Whether it was because someone had a wry sense of humor, perhaps a feeling for the mysteries of the Infinite that few of us possess, or whether it was only because they were a few minutes bus ride apart, the fact is that on the morning of day three of our tiyul we were off to first visit a mosque in Ramle and then head to the Karaite Center nearby. If it had been up to me – which it certainly wasn’t – I would have stopped first for a few minutes to take a gander at the nearby shuk. We don’t need to stop there; we can always go to Machane Yehuda. That was the prevailing sentiment from our bus mates. Take it from me, they’re not the same. It would be like comparing Madison Square Garden and the playground on Mosholu Parkway in The Bronx. But I digress….

There’s no problem in walking into a mosque when it’s not being used for prayer; there are no icons, or anything vaguely resembling idol worship. You could just as easily be walking into an empty warehouse. But that’s the problem. The average mosque isn’t any more interesting that the average shteible in Brooklyn. What are you going to examine: the threads on the prayer rugs? But the Great Mosque in Ramle is different, starting out in the 13^th century as a Crusader church. So you know the building has Style – with a capital S. A century later, the Mamluks arrived and de-Christianized it. Gone were the little statues depicting you-know-who and you-know-who and the apse facing in the direction of Nazareth was replaced with a minaret, a mihrab (the niche pointing towards Mecca), and a minbar (a raised platform from which the guy-in-charge would deliver a talk on Fridays. (No matter where you go, you can’t escape; there’s always somebody giving a speech.) What does remain is some remarkable architecture, Crusader churches in this part of the world being almost as rare as hens’ teeth.

Speaking of ‘almost as rare as,’ our next stop was the Karaite Center, one building serving as a community center and the other as a synagogue. And speaking of ‘somebody giving a speech,’ someone from the Karaite community (if I wrote down his name correctly, it’s Mar) was there to give us a PowerPoint presentation explaining the why’s and wherefore’s of their belief system. As many people are aware, Karaites dispute the halachic validity of the Rabbinic Oral Tradition. So I sat and listened to what Mar had to say. And I thought, Does what they do make more sense than what we do? No. Does it make any less sense? No. Would I want to be a Karaite? Wait a minute. There’s no way in their system for someone to have a cup of coffee Shabbat morning. Well, that’s an immediate deal breaker.

Months before, when we were in the now-deserted marble-columned Karaite synagogue in Cairo, Cindy Kline mentioned that, for that group, the notion of tefillin is simply a metaphor for what you should be thinking, rather than little black boxes some of us place on your arm and head. On the other hand, Karaites take the directive about boiling a calf in its mother’s milk in its most literal sense, not as a springboard for a whole set of things you may not do. You pays your money and you take your choice.

We next crossed over to the synagogue. I imagine if you didn’t know what to expect, you’d be hard pressed to explain what you saw. Where’d all the furniture go? Did they forget to pay their bills, and someone repossessed everything that wasn’t nailed down? I was one step ahead of the game. I knew that the Karaites pray by prostrate themselves on the floor, so no need for pews. They also take off their shoes before entering, just like the Muslims. Apparently, at the time when the Great Mosque was still a church, half of the world’s population of Jews were Karaites. Now? Somebody threw out a number, 40,000. I’m not sure if this is the number world-wide or in Israel. Either way, it’s a drop in the bucket. You wanna say that this precipitous decline PROVES the validity, the authenticity of Rabbinic Judaism? You wanna say that there is a correlation between the number of followers of any religion and the cogency of its message? No you don’t; so let’s not go there. Does anybody have any persuasive thoughts as to why Karaitism seems to have fallen by the wayside? Here’s something that occurred to me, which I put forth at no additional charge for your consideration. Just possibly, the similarities between their method of prayer and that of Islam have proven to be a stumbling block to a wider acceptance of the Karaitic ethos. Maybe there isn’t room on the planet for two competing forms of praying on a carpet. Anyway food for thought, so let’s instead head back to the RamLod Mall for lunch.

We’re going where? Why didn’t someone in charge ask me for my advice? I definitely would have offered some alternative suggestions. That was my reaction when I read that we would be going to the Barkan Winery. Let me put it this way. The success, the charm of the AACI Study Trips is that we get to meet, up-front and personal, people who are hands-on in whatever they are doing, who are articulate and passionate, who are the real deal. That’s usually the case with the smaller wineries we’ve been to; it’s THEIR wine, after all. At the bigger wineries? We’ve often been disappointed. They have nothing to prove and are often prepared to serve the cheap stuff to the unwary visitor. (Just the other day, Barbara got a message to that effect from one of our friends, who had just visited a visitors’ center in the Golan Heights and was disappointed.)

Barkan, by far the largest winery in Israel, is one part of the Tempo Group, an enormous Israeli conglomerate, whose portfolio also includes spirits from around the world: Scotch, Irish whiskey, vodka, gin, beer, and soft drinks. You name it, they got it. If nothing else, they don’t need my patronage in the same way smaller outfits do. Plus, Barkan has flooded the market with the cheap stuff. They do make some better wines, but that’s not what comes to mind when I hear the name Barkan. What annoyed me especially was that in our travels we were passing by or were a stone’s throw away from a number of intriguing alternatives that would welcome us with open arms.

Still, that’s where we were headed after lunch, the visitors’ center at the Barkan Winery in Kibbutz Hulda. As we got closer, we began to notice grapevines on both sides of the road, and more grapevines, and more grapevines, some in plots carefully maintained and some overgrown with weeds. Remind me to ask about that. We later learned that we were passing through 600 acres of grapevines. That seems like a lot, but that’s chicken feed for Barkan. They have ten square kilometers of grapevines scattered throughout the country, from the Upper Galilee to the Negev. (Take a moment and try to imagine how big an area is ten kilometers and now many grapevines you can squeeze into that space.)

Usually, when you walk into a winery for a tasting, they’ll welcome you and start talking about their wines. But pretty much the first thing out of Nuri’s mouth was an explanation of where to seek shelter in case of a siren alert. That’s one way to burst my bubble in record time. Remember, we were on the road; our newspapers – The NY Times, Haaretz, JPost, and all the Hebrew-language papers our neighbor thoughtfully leaves on our doorstep for Barbara to go through – the ones that would keep us up to speed as to what was going on in our small part of the world would be waiting for us when we returned but were of no use to us right then and there. All I had on my phone about res publica centered about the ongoing legal difficulties of a former U.S. president. The fact that rockets were being launched from the south of us and, in return, the lives of some Islamic Jihadists leaders down there were being dramatically shortened had escaped the notice of the compilers at Yahoo News.  It is comforting to know that the large building where 5,000 barrels of wine are gracefully aging will withstand a hit by an errant rocket, even if said missile eludes destruction from the Iron Dome. And don’t worry about the sounds of planes taking off; we’re near an air force base; happens all the time.

Before we were to get a look at all those barrels of wine, we were ushered into a room and shown the obligatory promotional film about the life and times of the Barkan Winery. Then we were off to witness the barrels all in a row or rows. And no, I did not count them to verify that all 5,000 were present and accounted for. But I suspect they were.

From the barrel to the bottle, that would be the next step. Years ago, we got to see the bottling process at the Golan Heights Winery, which is no small operation, but nothing compared to what we witnessed at Barkan.  But so what? Being able to supply every supermarket and makolet in The Land with the cheap stuff doesn’t get my juices flowing. What are they going to offer us to tempt our palates, that’s what I want to know. Back to the visitors’ center for a tasting.

As I indicated above, I was not expecting much. But there are those moments in life – the ones you need to savor and cherish – where one’s expectations are exceeded mightily. There prominently displayed front and center was some of Barkan’s reach-for-the-moon wines, known as the Beta series. Because I keep my nose to the grindstone and my ears to the curb, I knew what this was about. A few years ago, Barkan lured Ido Lewinsohn, one of only two winemakers in Israel with the super-prestigious title of ‘Master of Wine,’ away from one of their competitors. And the fruits of his labors are in this special series, which I was told is not available in retail outlets. Only at the winery and in a few restaurants and hotels, which lead me and Nuri to wonder how my wine store on Agrippas got their hands on some of this special 2020 rosé a while back.

I have to give credit where credit is due. The winery was serving their best offerings to a busload of random folks with no special expertise, not their bargain basement bottom shelf wines, which they could easily have done and most of the assembled would have been none the wiser.

I hate to brag, but I can tell the difference. This was the good stuff, the kind it’s worth heading to a winery to sample. And now I had a dilemma.  How many of these offerings – again, only available at the winery – would I be able to shlep back with us? There was only one thing to do: take one for the team. I left with one bottle, the 2022 rosé to include in Barbara Levine’s annual rosé review. The rest? They’ll have to wait for another day. (I did remember to inquire: what about those untended vineyards with weeds crowding out the grapevines? Seems like Merlot is no longer the flavor du jour; so out it goes. Pinot Noir, anybody? I wondered if Nuri had ever seen the American movie, ‘Sideways,’ where the main character shows his disdain for all things Merlot.Maybe everybody else saw the movie, and that’s why no one is drinking this unoffending variety.)

There’s more to report, but I’ll keep it brief. That evening we heard from Mordechai Cohen, billed as “a local resident to earn about life in the mixed city of Lod.” Mordechai and his family are part of a garin (a group of people who, as a group, move into an area to make ‘things’ happen.For example, our friends The Levines were part of the garin from The States that founded Har Halutz decades ago.) What Mordechai tried to do was explain what the hell happened in 2022 when his city exploded. It’s a long, involved story and I’m not sure I can do it justice, so I won’t try.

On Thursday, the last day of our tiyul, we were scheduled to go to the Testimony House (“a living memorial to the Holocaust and a tribute to the post-Holocaust revival”) in a small village near Tel Aviv and then to the Yaacov Agam Museum of Art in Rishon Lezion, but Aliza Avshalom (remember her?) was having second thoughts. Neither of these locations were likely targets of rocket attacks, but close enough to be where the sirens would sound an alert, and you have to take cover. The thought of 35 seniors hobbling their way to the nearest shelter in the few minutes we would be given to get there was more than our guide was willing to contemplate. These sites would still be around next time we’re in the area; let’s consider going somewhere else. Between Wed. evening and Thurs. morning, those-who-do-the-planning came up with an alternative, and for that they are owed a big round of applause.

We’re going to Nathan Slifkin’s Museum instead. Oh joy! Barbara and I have long wanted to go there, although it’s been impossible on our own. Our friends had a bar mitzvah party there several months ago, but we were off on a previous AACI trip, so we didn’t attend. We were sent a photo of our daughter, who was there, holding a large snake, so, of course, Barbara was intent on doing the same. Me? I’ll take the pictures, thank you very much. If you want to see a display of the horns of every ungulate on the planet and which ones are kosher for tooting on the High Holidays, if you are interested in the do’s and don’ts of shechting a giraffe, if the thought of eating a locust doesn’t gross you out, The Biblical Museum of Natural History would be right up your alley (assuming ‘your alley’ is at the entrance to Beit Shemesh.)

If I remember correctly, the story goes like this. Joanna, who guides at Neot Kedumim, was enjoying a day off when the phone call came. There’s this busload of seniors and they need a place to go. Can you take care of them? There she was when we arrived, ready, willing, and able to show us around ‘the world’s only Biblical Landscape Reserve,’ all 625 acres of it (just about as big as the vineyards near the Barkan Winery). Barbara and I had been there before, more than a decade ago over Sukkot. But every season, over every holiday, there’s something different going on. Everything there has been carefully planted and landscaped to recreate what a weary pilgrim would have experienced traveling from the coast to Jerusalem and stopping to rest along the way. Of course, today the Biblical Park overlooks a shooting range for IDF snipers and is fairly close to Ben-Gurion Airport, so you’d have to use a little imagination and filter out the noise.

And that, with neither a bang nor a whimper, was how we concluded our trip. Our hearts were warmed, our tummies filled, our sense of adventure satisfied. What more can anyone ask for? As for the sounds of the sirens, we learned that they had gone off in Ramle on Wed., where we had been on Tues. Beginners luck, perhaps.