Israel

mental display of new glass artistry
was mounted there. Now it seems to
get fewer than 200 daily visitors, so
dawdling is easy. The museum relies
on replicas rather than original arti-
facts, but the stories of the different
periods of the city are told with a nice
verve.
Whether by design or oversight, the
tour brushed against the periods of
Muslim and Ottoman rule hardly at
all.
But history had other outlets.
Farther north, with neither grapes nor
many visitors to distract him last
Thursday, Eran Goldwasser could take
time from his wine-making to give a
fascinating walking tour of Baron
Edmund Rothschild's 1880s Carmel
Mizrachi winery at Zichron Ya'akov
on the road to Haifa.
A restoration of the camp for illegal
immigrants on the coast below Haifa
was under-produced, but it still
proved an emotional and intellectually
engaging experience of a dramatic
moment in Palestine under the British
mandate. Independence Hall in Tel
Aviv similarly cries out for a first-rate
multimedia introduction and a budget
adequate to spruce up the display
areas.
After the Western Wall, Masada
remains the most powerful site in
Israel for Jews. Until September, visi-
tors were arriving at the rate of
800,000 a year to see for themselves
the place where, in 73 C.E., 967 Jews
committed suicide rather than become
Roman slaves.
On top of the mountain, the gov-
ernment has completed a massive
reconstruction of the buildings and
exhibits and installed an ultra-modern
and affordable cable car ride for those
who don't want to make a 900-foot
vertical ascent under their own power.
On Wednesday, the new visitor cen-
ter was nearly deserted, although 50-
mile-an-hour winds were the primary
deterrents to tourism. Deputy park
director Eytan Campbell said busloads
of Israeli school children are beginning
to make up for a 40 percent drop in
admissions since the shooting started.
The intifada - is providing a new gloss
for the standard view of Masada as a
lesson in Jewish courage. Now, says
our guide Milo, it stands for the
proposition that Israel should never.

The country's' attractions, security make this a perfect time to visit.

get itself into a dead-end situation, a
place from which there is no way out.

Sense Of Security

The issue of security gets on a visitor's
mind in direct ways. Airline passengers
get a much more thorough and time-
consuming quizzing than in the
United States. Even so, unbidden at
every takeoff is the question, "Did
something sneak through?"
But no foreigner has died in a ter-
rorist attack in Israel since the 1995
bombing of a West Bank settlement
that killed seven Israeli soldiers and an
American student, Alisa Flatow.
Tzion Ben-David, head of North
American operations for the tourist
office, pointed out that foreigners are
far less likely in Israel to suffer the
sorts of lesser assaults — muggings,
pick-pockets, camera thefts, swindles
— than they would be in Rome or
Lisbon, for example. Even late at
night, women can walk safely in the
entertainment areas with a freedom
that a New Yorker, San Franciscan or
Washingtonian would envy
Last week, the Conference of
Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations, meeting in Israel, said
it will work for repeal of the State
Department's advisory warning U. S.
citizens not to travel in Israel. Israeli
officials say the warning, issued after
the Sept. 28 uprising, does not reflect
the reality of everyday life.
The greatest dangers we faced were
those that confront
any traveler on a
fast tour at this
time of year —
backache in crowd-
ed planes and expo-
sure to a cabin full
of colds and flu, a
bad falafel that kills
a night's rest and
fatigue from late
hours, good wine
and little sleep.
One of our
group, from
Miami, said a
tourist coming to
his city was, by sev-
eral orders of mag-
nitude, more likely
to be in physical
danger than we

were in Israel. Amens from the jour-
nalists from Albuquerque, Baltimore,
Boston, Detroit and Philadelphia
(Pittsburgh and Long Island
abstained).

Resort Life

Most American Jews think about
going to Israel out of spiritual or cul-
tural conviction. They could go just to
have fun.
From Haifa in the north to Eilat at
the south, the country has developed a
wide range of luxury resorts that can
compete with the better known water-
ing holes of the Mediterranean, the
South Pacific or the Caribbean.
Haifa, for example, boasts a dozen
luxury hotels, some with commanding
Views of both the commercial harbor
and the west-facing beaches. Even in
last week's relatively cool weather, large
numbers of Israeli and Euro0ean

tourists were shelling out $300 a night
for these accommodations.
Most are an easy walk to the increas-
ingly dramatic hanging gardens of the
Baha'i Shrine on Mount Carmel and
the 150-year-old German Colony.
Short drives within the city get you to
interesting stores and galleries as well
as to good restaurants and a nightlife
that rocks.
Haifa can and does serve as a central
place to leave your bags while you
explore the Galilee to the east or the
coast to the south, with Caesarea a
particularly interesting place for a pic-
nic in Roman ruins.
Ein Bokek — on the Dead Sea
south of Qumram, where the scrolls
were found, and of Masada — is
something of a fantasy world for
resorters. Within recent years, major
hotel chains have built nearly 4,000
luxury rooms as a getaway, primarily

Oppositepage, above: The last of the
19 garden 'terraces of the Bahai Shrine
in Haifa will open in May

Opposite page, below: Ms. Adams and
her son Tommy enjoy a glass-bottomed
boat on the coral reefs of the Red Sea
in Eilat.

This page, left: Partial column found
in the excavations along the Western
Wall of the Temple Mount.

This page, right: Abu Salim explains
construction of his Bedouin tent on the
Dead Sea.

