One of my favorite stories in the Jewish canon occurred in this past week's Torah portion. "And Isaac went out walking in the field toward evening and, looking up, he saw camels approaching. Raising her eyes, Rebekah saw Isaac. She alighted from the camel..." In itself it's not so exciting, until you realize that "alighted" is a polite word in English for what actually transpired in the Hebrew: she saw Isaac and promptly fell off the camel. Now, however, an article in the N

The trailer for an Israeli English-language film - a loose modern reenactment of the story of Jacob and Esau - has just been released. The film stars Harvey Keitel as Abraham, Shira Haas (from Unorthodox and Shtisel) as Leah and Lior Ashkenazi in the title role of Esau. Ashkenazi is the winner of 3 Ofirs (the Israeli Academy Awards) for best actor. It also features as Sarah, Gila Almagor who won a lifetime achievement award at the Ofirs - and then won two best actress awa

Over the past month, a number of incredible archaeological discoveries have been found in Israel. Unknown gates on the Temple Mount, a Byzantine church near Caesarea Phillippi, ancient boundary stones and weights, a signet ring with the seal of Apollo, perhaps the world's first furnace and more. As your resident tour guide of Israel, it is my pleasure to recap all of them for you here... It's amazing that this had never been noticed before: Two blocked-up arches which were s

Beginning on Sunday, there will be a 3-part weekly series on the Dead Sea Scrolls co-sponsored by the Israel Antiquities Authority and Beit Avi Chai in Jerusalem. The Dead Sea Scrolls are universally recognized as one of the top 10 archaeological discoveries in history - it's not just "Israel tour guide speak." The topics and times can be found below... From the Israel Antiquities Authority: "The discovery of the first Dead Sea Scrolls in a remote Judean Desert cave in 194

Jerusalem's famed Tower of David Museum - which somehow has nothing at all to do with King David - is undergoing a huge renovation at this time, including putting in an elevator to allow everyone to get to the top and experience the most incredible view of the Old City of Jerusalem. The museum is situated just inside Jaffa Gate and is located in what served as the fortress of the city for 2000 years. The museum includes both the archaeology and history of the fortress, palac

An amazing opportunity has become available to the general public. The Israeli Antiquities Authority along with the New York University have put together a free 4-day online conference called "The Land That I Will Show You: Recent Archaeological & Historical Studies of Ancient Israel." It will cover all the incredible recent finds from Israel. It's the perfect opportunity for people who "dig Israel." As a tour guide of Israel, I am incredibly excited to attend this program

Israel has emerged now from a second lockdown, which was enacted over the Jewish holidays. While indoor spaces such as museums are still closed, the national parks are now open and more and more places will be opening in the coming weeks. As a tour guide of Israel, I cannot be more excited to get back to work providing incredibly meaningful, memorable and enjoyable experiences here for my clients. At this point, Israel has identified 34 green countries. These are countrie

Well here is a blast from the past. A 1-minute video from 1897 at Jerusalem's Jaffa Gate was just colorized and digitized. My favorite are the people who stop to look at this camera contraption like it is a UFO. The film was brought to life by the "Film Rescue" YouTube channel. The footage was taken in April 1897, just months before the small section of the wall [not visible] between the Jaffa Gate and the [mistakenly-named] Tower of David was taken down for the visit of K

So many incredible archaeological discoveries were announced in the past month here in Israel. As a tour guide of Israel I cannot wait to see some of these in person - and for you to join me on this adventure! A New Dating Process A new way of dating - in addition to known ones like carbon-dating and using pottery and coins - has been developed by Israeli archaeologists. It might be yucky, but it gets the job done. Basically it uses human and animal waste found in mud-bri

Israel set a record last year with 4.55 million tourists. That was an 11% increase over 2018 which itself was a 42% increase over 2016. Even more amazing is that 94.4% of visitors to Israel reported a good to excellent experience in the country. That's an incredible success rate and I take pride in that, as a tour guide of Israel, I have a small part to play in that. If you are unaware, becoming an Israel tour guide is like getting a master's degree. It is a 2-year course

On Friday night we begin Sukkot, the Festival of Booths. In ancient times this was the most popular Jewish holiday and I have to say, that it weren't for my mother's insanely delicious matzah ball soup and chopped liver on Passover, Sukkot would absolutely be my favorite one as well. On Sukkot we building temporary dwellings outside of our homes called sukkot in which we are supposed to eat and even sleep in for 7 days in Israel (8 days abroad). We also gather together four

One of the best-selling Latin music artists of all-time, the Puerto Rican-born Ozuna [Juan Carlos Ozuna Rosado] has sold some 15 million albums and every one of them has made the Billboard top Latin albums. He is a reggaeton and Latin trap singer, known as the "New King of Reggaeton." He has more YouTube videos with 1 billion views than any other artist in the world, he has received 5 Billboard Music Awards, 12 Billboard Latin Music Awards and he even holds 4 Guinness record

As a tour guide of Israel, one of my favorite stories here revolves around a Jewish rebels healthy snack almost 2000 years ago when battling the Romans. A date pit was found in the storehouses of the famous Judean Desert fortress - Masada - which was besieged by - and ultimately captured by - the Romans in the year 73 CE/AD. The date pit was brought to the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and a modern miracle occurred. Like something out of Jurassic Park, they ma

One of the major issues in doing archaeology in Israel is that often times villages and towns in the last one hundred years have been built over major archaeological ruins. Often times people did not realize how large ancient cities were or that the current city walls were not were walls were in ancient times. So what happens when you realize it? The modern town of Bet Shean was built on top of the ruins of Bet Shean. Bet Shean was the largest city in the Decapolis - ten Ro

This past week your trusty Israel tour guide took a 3-day trip to the coast and north of Israel: Wineries, dairies, national parks an incredible heritage museum and the grave of maybe the most famous person who never lived. Check it out (photos at the bottom): Day 1: The Grave of Harry Potter - I actually wrote an entire separate blog post about this here, but Israel is the final resting place of Harry Potter - just not the one you are thinking of. This one was a British sol

As a tour guide of Israel, I often have to caution clients that one week, two weeks or even ten weeks in Israel is just not enough time to completely experience everything that Israel has to offer. It's always just a taste - and you need to come back for another course. We have more museums per capita and hiking trails per square mile/km than anywhere in the world. The culinary and tech scenes are bustling, the arts & culture scene is vibrant and the people and land are s

It has been one of the distinct pleasures of my professional life to partner with Pastor Dr. Kevin Dieckilman as the guide for his Israel study tours. He is an outstanding teacher and spiritual role model and a man who truly loves the Land of Israel, the People of Israel, the State of Israel and the God of Israel. Together we lead several two week spiritual experiences in Israel each year for Christians. [In addition to being an observant Jew, I am also a PK - a preacher's

A major travel update: Visitors from 20 countries can now enter Israel without requiring entering into quarantine upon arrival. Israelis (or visitors coming from Israel) can also now enter into a few more countries without quarantining, though they will need to show negative tests for covid-19. Just keep in mind that if you do come to Israel, you may need to quarantine upon returning home, depending on the current rules in your home country. As a tour guide of Israel, this

What was just found in Israel is incredibly rare. So rare in fact that it is the first time anything like it from the Iron Age has been found in the entire Southern Levant region. What we are talking about are magnetized ancient artifacts that can not only tell us about the Earth’s electromagnetic field at the time, but in this case, can be pinpointed to an exact date. That is because we are talking about the day of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, on the 9th of th

For all you archaeology fans: Here is a quick rundown of things recently discovered here in Israel, courtesy of your intrepid tour guide of Israel... The structure at the Tomb of the Patriarchs was built by King Herod 1600 years after the Biblical matriarch Sarah was first buried there. With archaeology being impossible there, how do we know what was going on there prior to Herod? Well now we have some answers... https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/tomb-of-patriarchs-popular-s