larger and newer than the Dan Panorama hotel in Jerusalem. Our room overlooks the city of Haifa and the ports. On the other side of the bay is the city of Aka

Today we went to the famous Baha’i Gardens in Haifa which are a few blocks from the hotel. The gardens go down a steep cliff towards the seaport of Haifa. At the end of the garden is a sanctuary with a golden dome. This is the world headquarters for the Baha’i faith. We took a tour which emphasized the Baha’i faith as well as the gardens. The tour was free since they accept only money from its church members. The Baha’i faith accept all the other faith leaders, (Abraham, Moses, Christ, Mohammad, Buddha) as prophets and feel they are the unifying religion. In the end, it seems they are just another religion.

We met Nomi Sela’s (Moses) two sons, Ilan and Oded Sela, tonight in Haifa and Oded had to leave after a short visit, but Ilan stayed and had dinner with us. They were late in reaching us due to a marathon race on the streets of Haifa during rush hour and blocking most of the major streets near the hotel. Ilan works for a company in the construction industry that makes glass for windows and doors and Oded works for a company that makes computer communication packet switches which compete with CISCO. Oded had gone to college at CalState Northridge in Long Beach, Ca.. Both are married and have young children, but we did not get to meet their family. Ilan has 4 children and Oded has 3 children. Ilan spent some time updating the family tree which I will update when I get home. Their grandfather, Walter Moses, came to Palestine in 1934 from Germany and is considered an early Zionist. There was not much in Palestine at that time so it was hard work, mostly farming.

Tomorrow we are going to our last stop in Israel, Tel Aviv. We will travel by bus to Tel Aviv.