Exploring the northern Israel.

May 30^th Weekend trip to the North

On May 30th, Thursday, we moved to Haifa and Tiberius as our first weekend trip to the North. 

Firstly, we went to the Stella Maris in Haifa to meet the Father Arnold and talk with him about the story of Stella Maris. We took a tour inside of church, and I found one interesting thing that the announcement in the church was written in Arabic, not in Hebrew. Later, I heard of the reason: about 2 percent of Israeli population is Christian, and most of them are Arab people, who is the minority inside the minority (according to our guide's saying). Today, the Stella Maris church serves the Holy Mass in Arabic on Sunday.

Doa explained us about herself and the Druze

In the afternoon, we visited the Druze village and talked with Doa whose background is from the Druze. The Druze is a secret and closed religion which beliefs amalgamated several factors of other religions. They have their own symbol with five colors (blue, green, red, white, and yellow) that each one represents a different factor. When turning to a certain age, a Druze can decide whether she/he wants to keep the traditional life style of the Druze or becomes secular to live a normal life as like other people.  The traditional/religious Druze is not obliged to do a military service and they have special permit to come and go to neighboring countries even to Syria since most Druze reside in Syria, Israel and Lebanon. It is because they are not a political entity but a religious community that does not demand its independence but lives peacefully together inside Israel.

After done with our schedule, we arrived at the hotel in Tiberius, where we could see the Sea of Galilee (the Kinneret). The Sea of Galilee, known as the place where Jesus walked on the water in the Bible, is now one of the major water resources of Israel. Before having dinner, we went out to explore the Sea of Galilee. There were many visitors and local people enjoying their weekend. Although it was a bit foggy to see clearly, I was so impressed by the picturesque beauty of the Kinneret and the fact that 'I am now here' where I have wanted to visit. Over the sea of Galilee, I could see dimly the Golan heights where we were supposed to go the next day.

The first day of the weekend trip in Haifa and Tiberius was awesome! The next day of the Golan heights and hiking on Arbel mountain was also great (the story for this will be continued soon).