Second Tiyul: Settlements and Dead Sea Region

Last week we had our second Tiyul. This trip basically consisted of two sections: the first was on settlements and the second was more about green/resources/geology in the dead sea region. Though there is much to be said about the second aspect, and it is important, i'm not really into that stuff so I'll be rather brief on that front. What was of more interest to me were the few settlements which we visited and trying to understand that whole situation.
The day started with a presentation from Hagit Ofran who is a (high ranking) representative of a group called Peace Now (shalom akhshav). Here is the English website: http://www.peacenow.org.il/Site/en/homepage.asp
and here is the wikipedia page about the group: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Now

Basically, PeaceNow advocates complete dismantaling of all Israeli settlements and moving all of these people into 'israel proper'. Often known as land for peace. I'm not going to comment too much on what I think of this organization (as this isn't meant to be a political blog), though I am sure that many of you can already guess my reaction (especially given the outcome of the Gaza dissengagement).
Directly after her lecture, we proceeded to visit two settlements. The first is called Gush Etzion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gush_Etzion) which has a very interesting and rather tragic past. Currently, it is a beautiful, big and modern collection of communities. We didn't interact with anyone from the community here, but we did watch a short film about Gush Etzion's history and got to see the bunker in which many people were murdered during 1947.
The next settlement we went to is called Tekoa.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tekoa,_Gush_Etzion). Unfortunately the wiki page won't tell you much, but i found this settlement to be particularly interesting. A man, by the name of Bobby Brown, came to speak to us about Tekoa. He made Aliya from the states and has lived in Tekoa for 30+ years. What he said was, that Tekoa has a rather dynamic and open relationship with its arab neighbors. often, the jewish settlers employ the local arabs, they invite one another to social functions, share resources and find common ground despite cultural differences. Granted, these relations used to be better in the past but you can still see it now. While being absolutely committed to the territory and finding disengagement to be out of question - Mr. Brown believes that peaceful coexistence can be reached by taking steps towards better basic aspects of life. For example, if the Arabs need water and the Jews need soil - you start there and steadily improve on the elementary needs of life. He said that the way he figures it, the more you work together and help each other out, the more trust is established. and the more trust that is established between your neighbor, the harder it is to pick up a rock or a gun against that neighbor. Though I didn't ask him this, it does sound somewhat akin to Netenyahu's 'economic peace' idea. Perhaps in more simpler, 'grass roots' terms?
At the end of the day we had a discussion about the PeaceNow presentation and meeting Bobby Brown from the Tekoa settlement. There was one thing which was pointed out that I find especially interesting. Usually, when we think of left-wing groups, we get the idea of people who are trying to create dialogue between Jews and Arabs, bring them together, all that good stuff. And when we think of settlers, most imagine extremely right wing, religious finatics that want to be segregated from arabs. Well, last weeks encounter proved the exact opposite. It was the left-wing group which is basically calling for a complete seperation between Jews and arabs behind a border, and the settler who is calling on cooperation and coexistence between Jews and Arabs. just something to think about...
That was really it for the settlements. After that it was more ecological stuff. We went to the dead-sea factories, had a speaker give a presentation about how the dead sea is drying up and all of the ecological consequences going on because of it. I wasn't really into this stuff, but there is one thing that we did which I really appreciated. Josh (our tour guide so to speak) offered an option to go on a hike at 6am to anyone interested. Not everybody was, but I decided to go for it. After all, I haven't gone running since the race (I'll give you the list of excuses later) and I don't have a problem waking up early. This was a 3 hour hike and we made it to the top of the crazy mountain overlooking the dead sea and surrounding areas. It was a pretty hardcore hike, but well worth it. The best part was when we took 4 minutes to sit in silence and enjoy the incredible view around us. It's so nice when everyone just stops their useless jabbering for a bit. That was really great.
Once we returned from the hike, we had to quickly scarf down our breakfast and head for the bus. We had two more stops for the day - the Ein Geddi water falls and the Dead Sea. I was at both of these places last year, so it wasn't new, but it was definitely nice to take a dip in the cool waterfalls (since we didn't have time to shower after the hike). I passed on floating in the dead sea because I was too tired from the hike to deal with the saltyness and all that. This turned out to be a pretty good decision since it was very windy and there was a strong current and "waves" in the dead sea. Why is this so bad, might you ask? Because when the water is SO incredibly salty, and the wind is spraying it in your face, and you can't exactly swim back to shore normally since you're just floating the whole time - it can make for a rather uncomfortable experience. ;-)

Though that was technically the end of the Tiyul, I got lucky and got kind of an 'extended version'. Josh (our tour guide) invited me to spend Shabbat with him and his family in a different settlement called Maaleh Adumim. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maaleh_Adumim). It's hard to call this a settlement as it is a collection of communities which is home to about 40,000 people. The proper term for Maaleh Adumim is a city - which it really is. It's beautiful, well kept and has an incredible view of Jerusalem on the one side and the desert on the other. The weekend was great. Josh and his wife, Chana, have 5 kids (the youngest being 7 months old) and it was a blast. Even though they are kind of hyper and pick on each other, they are really sweet kids and all of them are very smart. It was amazing to see how Josh and Chana dealt with every crying/screaming/door slamming situation so fairly and calmly. Really really great parents, that's for sure.

That's the most of it. Unfortunately I don't have any other adventures to write of because I cought the flu and have been in bed the past week. Sucks pretty bad, but it happens. At least it's not the swine flu! (How ironic would it be to catch the most unkosher flu in the most kosher country?! ha!) I'm hanging in there though :)

Hope everyone is doing well!
<3 <3 <3