Today is Yom Haatzmaut, Israel 78th Independence Day... Happy birthday Israel...

As announced a few months ago, Minister Idit Silman has decided to run a pilot arranging separate swimming hours at some springs around Israel, to be more accessible to the religious public, the religious hikers. I guess depending on the results of the pilot the program will either be expanded or cut...

We recently joined a tour led by Noam Bedein of the Dead Sea Revival Project to learn about the situation of the Dead Sea drying up. We got to see firsthand sights we have never seen before except in professional pictures.

this is the odd bus used by the German tv crew. you might see it around Israel. They usually travel with it around Europe.

a "salt pillar forest" at the edge of the water

you can see the salt pillars forming in the water, still under water level but soon will be exposed

the mini stalactites forming from the salt and minerals

According to Kikar, announced shortly before Pesach, Minister of Environmental Protection Idit Silman has decided to run a pilot program this coming summer for mehadrin swimming at springs around Israel. The pilot program will include two natural springs - Han Hashlosha (Sachne) up north next to Bet Shean, and Ein Tzuki down south near the Dead Sea. Obviously if the pilot works well this will be expanded.

MK Moshe Gafni (UTJ) has proposed, along with the other members of UTJ, a law that would set separate hours for male and female access to nature sites and natural springs of the Nature and Parks Authority.

Last week on Chanukah we went up north for a few days. Here is a synopsis of what we did while up north.

40-some kids got disconnected form their group on a class trip to Nahal Og and were lost. They were eventually located by security forces using drones to help in the search. Rescue teams are on the way to extract the kids.

Having grown up in a capitalist Western society, I sometimes just do not understand how things work in a socialist society, and even more how impassioned people can be about it. 

Last year there was talk within the Nature and Parks Authority about creating a program to test the feasibility of operating different trails and springs around the country in a way appropriate for the religious public in some sort of "mehadrin" style, with separate times or days for swimming in the natural ponds and springs divided among male and female. 

We mostly took it easy this holiday. While it is wonderful that the infection rate has dropped tremendously (I would assume because of the high rate of vaccination and recovery rates) and people are able to get out, unlike the last few holidays, and travel the country, I personally hate standing in line and fighting with the crowds. So I love seeing the country filled with people having a good time, and I am happy to see that mostly from my home.

What religious male traveler/hiker in Israel is not familiar with the experience of driving out and hiking on a hot day to a river or stream or natural pool of water in the middle of nature looking forward to jumping in to cool off for a bit and enjoy the cold water, only to get there and discover the pond or stream already being enjoyed by other people including women, often wearing bathing suits, if their presence alone isn't enough, and realizing they cant go in the water or hang out there to enjoy?  And what religious female hiker isn't familiar with the same experience from the other side - getting to the stream or pond and finding men there splashing around in their swimming trunks and realizing that she cannot go in to enjoy the water?

Sometimes the hikers are able to find a natural solution of moving a bit upstream or downstream where it might be quieter, but sometimes that is not a solution, especially with a pond.

The organization B'Tzalmo, a human rights organization that fights for rights based on Jewish values (briefly, if I understood it correctly), has submitted a request to the Deputy Attorney General Dina Zilber that would, if accepted, reorganize popular nature hikes in Israel and offer separate schedules for women's and men's hours or days, depending on the trail.

According to Israel Hayom, the petition was submitted as a result of the petition to the Supreme Court regarding the ongoing case of the Kiryat Arba municipal swimming pool that is kept in operation only with separate hours for men and women but some want family time to be allocated for the pool as well that would have men and women together. The court has ruled in that case that the pool must offer family time as well if residents want it. The Mayor of Kiryat Arba shut the pool down rather than offer mixed swimming times. Now residents from both sides want it to be reopened - some requesting it be opened for separate swimming and others insisting that if reopened there should also be family time.

As a result of this, B'Tzalmo has petitioned the Deputy AG that some nature trails, such as Nahal Yehudiya in the Golan, require swimming in large pools as part of the trail - the pool cannot be avoided, should someone want to for personal reasons of tzniyus to avoid mixed swimming. Because of that, B'Tzalmo says, many religious people avoid trails such as these so as not to end up in a difficult situation.

The arrangement for separate hours or days, depending on the trail, could be designated for specific days of the year, while the rest of the year it could be open to all, according to the request. they compare it to the beaches where it was determined that separate beaches could be opened without being considered discrimination.

Interesting. let's see what happens. It doesn't really help family tiyulim, but it would help all-male and all-female groups of hikers...

A Non-Profit Organization called Amutat Bein Hashitin, a group that works to educate people regarding nature in the Jordan Valley, is looking to solve a serious problem that could save lives.

People go on hikes in nature, on trails, through the mountains, and often there is no cellphone reception at all int eh area, but especially deep into the trail.

People get into some sort of trouble, lost, off the trail, injured, short of water, heat stroke, flash floods, whatever, but have no way to call for help. They whip out their cellphone but cannot make a call to bring help, or even just to let people know they are ok but delayed, because they "can't get any bars" - no reception.

In the past, search parties would be deployed, rescue teams would go out searching the trails, helicopters flying low over the area with strong spotlights, trying to locate the lost and possibly injured adventurers.

Bein Hashitin has decided to install small wifi antennas called "Wifi SOS" on trails that have no reception.

the purpose of Wifi SOS is not to give hikers access to Instagram and Whatsapp. It is not intended to let you post your latest selfie to Facebook. This will offer a low level of connectivity just so that you can make an emergency phone call and bring help, let authorities know your location, if it should God forbid be necessary.


I have not seen a list of which trails these are already installed on, and on which it will be installed in the future, but wherever they are, in the Jordan Valley, keep your eyes out for them as one of the safety measures you prepare for, such as bringing adequate water, hats and sunscreen, maps, hiking shoes, and keep your eyes out for Wifi SOS signs.

Hopefully organizations in other parts of the country will install similar systems on trails around the country to increase the level of safety of hikers.

Good job Bein Hashitin!

And I am pretty sure that groups of hikers will end up taking their rest stops in the area right near these signs so that they can try to access, or hack, them for Internet access to post to "Instush".


(Update: I just saw a list posted in a hiking whatsapp group I am in: so far they are instaleld in 5 trails - 3 up north and 2 in the center area:
Nekik Hashachor, Nahal Amud and Nahal Tavor.
Nahal Og and Nahal Derga (Deragot). with the plan to increase that number)

As I posted on Facebook at the beginning of our recent camping trip in northern Israel, "And God said "go north, in August", and the people did as God said..."

Northern Israel was packed as the people of Israel went to enjoy a hot summer vacation up north, perhaps in part making up for last years "missed" vacation due to the war in Gaza, Operation Protective Edge...

We went, with some other people, up north for 3 days and 2 nights of camping. We stayed in the campgrounds of Dagei Dafna.

Dagei Dafna is a trout farm of sorts where people can go fishing or eat in a fish restaurant. They are located a few kilometers away from Kiryat Shmona, next to Shaar Yashuv and Kibbutz Dafna, and across the highway from Chorshat Tal, sometimes known as the Hilton of campgrounds.

Dagei Dafna has a campgrounds close by as well. The campgrounds is nice and clean, with bathrooms and showers. They do not provide electricity and also prohibit music. This is nice in the sense that campers do not have to deal with teens and young adults having late night parties, as happens on other campgrounds. They do provide phone charging stations and some other amenities one might find necessary. Dagei Dafna also has a pool they empty and fill daily (from the river), along with a section of river.

While normally we tiyul sort of on the fly deciding what to do as we go along, based on everybody's moods and abilities, even choosing activities far from our home base, this time we stayed in the immediate area for all our activities. Everything was decided on the fly, but we spent far less time in the car driving to far away hikes or activities.

So here is what we did:

Day 1 (really half a day as we spent the first half of the day driving up north and settling in):
We enjoyed the river at Dagei Dafna for a bit while eating lunch. After that we planned to go to Nahal Snir, which is 3 minutes away. Unfortunately we got there only to discover the place was absolutely jam packed and staff were warning people that it might not be worth paying the entrance fee.

We decided to turn around and find something else to do. We settled on something that we had no idea what it was - we figured we would check it out and see if it is something that would keep us busy or if we should do something else. We had seen people parking lines of cars up and down the road outside an area with a sign that said "Nabi Yehuda" - Judah the Prophet.

We went and found parking. Sure enough it was an extension of the same river and a beautiful water hike. We hiked in the river against the current. The water was not high - the highest we experienced was waist high in a few brief locations, but the current was relatively strong. The water was ncie and cold and provided great relief from the heat.

At the end of the enjoyable hike, against the current, we ended up on a pooled area called "Chorshat Hanoflim". The kids enjoyed sitting around there and swimming. In one corner there was a rope swing set up hanging from a tree and everyone enjoyed swinging and flying into the water.

At some point some of us walked out to the road and decided to walk back, outside of the water, and go get the cars and those of us who had not wanted to hike all the way up. Some mistaken navigation had the walk taking longer than expected, but eventually we made it back with the cars. After some more relaxing and davening mincha, we made our way back towards Dagei Dafna, with a stop next door at the Helicopter Tragedy Memorial.

The memorial memorializes the 73 fallen soldiers in the helicopter disaster of 1997 in which two Yasur helicopters crashed on their way to Lebanon. The memorial is tasteful and interesting, with the names of the fallen displayed, and part of the memorial being designed from grass and trees and the flowing river in an abstract shape of the Yasur helicopter.

After the memorial we went back to the campgrounds for barbecue dinner and finishing off the day. The kids went splashing in the river while we prepared dinner, and finished off the day.

Day 2:
We started off the day going to Kfar Blum for "kayaking", which is really rafting. Kayaking is always fun, though I think we might forgo that activity in future trips and just bring our own inner tubes and have practically the same activity, for free, in other parts of the various rivers. This took a while, as some of us did the longer, more challenging and adventurous route.

After Kfar Blum came lunch, and then we had to decide on an activity for the rest of the day. We chose a tiyul someone had told us about. This was another river hike supposedly very similar to Nahal Snir, but also free like Nabi Yehuda.

We went to Nahal Hermon, in the section that flows near the village of Sde Nehemya. We went down to the river, and hiked, again against the current, upstream. Nahal Hermon, at least in this section was refreshing and with a pleasant current. It was also not high - most of the time ankle or mid-calf height, with the occasional waist high depth. We hiked upstream very calmly. Eventually we hit a spot with a great rope swing and everyone had a blast taking turns swinging over the water, getting splashed and jumping in.

Eventually we hiked back downstream and out of the water and went back to the campgrounds to finish the day.

One of the things we did differently this time was to not try to bring enough food for the entire trip, but mostly just for the first day. We planned on refreshing out supplies daily in nearby stores - in a supermarket in nearby Kiryat Shmona and nearby makolets. Wednesday night we drove into Kiryat Shmona and bought some food and drink for dinner and for breakfast and tiyulim the next day.

When we got back from shopping we prepared dinner, with the kids splashing around in the river. Eventually eating, showering and collapsing.

Day 3:
Thursday morning we went into Shaar Yashuv for morning services, due to the need of a Torah, rather than making a minyan in the campgrounds as we did on Wednesday. Shaar Yashiv has set up their shul during this period so that there can be multiple minyan of campers from all over the area, on the lawn outside the shul, and each minyan takes its turn going into the shul when it comes time to read the Torah.

At the Shaar Yashuv shul, we saw many others from Bet Shemesh, in addition tot he many we saw in Dagei Dafna and on some of the hikes. After davening we took advantage and bought some fresh bread in the local makolet, also sort of saying thank you for use of the shul by spending some money locally.

After breakfast we decided to pack up as we would be tiyuling and then heading back to Bet Shemesh without returning to Dagei Dafna.

Nobody was int he mood for more water hikes, so we chose some easy and low-key activities.

We started with driving to nearby Kibbutz Snir for geocaching in the old abandoned zoo called the slimy zoo. The zoo was dismantled about a dozen years ago, though there are still a couple of peacocks that hang out there and "refuse to leave" (in the words of one of the locals we stopped for directions). The spot is also the location of an old cave and grave that had been used by the Romans as a burial location.

After Kibbutz Snir, we went to Kibbutz Dan to see the fish ponds they raise trout in. They allow the public to walk around, for free, and see the different ponds. We went from pond to pond and saw how each pond is filtered and the fish in each pond are a certain age and size and with each pond that increases to eventually pretty large fish.

After this, in the brutal heat, everyone was kind of tired and nobody really wanted to do anything else. We started to head for home with a detour to Tzfat for a pizza and ice cream lunch to close off the tiyul.