==The Setting==
From the snowy Peak of Mt. Hermon in the northern Galilee, through the lush greenery around the blue waters of Sea of Galliee, the Kinneret, to the heights of God drenched JeruslemJerusalem, down the shores of the Dead Sea, through the Negev Desert, to the southern tip of the resort town of Eilat on the sparkling Gulf of Aqaba, israel is a quilt work and a Mosaic of experiences for the Tourist to Israel.
Its 7,850 sq. miles and size about that of New Jersey, has varieties of temperature and terrain as does the State of California. Its 6.7 million potpourri of peoples, from over 100 countries on 5 continents combined with their religions of Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and Druze, or of no religion whatever, provide for the tourist a heady delight to experience and much food for thought. And a musical confluence of Hebrew and Arabic, and Ethiopion and Russian, French, English, Spanish, Persian, Portuguese, a number of Indian dialects from the recently found and immigrated exiled Northen Tribe of Israel tribe of Northern India, the Bnei Menasha (the sons of Manessah), who look like Philippinos.
==The Ways==
Tourism in Israel is as variegated as is the Land and its people.
===Tourism can be vertical===
Such as at Mount Zion in Jerusalem. Entering the room below that of the Last Supper of Jesus, one views the huge remembrence stone of King David from Crusader times. But behind the wall, one can see the niche in the wall at the exact height above the ground for the biblical Scrolls scrolls to be placed. So this room was originally a synagogue. Walking around the outside of the room, one sees the "Herodian" stone blocks with their characteristic and tell-tale incised borders. so So this room was originally built in the first cntury. And then you will be told by the Guide that an artillary shell from the 1948 War of Independence landed in the courtyard, shattering the successive layers of plaster, until the last layer, that did indeed extend down past the Ottomon Turk, early Early Muslim, Crusader, Byzantine levelperiod levels, and ending with the original 1st century floor, was inscribed in first century Greek with prayers to Jesus. So this was a Jewish Christian synagogue, the first Church and home to the original Believers in Jesus before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The "Church House" that would later be called "The Holy Church of the Aposles" and the Mother of all Churches.
===Tourism can be horizonal===
Layed Laid out before you in all directions, while one is in a "Jesus boat" (one of the touring attractions) on the gentle (most of the time) blue waters of the Sea of Galilee. There to the left on the eastern shore is the once fishing village of TiberiaTiberias, now the more fascinating home of the Shwarma in Pita, and rythmic Eastern music. Following north you see the village of Migdal with its now red-roofed houses, which lent its name to one women resident who followed Jesus, her Master and her "deliverer". This was Mary Magdalena - Miriam from Migdal.
Going past the Kibbutz of En Ein Gev, with its recently found and set on display fishing boat from the first century, the "Jesus boat" (prototype of the boat you are in), you follow along to the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, which will be visited in the afternoon, where can be seen the Church of Mensa Christi (the "Table of Christ") commemorating the place where the resurrected Jesus cooked a fish breaskfast for his disciples. But at the side of the Church, for the sceptics among us, one sees the first century steps going down to the shore and the lapping waters, that until 1956 (when Israel re-routed a water channel) were fed for thousands of years by a hot warm water spring that was a focal point of attaction for the Tilapia, also known as St. Peter's fish, or Amnon in Hebrew, or Musht in Arabic. This is where the fishing was great in the First Century.
Up on a hill behind the Church of Mensa Christi, all on the North Shore, is the Mount of Beatitudes where Jesus gave "the Sermon on the Mount", and there, down below is the home town ( for a while, at least) of Peter and Andrew - Capernaum, with its imposing and truly gorgeous white limestoned remains of the 3rd century Synagogue, built on the remains (Black Basaltblack basalt) and general floor plans if of the First century synagogue that Jesus frequented and sang out the "Prophetic portion" from the Scroll of Isaiah.
And to the right, on the Eastern shore, there are sights to see, such as the only place where the herd of Swine could have rushed down the slope into the sea without having fallen off the otherwise -all -around sharp and tall precipeseprecipe, the slope of Gadarene where Jesus drove out the demons that then entered the swine.
===Tourism can be military.===As you ride past the teenaged faced kids in Uniform nniform going back to their bases anywhere in Israel, after being at home on the weekend, Israel is so small. Or as the tourist bus passes to the left of a tank convoy up from the Negev on the way to the Lebanese border, only to be stopped by a herd of sheep and their beduin shepherd crossing the main highway. Or by the mass of screaming girl soldiers (and guys) let out on 2 week a year vacation rafting with you down the white waters (bubbly froth) of the Nahal Hatzboni with its overhanging over-hanging and leafy trees and intermittent beaces (sand stops ) to eat along the way. The Hatzboni, along with to two other tributories tributeries will lead you to the upper Jordon River, which will lead to the Sea of GallleeGalilee, which will lead to the "Jordon River", which will lead to the Dead Sea, which will lead, in the form of evaporated water as their is no outlet to , the Dead Sea. having no outlet, to Heaven.
===The Panorama of Tourism===
to the white cliffs (and cable car) of Rosh haNikra at the Northern tip of Israel where it meets the Lebanese border. White Cliffs lapped by the Mediterranean forging deep caverns at water's edge to enter.
to the magnificent civilization upon civilization Tel of Bet Shean, at the Jordan River entrance to the Jezrael Valley, upon which King Saul's body was hung by the Philistines, and which later became a built up Roman, with all their bathhouses, colony. Or Tel Dan, or Tel Hazor, or Tel Beer Sheva, Tel Arad, Tel Megiddo, or Tel Lachish.
to the Ulta Orthodox section (no driving on the Sabbath!) section of Jerusalem called One Hundred Gates (or Measures), Mea Shearim, where the lives and the looksand locks (of hair), the customs and the smells bring you back to the synagogues and streets of 18th century Eastern Europe.
to the beduin tents surrounded with camels and children and black veiled women, where you can enter (has to be arranged) and sit on carpets and drink, sip, drops of coffee in a thimble container and no longer wonder, as you catch a T.V. from the corner of your eye, why there are antennas sticking out from the tops of the tents.
To Mazada, on cable car, the high hill fortress by the Dead Sea, built up by King Herod from Hasmonean ruins to become his fortress against the Nabateans, Cleopatra of Egypt, and against his own subjects, where the Jews held out against the Romans after Jerusalem fell in 70 A.D, and committed suicide rather than surrender, and where in Modern Israel civilians were inducted into the Israeli Army - "Mazada to fall never again!"
To Herodion, the cone shaped fortress built by King Herod just north of Bethlehem, from which he sent his garrison down the short distance to kill the Child King destined to destroy his own Kingdom and his power.
to Bethlehem itself with its Church of the Holy Nativity and the Shepherd's field so familiar to the imagination and memory form Scripture and Carol and so "provocative" to the what is in the soul of light and awe for those who treasure Christ.
To Golgotha in Jerusalem, just outside of the gates of First Century Jerusalem, where Jesus was crucified for the sins of the world and where He rose from the dead. To either one of the Golgothas, take your choice, the traditional Church of the Holy Sepulchre Golgotha, or "Gordons Calvary" Golgotha. They each have something to say for them. For the sceptics among us. The First Church in the World, the Jewish-Christian Synagogue on Mount Zion, the Church of the Holy Apostles of History, instead of facing, according to established custom, toward the Temple Mount in plain view, at least in the First century, faces to the north, to Golgotha, facing exactly between the two Golgothas. So you can take your choice.