Wandering Woodwards: Israel

Saturday 23 May cont.

After we cleaned up and showered at the Dead Sea, we boarded the buses and drove to the border check point between Jordan and Israel. Good-bye to Dauda and our police man. Saw several serious young Israeli men with big machine guns. Frank said this process can sometimes take anywhere from an hour to five. We had to leave the buses, go into a small building and wait while the guards opened a few suitcases and took a couple people into separate rooms for questioning. We got lucky in that is was Sabbath afternoon and everyone wanted to get home. It was also a holiday weekend - Shavuot - the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. Both of which worked in our favor and we were out of there in an unprecedented 45 minutes.

Welcome Joseph, our Israeli guide. He was a great guy, extremely knowledgable and I think likes LDS people. He has worked with FOLess Tours for several years.

He fought in the 1973 Yom Kippur war. He told Roy it was Sabbath and there was little traffic on the streets in Tel Aviv and he noticed several military vehicles driving fast, so he rode his bike over to his local reserve barracks. An officer told him they were under attack and he should call his unit to report; he had to break into their offices because no one in authority was there. He got some men to come and they finally sorted out tank crews from who was available and drove their tank, a British Centurion, all the way to the Golan Heights and were immediately ambushed by Syrian tanks using night-vision gear that the Israeli's didn't know they had. Joseph said they fought for over 10 days straight, sometimes shooting Syrian tanks less than 50 m away. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1981 Joseph was a Captain and his tank was the first one to cross at a UN controlled point. He said he stopped for the UN guy who yelled at him, "Where are you going!", and Joseph said he yelled back, "Beirut!". He said the guy insisted on writing-down all of the serial numbers of the vehicles, but they just laughed and went on with the invasion.

Joseph and Frank decided if we hurried, we could squeeze in a stop at Masada. We were very excited as this was not on our itinerary but we had really wanted to see it.
We arrived in time to take the last gondola up to the top of the mountain (1300'); this was Saturday, Sabbath. It would have been a long, hot walk up the "Snake Path" trail.
Masada: Herod the Great built palaces for himself on the mountain and fortified Masada between 37 and 31 BCE. According to Josephus, the Siege of Masada (lasting 3 years) by troops of the Roman Empire towards the end of the First Jewish–Roman War (73CE) ended in the mass suicide of 960 people – the Sicarii rebels and their families hiding there. (thank you Wikipedia)