Visiting Israel

[PottersClay]

Hi Friends,

 

[This probably isn’t the right place so please move if need be I wasn’t really sure where it should go.]

 

Anyway I am going to visit Israel in a couple of weeks and just wondered if anyone here has ever been? If so care to share any tips? Or any who have always wanted to go is there anything especially you long to see?

 

We haven’t gone with any tour companies as none of the witness company’s had tours to match our dates and the rest spend too much time at Christendom’s shrines.

 

We do have an itinerary and have booked in to the branch tour as well as other activities only possible with guides. I guess I am just looking for any tips or suggestions in case there is something we don’t know that we haven’t included. Or perhaps a very popular destination that you think isn’t worth seeing. 

 

I also wonder if anyone has been to Vad Yashem (the holocaust museum in Jerusalem). You see I have it in the itinerary, and it would be great to see regardless of whether it has any mention of witness persecution but I have been to the US holocaust museum in Washington DC and I am going to Auschwitz in Poland just after Israel so I feel that if it doesn’t make any comment on our brothers and sisters then I may not go. It wouldn’t surprise me, or even to me seem very wrong if it didn’t mention us as I can imagine it is the story of the Jewish people by the Jewish people if that makes sense. Not that I do not wish to learn about the plight of the Jewish people, I would just prefer to do so in a place where I can learn of the plight of my own brothers and sisters as well as the other victims. 

 

 

 

[New World Explorer]

Museums are good, but Auschwitz in Poland is a very unique place to visit (definitely worth it) as it is actual concentration camp turned into museum. 

It had emotional impact on me, which I cannot say of every museum I have visited. 

Never been to Israel, please share with us your views after the trip. 

Always wanted to go that region.

 

[Omoyeme]

I went on an all-JW "Bible Lands" Mediterranean cruise tour in the mid-90's (Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus and Crete. Brother Sydlik was on this cruise ship also.) Unfortunate my memories, specifically of Israel, are packed up in old photos placed in storage boxes. I do recall visiting Jericho though which was nice.  Sorry to be of little assistance in this regard.

[LoneWanderer]

Lucky you getting to go there! How many days are you going to spend there? Sounds like a really exciting destination especially if you would have a local taking you around.

 

I think it's a bery good choice to go to the Bethel even if it's probably pretty small. And who knows, perhaps you get to have a little Q&A in there, too? I would think brothers have to be extremely cautious of in some areas if Orthodox Jews get a gist they are in service in that area. I remember seeing a report on the first ever international convention in Tel Aviv a few years back, which also showed the Orthodox Jews aggressively demonstrating outside the main entrance (think it was a report done by the Israeli TV?). Like that Original Song says, "The world in chaos, but here we got peace" = brothers with Jewish background and Arab background peacefully co-existing inside the sports arena and listening to the program in their languages