As our eyes opened up and we rolled over to look at our clocks, we realized it was 9:30 am. Luckily every member of our party had slept in, not just one, all of us recuperating from jam-packed days of adventure. This laid-back sleep-in, taking our sweet time, would set the tone for our enjoyable trek to the North that was to come.
After we got ready for the day, we once again headed for the Coffee House of Eilabun, hoping this time to finally enjoy the local eatery we had missed before. As fate would have it, we rolled past the Coffee House at 10:30am, far past the 9am opening time we read online, and what did we see…a closed door, chairs on the tables, and the lights off. So it goes. This gave us an opportunity to return to the delicious Shobak eatery we had visited before. After a lovely meal of hummus, za’atar, pickles, etc. underneath the street-front outdoor patio, we boarded the car and headed north towards Golan.
Golan Heights serves as one of the most contested and volatile regions within the modern state of Israel’s history. Multiple violent conflicts between Israel and its neighbors over the course of many decades resulted in Israel laying claim to this territory. Throughout our trip, the complex and violent past of this area emerged again and again, first through the sights of burnt-out tanks from the 1948 war, to other burnt out machine gun garrisons, to signs that declared “ESCAPE ROUTE THIS WAY,” and “BEWARE Mine Field.” Once we arrived at our first stop we were only 6 miles from Lebanon and 3 miles from Syria. You could see both in the distance.
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| Sign that reads “Danger Mine Fields” in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. |
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| Making note of all escape routes. |
We began our sightseeing with the Tel Dan Nature Preserve—a lovely national park with multiple ruins (of different iterations) of an ancient city. We enjoyed a walk through the paved pathway which led past a small river with rushing water, ancient olive trees, small fountains, a bathing pool, and more. The water in the Nature Preserve was very cold, almost too cold to enter, because it arrived to the location via snow melt from Mt. Hermon.
[Lauren: That didn’t stop me from wading in and freezing, Matt from almost falling in, and Carol from dropping her sunglasses in and popping out the lens. Refreshing nonetheless.]
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| A beautiful place to break your sunglasses. |
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| Wading in the water. It was so cold it physically hurt. |
Our first signs of ancient ruins were the city gates of the ancient city of Dan, which date to the 8th or 9th century BCE. These were essentially the newer “suburbs” of the city, so to speak. As we continued on we came to the oldest thing any of us had ever seen (up to this point…read tomorrow’s adventure for something wayyyy older), the ancient Middle Bronze Age gate to the city. The book of Genesis mentions Abraham following those who kidnapped his brother all the way to the far north of Dan. Perhaps these were the gates he entered. They date to around 1700 BCE. The gate itself is made of mud bricks and in remarkably great condition given the length of time. It now sits underneath a roof to protect it from the elements.
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| Matt in the “suburbs” |
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| Ancient City Gate - 1700 BCE |
After our stop in Tel Dan, we ventured to the nearby kibbutz of Dan which takes its name from the ancient city but was founded in 1939. A kibbutz is an intentional planned Jewish community usually based around agriculture. They typically are small and community based with the goal of being a self-sustaining commune. We had hoped to see what one looked like, as they are very influential in the modern state of Jerusalem. This one, like many others, dates back to before the 1948 war and was seen as a project to bring a Jewish presence to the far north. Needless to say, the whole idea of kibbutzim and the intention/history behind them is very complicated and messy (perhaps something we can follow up on in a special blog post).
The entrances to the kibbutz, only two that we could see, are heavily fortified and guarded with a large gate. Inside, you find a tranquil community with a population of only about 700 people. There were two burnt-out tanks sitting in a field within the kibbutz, a reminder of the war and complex situation here.
Interestingly, we learned that this kibbutz is world renowned for its caviar that they produce via fish farms within the community. Some of the fanciest restaurants in New York City source their caviar from here. As we made our way through the kibbutz, our destination being a winery within the gates, we were a bit confused on where to go. Finally Matt Shears took the initiative to just start walking through a yard and found the winery. This was a very simplistic and minimalist winery which consisted of a small two-room building, a single wine press, and a small patio outside beside a peaceful brook that seemed to be the main water source of the kibbutz.
The winery grows and makes the wine at the kibbutz and a very nice young woman gave us a tasting of their selection along with a brief tour into the back room where they store it. We ordered a red wine with a cheese plate and sat on the patio enjoying the peaceful brook. A very relaxing experience.
After purchasing a couple bottles to take back, we headed a little more north to the Balias Falls, another nature preserve in Golan Heights. After a short walk we encountered the stunning waterfall. Carol googled whether there was any fishing in the stream, as she mentioned, in the spirit of Jack Lewis, that this would make a good trout stream. [Carol: a few trout have escaped from farms and can occasionally be found in the beautiful stream, but it’s not legal to fish here currently. Jack would have loved this place!]
After some time admiring the waterfall, we headed back in the car to Eilabun as Matt Shears had to prepare for a sermon he had been asked earlier in the day to give at the village church by Pastor Hanna (impromptu!). Once back at home base, we got some burgers real quick, ate, and then Matt Nance/Carol headed to the Cana church while Matt Shears and Lauren headed to the Eilabun church. [Carol: It was a tough choice to miss Matt Shears’ sermon, but I wanted to worship in the town of Cana, where Jesus turned the water into wine.]
It was a pleasure to worship with the Arab Christians in their congregations. Matt’s sermon focused on Ephesians 4, the unity of the church across time and space. Carol and Matt Nance enjoyed worship with the Cana church, another very welcoming congregation, and then stopped for what they thought would be a short stop in the supermarket of Tiberius to pick up a few things….it turned into nearly an hour. We discovered that when in Israel, you should do your best to steer clear of Tiberius (“the Myrtle Beach of Israel,” so says Matt Nance).
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| A beautiful sunset from the church patio in Eilabun |
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| Matt preached his first translated sermon! |
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| The church in Eilabun. |
After church in Eilabun, Pastor Hanna and family invited Matt Shears and Lauren to the Coffee House for dinner. When we arrived, past 9pm, it was open…and bustling. We discovered at that moment that the Coffee House was not a coffee shop as we think of them in the USA, it was really a nice restaurant called The Coffee House. We had delicious food and wonderful conversation ranging from politics, culture, religion and more.
After we returned home, we all settled into bed for our last night of sleep in Galilee.
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