Fleeing a war zone 4: Hotel to Airport

We’re older, and I’ll tell you that’s why

We all were partially dry

Thus faster the rate

We all dehydrate

Till away from Jordan we’ll fly

Synopsis: I’m a Family Practitioner from Sioux City, Iowa.  In 2010 I danced back from the brink of burnout, and, honoring a 1-year non-compete clause, traveled and worked in out-of-the-way places in Alaska, Nebraska, Iowa, and New Zealand.  After 3 Community Health years, I took temporary gigs in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Canada, and Alaska.  Since the pandemic, I worked telemedicine, a COVID-19 clinic, a VA clinic, and spots Texas, Iowa, and Pennsylvania.  Taking vacation from circuit-riding rural clinics in Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota, I went on vacation to Israel, and found myself in war zone.  Israel closed its airspace.  Grey Bull Rescues orchestrated our evacuation.

I’m Jewish.  I will not be writing about religion or politics.  See my post https://walkaboutdoc.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/why-i-dont-write-about-religion-politics-or-sex/

The spectacular, luxurious, way-past-5-star Hotel Rotana in Amman did a marvelous job of checking in 350 evacuees.  We arrived late, tired, sweaty, and hungry, and most partially dehydrated or worse.  And they didn’t ask about room number at the restaurant. 

The front desk employees checked us in, maintaining courtesy, cheerfulness, and professionalism in the face of a human tsunami.   Bethany and I rolled up to the 10^th floor about 1:00 AM, with instructions to be ready to board busses at 9:00 AM.

And breakfast opens at 6:00AM. 

I did my best to push the fluids over breakfast, but with age comes diminished perception of thirst.  Over spectacular food we talked about the journey so far. 

Jordan and Israel get along well, especially for the context of the region.  Jordan gets most of its water from Israel’s massive desalination plants, and when both countries have open airspace there are 2 commercial jets daily between Tel Aviv and Amman.  Israeli tourists regularly go to the spectacular ruins at Petra. 

Still we maintained an uneasiness as a group of Jews in an Arab Muslim country.  So even with a 5-star hotel and indescribable dining, we wanted to get home. 

At 9:00 AM we gathered in the lobby, and I struck up a conversation with a man who builds movie sets, including Star Trek.  One of our group wrote a screen play for an episode of Star Trek, and I put the two of them together. 

Another fellow traveler approached me with an ankle problem, and gave me permission to write more than I have.  She had swelling around the outside ankle bone.  I could visualize the tendons, but knew that naming them would just be showing off.  So I talked about management of ankle injuries, the need for icing, elevation, a rigid ankle support, good physical therapy and gradual return to exercise.  After I’d thought about it, in another country I approached her to say at the very least she needs an x-ray.

The Grey Bull reps, whom we have come to know and respect, announced we’d be going on 6 busses to the airport, and taking 2 charter planes to Cyprus. 

Amman sits about 40 kilometres (26 miles) from the airport.  Our bus had a manual transmission and an alarming shimmy at highway speeds. 

We passed lots of roadside fruit stands selling bananas and grapes, and a few others selling flowers, mostly on the honor system.  (At least, I think those were small businesses; if you’re Jordanian and know something different, please comment.) 

Fleeing a war zone 3: from the Jordan to Amman

We stopped on the road to Amman

Across the desert we’d gone

Our passports in order

We went over the border,

And arrived 5 hours till dawn.

Synopsis: I’m a Family Practitioner from Sioux City, Iowa.  In 2010 I danced back from the brink of burnout, and, honoring a 1-year non-compete clause, traveled and worked in out-of-the-way places in Alaska, Nebraska, Iowa, and New Zealand.  After 3 Community Health years, I took temporary gigs in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Canada, and Alaska.  Since the pandemic, I worked telemedicine, a COVID-19 clinic, a VA clinic, and spots Texas, Iowa, and Pennsylvania.  Taking vacation from circuit-riding rural clinics in Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota, I went on vacation to Israel, and found myself in war zone.  Israel closed its airspace.  Grey Bull Rescues orchestrated our evacuation.

I’m Jewish.  I will not be writing about religion or politics.  See my post https://walkaboutdoc.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/why-i-dont-write-about-religion-politics-or-sex/

Before we left Jerusalem, Grey Bull advised us to transfer everything visibly Jewish, including skull caps, fringed t-shirts (tsitsit), and jewelry, to our luggage. One of our party has Hebrew tattoos and decided to wear long sleeves. A wedding ring went into a backpack.

After hours clearing passport control, we zipped through customs. Nobody set off a metal detector, and x-ray didn’t show anything suspicious. 

Despite plenty of bottled water, not everyone drank enough.   

Eventually, I had to seek the restroom: concrete block buildings with holes in the floor.

After Customs we waited in aging Jordanian busses with NO SMOKING signs in Arabic and English, reeking of cigarette smoke.  Once I found three men in Jordanian uniforms standing outside the door and one was smoking.  In Hebrew I said “There’s a baby in the bus” but I couldn’t remember the word for smoke, so I pantomimed rocking a baby in my arms, point to the cigarette, gesturing that smoke was going in through the open door.  Horror gripped his face and he quickly moved away.  

Just a little after sunset we started the trip to Amman.  

Despite the darkness I marveled at the road-side geology. 

And despite the darkness I saw a vibrant roadside night life, with brightly-lit stores large and small, and restaurants from tiny to opulent.  Younger teenagers hanging out under street lamps.  All, I think, joyous in the relief from the summer heat.

The huge city of Amman boasts big city traffic, lots of high-rise buildings, and a major medical community featuring signs consistently in English and mostly also in Arabic.

We got out of the bus at the Rotana hotel, where the state-of-the-art metal detectors and luggage CT stood in marked contrast to security at the border.

The Grey Bull representative advised us that the restaurant would be open till midnight but that check-in would be overwhelmed for a while.

The elevator challenged me only because I underestimated it.  To my embarrassment I had to ask a staffer (well-dressed, polite in the extreme, obviously intelligent, with fluent English) for help.  Yes, restaurant on 3^rd floor, but I should have pushed the restaurant button, not the floor 3 button. 

The place exceeded Las Vegas for fabulous food presented in industrial quantities with artistic grace.  Marble floors, marble tables, open seating broken up to quell noise overload.  Tasteful lighting.

From experience I knew large quantities of high-quality food tempt me to overeat at times when I shouldn’t, and despite my hunger I didn’t. 

In 16 hours I went from hugging the ground and listening to the thump of missiles dying in a fight between good and evil to dining at the most luxurious buffet of my life.

Winston Churchill observed that there is nothing quite so exhilarating as being shot at to no effect. 

Contrast is the essence of meaning.  

Fleeing a war zone 2: At the Jordan Border

At the Solstice, please expect heat

In the bus, please stay in your seat

We can’t leave the border

Till all is in order

Then the trip through customs is fleet.

Synopsis: I’m a Family Practitioner from Sioux City, Iowa.  In 2010 I danced back from the brink of burnout, and, honoring a 1-year non-compete clause, traveled and worked in out-of-the-way places in Alaska, Nebraska, Iowa, and New Zealand.  After 3 Community Health years, I took temporary gigs in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Canada, and Alaska.  Since the pandemic, I worked telemedicine, a COVID-19 clinic, a VA clinic, and spots Texas, Iowa, and Pennsylvania.  Taking vacation from circuit-riding rural clinics in Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota, I went on vacation to Israel, and found myself in war zone.  Israel closed its airspace.  Grey Bull Rescues orchestrated our evacuation.

I’m Jewish.  I will not be writing about religion or politics.  See my post https://walkaboutdoc.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/why-i-dont-write-about-religion-politics-or-sex/

When the last of the suburbs and Bedouin camps had passed the window, the road steadily descended.  I looked at the rocks with my penchant for amateur geology, reading the story of unimaginable forces twisting miles of rock, epics of volcanoes and floods and mass extinctions.  We got to the desert floor, where the stripping-away of the limestone leaves the naked volcano footprints , bleaching under the sun, down to the Jordan valley, an extension of Africa’s Great Rift.

Grey Bull Rescues coordinated the tangled mass of logistics inherent in moving hundreds of people across borders and oceans. Israeli passport control uses amazing, automated machinery with facial recognition software.  We tucked our pink-slip exit visas into unstamped passports

We waited in line in narrow shade next to the building.  Parents fanned tiny babies, and I worried for them in the heat.  When I smelled cigarette smoke, I looked to the upwind end of the line.

A man in his 20s spoke on his cell phone and puffed.  I left our group to confront him.  I pointed at his cigarette and in Hebrew I said please.  He offered me one.  I shook my head and pantomimed a baby, pointing downwind.  He smiled and nodded, crushed out his smoke, and never stopped talking.  

I returned to my group and we boarded the bus while the sun beat down from that highest of angles that comes only with the summer solstice.  The air conditioning helped, adequately on the shady side.  The Grey Bull volunteer (ex-military) warned us not to get off the bus until told to do so.  And we listened.  Even when the impatient bus driver opened the doors to raise the temperature, trying to drive us out of the bus.  

I worried for the babies in the heat, and so did their parents.  

We waited hours at the Jordan side of the crossing.  The heat of the day rose and we sweltered and we finally went into the passport control building, the space overwhelmed by the mass of humanity trying to get out of the missile target zone, the aging AC doing its marginal best but also overwhelmed by the crowd’s body heat.

The sun had started its long slow descent when the Jordanians issued a single visa number to the 350 of us. 

One by one we came through 4 lines to the passport counter, exquisite black marble with exquisite red granite trim.  The uniformed supervisor stood and smoked under the 3-language NO SMOKING sign with the universal cigarette in the red-slashed circle.  The facial-recognition cameras appeared to be prior generations.  From the passport building to Customs we had a lot of baggage handlers with no identification trying to take our bags from us.  I had to grab my bag handle from one of them.

I shouldn’t have been worried.  Muslim courts traditionally have been hard on thieves. The guys were just trying for a tip.  

Fleeing a war zone 1: Jerusalem to Amman

From a war zone it’s easy to see

The sense in deciding to flee

Thanks, Iron Dome,

For helping me home

Through the Iranian Qassam missile spree.

Synopsis: I’m a Family Practitioner from Sioux City, Iowa.  In 2010 I danced back from the brink of burnout, and, honoring a 1-year non-compete clause, traveled and worked in out-of-the-way places in Alaska, Nebraska, Iowa, and New Zealand.  After 3 Community Health years, I took temporary gigs in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Canada, and Alaska.  Since the pandemic, I worked telemedicine, a COVID-19 clinic, a VA clinic, and spots Texas, Iowa, and Pennsylvania.  Taking vacation from circuit-riding rural clinics in Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota, I went on vacation to Israel, and found myself in war zone.  Israel closed its airspace.  Grey Bull Rescues orchestrated our evacuation.

I’m Jewish.  I will not be writing about religion or politics.  See my post https://walkaboutdoc.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/why-i-dont-write-about-religion-politics-or-sex/

Saturday evening we went to sleep with the expectation of being called to busses at 9:00 AM but we were awakened to 4:30 AM with notice to leave the hotel at 7:00 AM 

We breakfasted at 6:00 AM and the 11 of us rolled our suitcases away from the youth hostel. 

We had clear, cloudless blue skies and perfect temperature, the streets quiet before the Jerusalem traffic wakes up, on our way down the hill.  We stopped at the ATM and the convenience store.

After a half-hour walk we came to a parking lot, the evacuation’s marshaling point, surrounded by construction and green space.

By 7:30 AM the crowd of 350 Americans fleeing Israel had gathered in the shade.  We could pick out the teenage Orthodox women in white shirts and long black skirts and teenage men in black trousers and white shirts and fringes dangling from undershirts. 

Other young people with conservative or not so conservative clothing, and a few families with very young babies.  Our Sioux City group separated out at the edge of the crowd.  

The sun ascended higher, the temperature warmed and the traffic noise picked up.  Two young New Yorkers with tsitsit approached the 4 men in our group with beer on the breaths and tefillin in their hands.  The Bible commands donning those phylacteries daily, but most Jewish men only did so when studying for their Bar Mitzva.  We agreed to do the ritual right there in the car park, one of us for the second time ever, the first the day before in the bomb shelter.  He’s a remarkable man, previously a combat medic in the Panama campaign, who has brought insight into the nature of Jewish suffering and mission.  

When they had gone, with half of us seated on the curb, still in the shade, near a cluster of Arab-driven taxis (full-sized passenger vans), the air raid warnings came to our phones.

By this time we’d all downloaded the Israeli app that divides the country into more than 1000 zones, and gives different levels of alert.  One says that you need to seek shelter in the next few minutes.

And there were 350 of us and not a shelter in sight.  So we watched off to the south, high in the sky.  The missiles leave a contrail.  At first there were only one or two, then there were 3 in parallel lines, followed by many more and all headed to Tel Aviv.  

When an Iron Dome missile hits an aggressor there’s a very bright flash, much like the flash of fireworks or the bright light of a welder or a sparkler lit in the day.  Bright despite the bright morning and the clear blue sky.  

Then came the other warning, saying Those Missiles Are Coming Right For You, Get The Hell Into A Shelter.  The sirens sounded.  That’s the warning we got.  It even includes instructions on what to do if you’re out in the open: lay face down on the ground and cover your head.

And I remembered the duck-and-cover drills from 3^rd grade.

So I went recumbent between two of the white passenger vans and looked up at the sky and watched the action till our combat veteran reproved me, gently, so I rolled over, covered my head with my hands, and looked at the pavement and listened to the explosions.  

Most of the crowd stood and stared at the sky, a brief, multi-million dollar spectacular of contrails and flashes, followed by chest-thumping booms.

The section of asphalt that I watched bored me, but I studied it until one of our party said, “It must be all clear.  The construction workers are going to work.”

Afterwards we stood or sat on the curb, and we chatted while the day warmed, the sun strengthened and the traffic picked up.  We moved with the shade, to the other side of the parking lot, until about 9:00 AM when the 6 nice new busses with AC pulled up.

We left Jerusalem in heavy, big-city traffic, passing through Arab East Jerusalem.  Crossing the city limits came as an emotional relief.  While Iranian missiles are notoriously inaccurate, the chance of getting hit went way down outside of a target city. 

A bird sanctuary in a war zone

Coming close to the end of the Spring,

Who knew what the viewing would bring.

We whispered our words

While watching the birds

And saw the kingfisher a-fish-ing

Synopsis: I’m a Family Practitioner from Sioux City, Iowa.  In 2010 I danced back from the brink of burnout, and, honoring a 1-year non-compete clause, traveled and worked in out-of-the-way places in Alaska, Nebraska, Iowa, and New Zealand.  After 3 Community Health years, I took temporary gigs in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Canada, and Alaska.  Since the pandemic, I worked telemedicine, a COVID-19 clinic, a VA clinic, and spots Texas, Iowa, and Pennsylvania.  Taking vacation from circuit-riding rural clinics in Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota, I went on vacation to Israel, and I found myself in war zone.  I’m Jewish.  I will not be writing about religion or politics.  See my post https://walkaboutdoc.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/why-i-dont-write-about-religion-politics-or-sex/ This series of posts details evacuation from Israel, and is not published in order.

Sunday in Jerusalem, 48 hours after Israel attacked Iranian nuclear sites, found us in a bird sanctuary in the heart of a very large city.

The place only covers an acre and a half, near the edge of a cemetery.  A small, peaceful oasis surrounded by noise and confusion.

Birds migrate from Africa to Europe.  Most do not attempt the long over-water crossing of the Mediterranean, instead preferring the land routes at the western end (Spain) and eastern end (Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey).  More than 500 species can be found in Israel, depending on the season. 

We came to watch with two days remaining in Spring.

The war activities disrupted the planned tour.  The Ministry of Tourism does not want concentrations of people.  Attacks cannot be eliminated, but the damage can be mitigated by limiting the number of people in one place at one time.  And thus, technically, the 11 members of our group should not be together at the sanctuary.

Nor should we have gone to an area away from a bomb shelter.  After all, we’d had 4 air raid alerts the night before.

One of our group, an ornithologist, rehabilitates birds professionally.  The night before she gave a lecture about birds in Israel and showed remarkable erudition and hands-on experience. 

Our group of 11 constituted the majority of the people present.  We sat on benches in a roofed dugout 5 paces from the edge of a tiny pond.  The trickle of the water in and out constituted the most noise; the shade of the trees, the drop in temperature, and the haven of nature in a concrete city brought our conversation to hushed whispers. 

When we sat down, a kingfisher, a bird not much bigger than my palm, perched on a branch, swallowing a tiny fish, his beak pointed skywards while he lunged his neck.

We saw 3 individual kingfishers, none further than 10 paces.  We saw one swoop to the water, skimming, and catch a fish. 

The Palestinian Sunbird amazed us, hovering like hummingbird but not closely related genetically, it still fills much the same niche and shares many remarkable adaptations. 

We thrilled for the peace and quiet and greenery even more because of the context: a major city in a war zone.

Later, Bethany and I recalled the peace we’d found the year before in Texas watching hummingbirds come to feeders, ignoring us while we ate ice cream. 

Psalm 23: contrast is meaning’s essence

We sat down to eat Friday night,

And kindled our Sabbath Light

And later did shelter

And, sweating, did swelter,

Still we ate, and savored each bite.

Synopsis: I’m a Family Practitioner from Sioux City, Iowa.  In 2010 I danced back from the brink of burnout, and, honoring a 1-year non-compete clause, traveled and worked in out-of-the-way places in Alaska, Nebraska, Iowa, and New Zealand.  After 3 Community Health years, I took temporary gigs in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Canada, and Alaska.  Since the pandemic, I worked telemedicine, a COVID-19 clinic, a VA clinic, and spots Texas, Iowa, and Pennsylvania.  Taking vacation from circuit-riding rural clinics in Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota, I went on vacation to Israel, and found myself in war zone.  I haven’t been able to consistently post since we started to flee, and post worder will be jumbled. I’m Jewish.  I will not be writing about religion or politics.  See my post https://walkaboutdoc.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/why-i-dont-write-about-religion-politics-or-sex/

Friday evening carries special significance for Jews and others who observe the 7^th day as a day of rest.  Our group met in the hotel restaurant for a sumptuous meal after a day of tourism.

We welcomed the Sabbath with candle lighting, we sang over wine (or grape juice).  We leisurely discussed the events of the day, that day the Israelis bombed the Iranian nuclear facility.

No rational human would advocate for nuclear proliferation.  No one in the Middle East wants Iran armed with nuclear weapons.  Very few believe any Iranian assertion that they’re enriching uranium for peaceful uses.  Almost all believe the Iranian goal is death to Israel. 

Just as with a good deal of advanced science, few understand the link between Uranium 235 and 238, and the problems inherent in trying to weaponize naturally-occurring uranium. 

Before we ate, we each named something from the week for which we hold gratitude.  In the middle of a war zone, we took our time through the buffet line, an outstanding, overwhelming abundance of food. Then at leisure we started to eat.

Till the air raid warnings sounded.

We all have an Israeli security app on our phones, and we received the warnings in Hebrew and English to get to a sheltered area within 90 seconds.  The hotel PA sounded loudly, first in Hebrew then in English. 

We left our plates and began the forever stairway descent to the 3^rd sub-basement.  And waited. 

After the all-clear we could take the elevator up, and we went back to our food, now cooled.  Some returned to the buffet line. 

The air-raid alerts came again, and again came the descent down the stairs. 

The shelter area was crowded, hot, and noisy with inadequate seating.  Still our group of 11 found each other, and talked till the all clear.

We went back to eat.  And I ate with a gusto I would not have imagined. 

Part of the 23^rd Psalm says (depending on your translation) “He prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemy.”  In the past I thought such a meal would be spoiled because of the danger, but in fact the context added to the enjoyment of the meal. 

After the third air raid, I returned for dessert.  Raspberry sorbet never tasted so sweet or clean.

Contrast, again, is the essence of meaning. 

Before we knew war was coming

We traveled up to Sfat

There wasn’t a thing that we bought

I’m sorry to tell

Of the roadkill gazelle

And the peace talks that just came to nought.

Synopsis: I’m a Family Practitioner from Sioux City, Iowa.  In 2010 I danced back from the brink of burnout, and, honoring a 1-year non-compete clause, traveled and worked in out-of-the-way places in Alaska, Nebraska, Iowa, and New Zealand.  After 3 Community Health years, I took temporary gigs in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Canada, and Alaska.  Since the pandemic, I worked telemedicine, a COVID-19 clinic, a VA clinic, and spots Texas, Iowa, and Pennsylvania.  Taking vacation from circuit-riding rural clinics in Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota, I’m on vacation in Israel.  I’m Jewish.  I will not be writing about religion or politics.  See my post https://walkaboutdoc.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/why-i-dont-write-about-religion-politics-or-sex/ This post was written before the hostilities started

Two days before the pre-emptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, we spent the morning in Sfat, a town whose religious history includes elements of mysticism that echo across Judaism to this day.

In contrast to all other settlements built on hills, Sfat started low and built upwards to its center.  Wool provided economic support while the Ottoman Empire ruled the Middle East, but spirituality is really what made the town grow.  Later, because poor income means low rents and quiet, artists formed a colony. 

Bethany and I have been here before.  We have walked, three times, down the alley with galleries packed shoulder-to-shoulder, but this is the first time we were able to walk without bumping into people. 

Business tanked during the pandemic, and has gotten much worse since the recent conflict in Gaza.

We already own more artwork, and more things, than we have time or space for.  Yet I admit I looked long and hard at a display of bread knives intended for Sabbath use.  But I never got closer than 12 paces.  In the end, I knew that I couldn’t bring them home on carry-on and that such knives, with too many teeth spaced too close together, fail in their intended function.

We snacked on very good chocolate croissant and coffee and chatted, surrounded by students, until too many of the young people lit up cigarettes.

I find the number of Israelis who smoke, and smoke publicly, distressing.   

On the road from Sfat to the Golan heights I spotted a roadkill gazelle.  On this I remark because, while bad for the individual, it probably indicates a healthy, growing herd.

In the medieval period, the Golan produced a lot of olive oil

The process of clearing Golan minefields continues 50 years after that phase of the conflict.

Our group stood at an overlook as the day cooled and waned, gazing across green fields to the tree line that signals the Syrian border.   

Israel Tour Day 1

Across the Atlantic we flew

As the night spread west cross the blue

We stopped in Tel Aviv

And you can believe

That I talked with a group from Peru. 

Synopsis: I’m a Family Practitioner from Sioux City, Iowa.  In 2010 I danced back from the brink of burnout, and, honoring a 1-year non-compete clause, traveled and worked in out-of-the-way places in Alaska, Nebraska, Iowa, and New Zealand.  After 3 Community Health years, I took temporary gigs in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Canada, and Alaska.  Since the pandemic, I worked telemedicine, a COVID-19 clinic, a VA clinic, and spots Texas, Iowa, and Pennsylvania.  I am back in Iowa, circuit riding rural clinics. 

Right now I’m on vacation in Israel.  I’m Jewish and I don’t write about religion or politics.  See my post https://walkaboutdoc.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/why-i-dont-write-about-religion-politics-or-sex/

ISRAEL TRIP DAY 1

I tried a new strategy for avoiding jet lag: pulling an all-nighter.

I gravitated towards bad sleep management in elementary school, before the diagnosis of ADD, when I found the only time I could study was after everyone went to bed.  High school poured on the academic pressure with surprise assignments at the last minute, figuring to teach us how to work under pressure.  And after we found out we could do that, and at the same time found out that working ahead did no good, we became experts at the undergraduate’s game of procrastination and put everything off till the last minute.  Radio, med school, residency, and obstetrics taught me further sleep deprivation skills.  I know how to stay up all night, yet, surprisingly, I didn’t make coffee a habit till the pandemic. 

But through the long dark hours over the Atlantic I took a cup of coffee every 2 to 4 hours, only yielding to sleep when I thought I might develop motion sickness from reading through turbulence. 

I forgot to take melatonin last night, though I had brought it with me. 

Today we walked around Tel Aviv, taking in history and street celebrations, but still I nodded off in the tour bus. 

I found the people visibly stressed.  Perhaps because of a large city’s population density, perhaps because everyone was touched by the October 7 slaughter and kidnappings, and almost everyone has connections to the 57 who remain in captivity. 

And perhaps because in the entirety of human history the Middle East has never known peace, thus everyone lives in a war zone. 

At dinner in Kibbutz Lavi, we ran into a group dressed in blue gowns trimmed in gold, from Lima, Peru.  Our bunch had thought them priests and nuns, but in fact these ten people belong to the Evangelical Association of the Israelite Mission of the New Universal Covenant, or AEMINDP.  I struck up a conversation.  Their beliefs include Sabbath observance, Jewish dietary laws, the divinity of Jesus, and male circumcision, among others.  None speak Hebrew, all speak Spanish, and most speak Quechua.  I expressed regret that I don’t speak even a single word of that language, and asked that they teach me to say Thank You; I learned anyay (last syllable stressed); later using Google I found a different word if thanking more than one person. 

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Passover in Israel

Was the Exodus orchestrated by Heaven?

To remember, we avoid any leaven.

Spelt, barley and oats

Wheat and rye’s gluten coats

We don’t eat for days one plus seven.

Synopsis: I’m a Family Practitioner from Sioux City, Iowa. In 2010 I danced back from the brink of burnout, and honoring a 1 year non-compete clause, traveled and worked in out-of-the-way places in Alaska, Nebraska, Iowa, and New Zealand. I followed 3 years Community Health Center work with further travel and adventures in temporary positions in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Canada, and Alaska.  2019 included hospitalist work in my home town and rural medicine in northern British Columbia.   Since the pandemic started, I did 10 months of telemedicine in my basement, staffed a COVID-19 clinic in southeast Iowa, more telemedicine, visited family, attended 4 funerals, worked 12 weeks as a contractor for the Veterans Administration in South Dakota, and traveled to Israel.

I’m Jewish, and I traveled to Israel during Passover.

To find out why I don’t write about politics, religion, or sex, please read https://walkaboutdoc.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/why-i-dont-write-about-religion-politics-or-sex/.

Bethany and I haven’t visited Israel for 2 years, but the Jewish urge to be in the Holy Land during Passover goes back more than 3000 years.  Neither us has celebrated the holiday there until now.  But for all of our lives, every years we say, Next Year in Jerusalem. 

Our daughter lives in Be’er Sheva, not in Jerusalem.  Jerusalem proper goes to chaos for the Jewish holiday and for the Christian Easter that immediately follows. 

(Not all Christians celebrate Easter at the same time, which, sometimes leads to problems.)

We had a lovely seder in Be’er Sheva.  Our daughter honored me by asking me to lead, even though her Hebrew is much better than mine, and Bethany’s Jewish learning exceeded mine until recently. 

I love the Passover story because of its universal relevance.

Sooner or later each person will find themselves re-enacting the Exodus as an individual. Things change: maybe a partner crosses the line from binge drinking to alcoholic, may the good boss gets replaced by the jerk.  The circumstances (geographic, emotional, financial, personal, work, home) become constricted; the Hebrew word for Egypt: Mitzrayim, meaning narrowings.  Successful redemption demands personal action, and frequently requires leadership and help (sometimes, Help).  Redemption never comes easily, and not everyone accepts the opportunity.  The urge to return will tempt the wandering redeemed, who will also face the tension between moral turpitude and moral compass. 

If all works well, we learn, grow, and strengthen.  We come to a set of conclusions having to do with personal integrity.  If we follow those, we come to the land of milk and honey.

On the second day of the 8-day holiday we visited Jerusalem.

Due to travel and internet access, some posts will appear out of order.