Israel 2001 - Introduction

Steve and Steffi's Israel Vacation 2001

Welcome to Steve and Steffi's Israel Vacation 2000. We had wanted to visit Israel for many years, and we finally decided to make the trip, despite the unsettled political situation. When we came back, we made this site because we wanted to show our friends and relations all of our cool vacation pictures. We have been sharing our vacations this way for a while, starting in 1997 when we visited California, in 1999, when we visited the Pacific Northwest and again in 2000 when we visited Hawaii.

Introduction

For us, the big question was never whether to go to Israel, but rather when to go. There never seemed to be a good time. When the Al Aqsa Intifada broke out in the fall of 2000, we were concerned that it might be too dangerous to make this trip. So we made only tentative plans for May 2001, between the Jewish holidays of Passover and Shavuot. That would also hopefully avoid the worst of the summer heat in the rift valley and desert portions. We waited while the Barak government was replaced with the Sharon government, all the time fearing that right wing Israeli politics might plunge Israel into a regional conflict. We even made a backup plan to tour Scotland instead.

Then in April, several things happened (or didn't happen) to make up our minds:

  1. Our worst fears of a regional conflict had not been realized.
  2. All the conflict seemed to be centered around checkpoints for Palestinian controlled areas, and Jewish Settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. These were not places we were wanted to visit.
  3. Friends who had been to Israel told me that it was still safe, despite all of the media coverage of the conflict.
  4. The airlines required a minimum advance purchase to avoid horrendously high fares.
  5. Hoof and Mouth disease, or fear of the spread of it, was causing a lot of closures of natural areas in Britain, including parts of Scotland.
So with about a month to go, we purchased tickets and began finalizing our arrangements, while hoping that now that we were committed, things wouldn't get any worse. Fortunately they did not, and on May 2, we took off from Detroit, bound for Tel Aviv. Despite the advance purchase, the flights were still very expensive, we extended this vacation from our normal two weeks to almost three, so that we would be able to see more of the country and get the most value from our flight expenses.

As in our earlier vacation web sites, we had to shrink these pictures down to a manageable size so that we can bring to you so many of them. We have higher resolution versions of all these photos on CD, so if you are interested, please contact us.

Copyrights and Other Legal Stuff

The pictures and text are all Copyright © 2001, Steven R. Weiss and Stefani W. Weiss. All rights are reserved, but we grant the right to look at these pictures and enjoy them. Also, take note that although the web site is copyrighted, the vacation is not. You may certainly feel free to attempt to duplicate this vacation or any part, without even giving us credit if you don't feel like it.

Comments are always welcome. Please send them to srw@alum.mit.edu

Navigation

This site is organized into chapters, so that the downloading does not get out of hand. Altogether they add up to about 2.5 megabytes, so if you don't have a high speed connection, you will experience delays when loading. Links are provided at the bottom of each chapter to all other chapters. If you are planning on viewing the whole site, We recommend following them in order, but feel free to jump around if it pleases you. Jerusalem is first.

Because we saw and photographed so many interesting things, we have also provided an index of all the photographs, organized by subject. See our index page.

[Intro] [Jerusalem] [Dead Sea] [Eilat] [Judean Hills] [Mediterranean Coast] [Western Galilee and Jezre'el Valley] [Northern Galilee and Golan Heights] [Index]