Day Two – Jewlicious Israel Trip – Part 2

Later in the afternoon, we visited the city of Safed, the epicenter of Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah. Here we see ck posing with some cute kids who wanted to have their pictures taken – laya obliged and even stated “If I was going to have kids, I’d want them to be Ethiopian.” So there’s hope for her yet…

Thanks to Oranim and Taglit birthright-israel, our lucky tour participants got to have their first falafel. To the right is a carving of a lion at the entrance of the Ari Synagogue, founded by followers of the Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria, known by his Hebrew acronym, the Ari. Ari is also the hebrew word for lion, hence the, like, lion…

These kids, members of the Beta Israel Ethiopian community accosted us and insisted we take their picture. They were really cute so we did.

Here’s a friendly resident of Safed who nodded approvingly as our guide, Offer told the tour about the history of Safed. Then he hit us up gave us the opportunity to give tzedakkah or charity. To the right is some detail from one of the synagogues we visited.

Afterwards we headed to Kibbutz Gadot where we chilled by the pool and had a barbecue dinner. The guest houses at Gadot were really nice and it looks like thanks to the hard work of the residents and oodles of tax payer financed loans and grants, there is now a really lovely community overloooking the northern hills. once again, this is quite a nice part of the country and I for one am looking forward to coming back here and exploring some more.

And yeah, believe it or not we actually have had some nice conversations about Jewiish identity and stuff. But more on that later…