Israel

Immanuel College aids sick teacher

Sandy Rashty — Mon, 20 May 2013 10:43:44 +0100

Immanuel College pupils, former students and staff have been raising funds for the family of its popular head of geography who has terminal cancer.

Paul de Naeyer, who joined the Bushey school in 2004, has not been at Immanuel this academic year.

“I spoke to my consultant and we discussed how long left,” said Mr de Naeyer, who is in his late 30s. “She said it was months and that 12 would be a good effort. I am now basically just trying to control the pain by increasing my tablets as and when.”

Current and ex-pupils used the popular ratemyteachers.com website to express their admiration for Mr de Naeyer, who also organised school ski trips. Further tributes were paid on a fundraising site page, where former Immanuel student Joe Hyman wrote that he “really enjoyed the first ski trip you arranged for school. I hope you know how much everyone at Immanuel appreciated you.” Genevieve Schwartz said he was “one of the most inspiring teachers I have ever had”.

The school recently held a “Wear Orange for Paul Day” — orange is the favourite colour of Mr de Naeyer, who is married with two young sons. The day raised £4,000 and a film show will be held next month to generate further cash.

“The generosity and kindness of all at Immanuel has been unimaginable,” Mr de Naeyer said. Paul Abrahams, a close friend and the head of modern languages at the school, said: “We are all thinking of Paul and his family at this difficult time and are doing whatever we can to support them.” More than £18,000 has been raised to date.

Tel Aviv: New York's mini-me?

Jan Shure — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 11:23:59 +0100

The last time I stayed in Tel Aviv was in 2008. So driving to the seafront from the airport, through the formerly sleepy tributaries of Jabotinsky, Arlosoroff and Ibn Gvirol, and seeing the sheer quantity of new residential and office buildings and the scale of gentrification of the older, inner-city neighbourhoods, was breathtaking.

Many of the new buildings are dizzingly vertical and its late-night club and bar scene evokes the sense of being in a mini-New York.

But once you are at ground level, walking the newly spruced and extended promenade, now stretching all the way from Jaffa in the South to just short of Herzliya Pituach in the north, or strolling the manicured streets of Neve Tzedek and the old business district around Rothschild Boulevard there is no doubt that Tel Aviv is quintessentially and uniquely Israeli. Its blend of ethnic, cultural and religious influences, its cutting-edge fashion, architecture, music and art, its energy and its cool, live-and-let-live liberalism, go some way to reinforcing that.

And, these days, with its huge number of chain hotels, and quirky, one-off boutique properties, it is a
fabulous spot for a year-round vacation. And, of course, it has that beach: 6km of wide, silver sands, fringed by beach restaurants, playgrounds, parks and outdoor gym areas - and a swimming pool at the heart its promenade.

For those with cultural leanings, there is an abundance of exhibitions, events, cinema and music, including regular concerts at the Mann Auditorium, opera and ballet at the architecturally stunning Centre for Performing Arts on Da Vinci Street, and dance and theatre at the Suzanne Dellal Center.

The city also has a slew of museums, including the new and unmissable Yitzhak Rabin Center in Ramat Aviv, which tells the story of the creation of the state, parallel to the life story of the murdered former Prime Minister.

While shopping in Tel Aviv was once all about Dizengoff Street, the Dizengoff Centre or the kitsch craft and clothing stalls in Nahalat Binyamin, today Tel Aviv's retail scene has sprawled in every direction. Shenkin Street, once faded and unfashionable, was rescued in the mid-90s by the cool crowd reacting against the concrete brutalist architecture and homogeneity of places such as the Dizengoff Centre and Gan Ha'ir. Today, it is crammed with cafes and Israeli designer boutiques, which have also spilled over into the surrounding streets such as Lillienblum, with chic little shops, bars and cafes, and Rothschild Boulevard, where top banks, auction houses and advertising agencies vie for space with local designers, bars and cafes.

This part of Tel Aviv, famed for its rich seam of Bauhaus architecture, is known as the White City and in 2003 earned Tel Aviv the designation, UNESCO World Heritage site.

Incidentally, specialist chocolate restuarant, Max Brenner, at 45 Rothschild, serves what is likely to be the best cup of hot chocolate in the universe.

The oldest neighbourhood, Neve Tzedek, with its labyrinth of narrow streets and tiny houses crammed tightly together, has been undergoing gentrification for two decades.

It began with the creation in 1989 of the Suzanne Dellal Centre whose structures are set around a beautiful piazza, at the heart of a vibrant quarter, filled with exquisitely renovated, pastel-painted houses.

The old Railway Station, known as Hatachana, was the terminus for the Jaffa-Jerusalem line which ran from 1892 to 1948. Neglected for almost 60 years, the station together with sidings, freight storage buildings and a few crumbling neighbouring homes, have been beautifully restored into a charming quarter.

There's a good Italian cuisine at the rustic Italiana nella Stazione and a cool Tapas bar, Vicky Christina. Among the little arcades and avenues of shops there's fine jewellery at Anat Perez, Cath Kidston-type homewares at Sofi, stylish shoes at Shoofra, fashion jewellery at Harraca, designer pieces, including bags, at Efrat Cassouto, the draped jersey and clever separates of Ronen Chen.

Heading north on the seafront, is the newly regenerated Old Port whose decked walkway is forever thronged with cyclists, walkers and skate-boarders. Old it may be, but sipping a drink in the chilled-out Speedo Bar, relaxing on a huge, squashy sofa, with the skyscrapers on the skyline, watching as the world speed-walks or cycles by, it is easy to forget that this is Tel Aviv.

Oasis in the desert? Let's drink to that

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 11:19:36 +0100

Israel's president, Shimon Peres, who can turn a phrase or two, turned to his hosts with a huge smile.

"This," he declared, "is the Taj Mahal of the Negev."

Since the Taj Mahal is famously Shah Jehan's architectural declaration of love to his wife, the president might have exaggerated slightly. But David Lewis's magnificent new hotel, the Beresheet, is certainly a love letter to the Negev desert, and though it has only been open since Pesach, it seems likely that the embrace will be wholeheartedly reciprocated.

It's more than 20 years since the British hotelier was invited by Israeli leaders to help open up the Negev, fulfilling David Ben-Gurion's famous dream of making the desert bloom. But Isrotel, David Lewis's company that built the Beresheet, would readily admit it has not been plain sailing.

Not the least of the difficulty in opening the hotel, whose name means "Beginnings", was opposition from Israel's Green lobby, anxious that it would bring all sorts of environmental problems to the area.

In fact the father and son team who designed the hotel, Yehuda and Yoel Fagin, have achieved something really special. It is almost impossible to see Beresheet from the main road, but once inside, Sylvie Cohen Gabay, its general manager, watches out for the "wow" on guests' faces.

For the hotel perches on the edge of the Makhtesh Ramon, the giant crater next to the tiny township of Mizpe Ramon. You simply cannot help but say "Wow" when faced with the vast expanse of the crater, whose rocks flicker from rose to gold to chocolate, from sunrise to sunset.

Mrs Gabay, who has opened six hotels for Isrotel, is slightly surprised at the behaviour of the clientele. Most people come for two or three nights and the Beresheet expected that guests would head out every day to explore the area - and there is much to do. But instead, she says, they stay, seduced by the sensational view and the great food and facilities, before either making their way down to Eilat or turning back to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.

Ah, the food. The Negev turns out to be a foodie paradise, who knew? Not just a foodie paradise, in fact, but a drinker's heaven.

More than 2,000 years ago the Nabateans grew grapes and cultivated vineyards on the rocky desert slopes, and now there are 11 wine-makers following in the Nabatean footsteps - some in almost the same stepped terraces.

Another ancient tradition which has been revived is cheese-making, and the Kornmehl goat cheese farm is one of the finest exponents. The arrival of the Beresheet has had a major impact on the wineries and the cheesemongers. The Isrotel management, headed by chef Assaf Bouzaglo, told the wine and cheese farmers: "We will feature your produce in our hotel - but it must be kosher." So kashrut certification was duly sought and obtained, making it possible to enjoy the best of the Negev at the Beresheet.

The adventurous, however, may well want to investigate for themselves. Banish from your minds all wine tours elsewhere. This is nothing like the Garden Route from Cape Town, with manicured wineries and a slick visitors' centre in the front office. Nor is it anything like California's Napa Valley, where winemakers have refined the art to a finely-tuned chemical process, with barely any sense of vinous romance.

Touring the Negev wineries is not for the faint-hearted. To start, very few can be approached by anything which we would recognise as a road. Most, though in place for more than a decade, have the air of having been flung down that very day.

The winemakers themselves run a gamut of presentation between Sde Boker's respectable Zvi Remak - a kibbutznik, married to a Brummie - to the eclectic artist Erez Rota of Rota Winery.

The latter was founded on the Negev Heights and though Rota wines are on the Beresheet menu they seem sometimes almost secondary to his wildly creative sculptures which are scattered around his farm.

The diminutive Moshe Zohar, at the Boker Valley Vineyard, quite literally built everything himself, from the indoor tasting room to the cool, covered outside picnic area, with rustic tables and benches. Zohar is bursting with ideas; he plans a cellar on site for all the area's wines. Unlike some of the other winemakers, he takes his grapes to a bigger winery, Barkan, to make into wine under his own label.

Over at Carmey-Avdat, winemaker Eyal Izrael could produce 20,000 bottles a year, but chooses instead to make only half that and sends the rest of his grapes to other wineries.

Like all the Negev wines there is a distinctive fruity taste, quite unlike wines from the Golan or the Galilee.

Anat Kornmehl is an eighth-generation Israeli who abandoned Tel Aviv to run her cheerfully rickety goat farm, on the site of an ancient Nabatean farm, with her Argentinian-born husband Danny.

The Kornmehls have been in the desert for 14 years and their small herd of 100 goats gives them the most splendid cheeses: they produce eight varieties, ranging from soft to nutty and hard. Each cheese, charmingly, is named after one of the goats.

Back at the Beresheet there is ample evidence of the impact of the Green lobby. Cars are not allowed in the complex of 111 rooms, so once you have checked in, you board an electric golf cart whose drivers whizz guests around.

The rooms are a series of mini-cottages, some of which have a private
12 sq m pool.

You could, if you wanted, arrive by helicopter, but most people, unsurprisingly, drive to the hotel, just over an hour from Beersheva. It's not cheap: the presidential suite is a socking £2,574 a night, but other rooms are proportionately less expensive - and you pay for the room, not per person.

On site is a spa, a small but willing to expand gift shop, a mini-synagogue (and two others only 150 metres from the hotel itself), a kids' club and a state-of-the-art cinema, which shows different films every night.

Shimon Peres might just be right about the Taj Mahal allusion. This is a jewel in the desert.

One year on: the spa that healed itself

Jan Shure — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 10:53:17 +0100

The lawns are preternaturally green, the trees and shrubs luxuriant, the flowers sit prettily, ruffled by a breeze in the borders and beds dotted with artless informality all over the grounds. Everywhere at this tranquil sanctuary in the Carmel Hills, just south of Haifa, is verdant and perfect.

But without a miracle on, appropriately, Chanucah last year, the picture might have been very different at Isrotel's Carmel Forest Spa.

Because at the start of Chanucah, on December 3 last year, the spa resort which first opened in November 1996, came, literally, within inches of being immolated in the terrible forest fires that swept these hills, devastating everything in their path.

"I was in Tel Aviv at meetings when our security manager called me at noon telling me that the fires were heading our way," recalls Aya Grundman, the resort's general manager.

"Forest fires are not new in the area but he told me the police were worried and were sending buses. Guests were having lunch, others were having treatments when they were told and they had to pack up quickly and leave. It was very orderly, very quiet, people understood."

After the guests had left, Grundman and the Isrotel chief executive Lior Raviv, and a few senior staff, stayed on, to ensure no-one had been left behind and that the building was secure. Finally, at 7.30, when the fires were raging, they were forced by the police to leave.

"We didn't leave the police and fire teams alone. We were on them constantly urging them to save the spa. The fire came, literally, to our front door" - from her office, off the lobby, she waves a slim, manicured hand towards the wide glass doors - "burning a mat inside."

There was fire damage to the dining terrace, and the gardens beyond the outdoor pool. Also, the guest rooms smelled of smoke and burning.

But when you stand in the resort today, nostrils assailed only by the scent of flowers and herbs, and look at the hills, with their blackened, skeletal trees and patches of scorched earth, the scale of the miracle that kept this spa virtually unscathed is revealed.

Since December, the spa's UK-based owners have spent 8 million NIS (£1.45m) repairing the damage.

They also took the opportunity presented by the three-month closure to extend the dining terrace and create a wine-bar showcasing fine Israeli wines. The country's wineries, including Golan, Yarden and Dalton, now produce award-winning reds.

The interior of the resort is as beautiful, quiet and calm as it has been since it opened 15 years ago, dotted with sculptures, paintings, witty objects and quiet corners for contemplation.

What a cynic might also describe as another kind of miracle - the separation of Israelis from their mobile phones in all public areas, inside and out - also prevails, The fact that the resort is child-free - no-one under 16 is permitted inside or out - helps to maintain the tranquillity and peace, even around the outdoor pool.

Dining has evolved since my last visit, making it more, how can I put it, fresser friendly. A decade ago, lunch was a buffet of locally-grown, fresh salads, vegetables and cold dishes, in keeping with the spa ethos.

Today, with so many guests using it as a holiday resort, albeit one where they can truly unwind and recharge, there is still a buffet at lunch time, supplemented by a hot main course dish, featuring fresh, local fish, dairy and vegetable produce, all delicious and exquisitely presented by a team led by executive chef, Amir Kalfon.

Dinner is more formal, when bathrobes (lovely Frette waffle cotton ones) - which are permitted at breakfast and lunch, in keeping with the spa atmosphere - are not allowed.

A buffet is followed by a meat or parev, main course, featuring entrecote steak, chicken, salmon and a nightly chef's special.

A popular feature is Tuesday's barbecue night, beneath the vines of the al fresco dining terrace.

In case you hadn't spotted it by now, this is not a spa for ascetics: there are desserts at lunch and dinner, plus cheesecake at breakfast, and wine, spirits and beer are available at lunch and dinner. While spa purists may object to such abundance, there is no compulsion to indulge, and the quality and variety of fruit, salads and vegetables makes it easy, providing you have the will-power, to detox and lose weight, if that's what you want to do.

Treatments remain as sublime as I remember. The spa employs highly trained therapists for the 70-plus massages and treatments for the face and body, ranging from Swedish massage, to complex rituals involving a slew of Eastern therapies.

I sampled the Carmel Forest Spa Balance which was probably one of the finest spa treatments I have ever had, anywhere. Therapist Anat, a delightfully calm woman with magic in her hands, started by kneading my back and shoulders before moving to the "polarity" stage, which involves deep massage of the feet, hands, scalp and face.

Afterwards, I dozed in a chaise longue in the silent, sun-filled solarium, waking to a view of lush fields and blossom-clad orchards stretching all the way to a hazy horizon.

Apart from treatments, or a little retail therapy in the spa shop, selling fitness and sportswear, Israeli-designed fashion, and the new, gorgeous Carmel Forest Spa collection of soaps, fragrance and body products, there are indoor and outdoor pools.

There are also daily classes and activities, with instruction in English usually available, including fitness walks, yoga classes, salsa, tai chi, aquarobics, aerobics, Zomba, pilates, Feldenkrais, back-pain and body-shaping.

Our only regret is that we had time for only four days there. But we plan to return - preferably annually, for a detox and recharge. In the meantime, in December, when we light the chanukiah, we will slip in a little prayer of thanks for that other miracle that took place in the Carmel Hills in 5771.

A magnificent land full of memory lanes

Julie Burchill — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 11:02:30 +0000

I always love the feeling of voluntary solidarity with Israel which I experience when going through security with El Al. When the young man or woman says "There is a reason I am asking you these questions", tears spring to my eyes and I really have to stop myself from blurting "I know. I know it all. My life for you, Israel!" in case they think I'm a loony and stop me from boarding.

But this time I had been mucked about so much by the Fattal Hotel chain PR, that my brain was experiencing turbulence before I even set foot on the plane.

I tried to put it out of my mind as, shortly after an early-morning touchdown, the cab sped towards the Leonardo Boutique Hotel in Tel Aviv's diamond district, where my friend Nadia and I were due to spend one night before a weekend in Eilat. I had thought it wise to ceaselessly reiterate the fact that we would be arriving sometime around 5am. We arrived at six to find no rooms in our names.

When we were finally given one with a camp bed crammed in, the toilet was just a few feet from the bed and, for style's sake, didn't even have a door - just a plate of glass with gaps at the top and bottom.

At breakfast we were confronted with lipless milk jugs which poured all over the table, butter pats which wouldn't open and a juicer which fell upon one when touched, and concluded that the hotel was like one of those fantastic-looking people who you look forward to sitting next to at dinner but have nothing to say. In this case, it was like they spilt stuff on you, too.

It was also completely at odds with the laid-back boutique-hotel ethos to have one of those icky "you touch it, you take it" mini bars dispensing beer and Snickers bars, or to have the hairdryer on a timer. All the purple alligators and retro prints in the world won't make you hip if you exhibit such tragic cheese-paring tendencies.

Sporty and shallow, Eilat is the opposite of every Jewish stereotype. I used to like it a lot. Then I got stuck there for a fortnight earlier this year when that pesky volcano did its thing, and by the time we got out I never wanted to see the place again. That we were back, speaks volumes about how much I love Israel.

When, as instructed, we rocked up at 11.30pm to check in at Herods, the charming girl on the desk inquired innocently: "What kept you? Your room's been ready all afternoon." I am a patient broad, but if I had had a grape to hand, I would happily have crushed it in sheer molten fury.

Luckily, the sheer ludicrousness of the place makes it impossible to stay miserable for long: if Liberace and Cecil B DeMille had built a love-nest together, it would look like Herods, where life-size jester statues are caught forever mid-caper, prancing bronze ibex and horned rams preen by the swimming pool and stone cats spit spume upon swimmers.

But with restaurants like the Boston Grill and CafeCafe to eat at, a beachful of bars to booze at, a sea full of fish to squeal at and an ice-palace to cool one's heels in, Eilat is one of sweetest seasides I've been beside.

Then it was time to fly back to Tel Aviv, where, with relief, we checked in to the Dan Tel Aviv. Partly, it's that Dan is my husband's name, so whenever I see a Dan sign shining out, I feel I'm coming home. But if I didn't have Dan, Tel Aviv would be the place I'd want to live, probably in a Bauhaus flat near Hayarkon Street.

The Bauhaus aspect of Tel Aviv makes an interesting point about Israel; whereas in another country, you might drag yourself to a museum to find out about a nation's history and culture, here it's all around you.

Last time I was there I found my favourite-ever building, Etzel House, while on the way to dinner at Manta Ray. This time, as always, Nadia and I dropped our bags and headed straight to Mike's Place, the best blues joint outside New Orleans, just a Woo Woo's throw from the Dan, for quesadillas and Key Lime Pie shots.

The signs "Good People, good food and great beer" and England fans welcome" reflect the easy-going welcome here, despite the fact that in 2003, a suicide bomber approached Mike's Place and blew himself up at the entrance, killing three and wounding more than 50.

On the way back from the bar, we stopped to look at metal sculptures I'd never really noticed before; so sleekly do they fit into the walkway leading from the Dan to the sea. Together they make up the Aliya Bet Memorial Gardens, a beautiful tribute to the second wave of homecoming diaspora Jews mythologised in my favourite film, Exodus.

In Israel, public art means something and is as beautiful and useful as the graceful wooden gazebos scattered along the silken white sand from the Old Port to Jaffa which allow bathers to retreat from the shimmering heat.

And in Tel Aviv the attitude is live and let live. In the restaurants where you can smoke and take dogs, or the rooftop pool at the Dan where Rihanna recently lounged and where the toddler's pool, now free of tots, plays host to an Orthodox lady, fully clothed, sitting in the water and sharing a cheeky fag with a bikini'd girl, you often feel you must be in the most tolerant city in the world.

"Tel Aviv for playing, Jerusalem for praying", goes the line, and pulling up at the Dan Panorama, where the excited Christian tour groups are gathering, you know you are in a place like no other. I don't know Jerusalem like I know Eilat, and I doubt that I could live there, but a trip to Israel which doesn't include it feels hollow. It is simply the most sorrowful and splendid place on earth.

After a brilliant early dinner at the kosher restaurant Olive & Fish - the hospitable manager and his bottle of arak made us linger longer than was wise - and an early night, we were raring to go next morning, to see this amazing place of which the Talmud said: "Ten measures of beauty descended on the world - nine were taken by Jerusalem, one by the rest of the world."

I've done the Jerusalem walking tour before, so we jumped on to Bus 99, the red double-decker which shows the stunned tourist everything, from the view of the Old City and the Temple Mount from Mount Scopus in the north, to the Judean desert in the south.

You can alight and disembark at any of the 28 stops, but we sat tight for the full two hours and stared out of the window in wonder, crying discreetly at the songs about Jerusalem which punctuated the tourist narrative on our headphones. Next day we flew home and much as I love TA and Eilat, it's always Jerusalem which is my most searing memory of this small, magnificent land.

Freewheeling and high on mountain air

Paul Berger — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 13:08:08 +0100

It is 10am and I am sitting on a hillside on the southwestern shore of Kinneret, puddles of sweat collecting on the ground below. I have been riding, with a friend, in the July heat for four hours. We are not sure where we are or how we are going to get down the hill. I ran out of water half an hour ago.

I am in the Galil to explore two short sections of the 85-mile bike trail that winds up, down and around the hills that surround Lake Kinneret, the lowest freshwater lake in the world.

The trail cost about £350,000 - paid for by Keren Kayemet Le'Israel and the Israel and Galilee tourism authorities - and is due to open by January 1.

Shortly before my friend and I embarked on our journey, Oded Shoham, who is project manager for the trail, visited our base, the no-frills Aviv Hotel, in Tiberias on the eastern shore of the lake. He gave us a map and traced a two-day route that would take us past Christian pilgrimage sites and Kibbutz Afikim, where we were assured of the most "incredible hummus". I would go a long way for hummus. But we were two hours behind schedule and under instruction not to ride after midday. Our goal was to reach Kibbutz Ma'agan, on the southern tip of the Kinneret, before noon.

We were running late because the route out of Tiberias, which looked easy on the map, but involved a three-mile, uphill climb that would make a Tour de France rider sweat.

We started out enthusiastically at 6am riding at a moderate pace on mountain bikes rented from the Aviv Hotel. After 15 minutes, I stopped a minibus driver to ask directions to our first turn, Sapir Street. He looked surprised. "It's a long way up there," he said, pointing up the hillside.

For the next 90 minutes we pushed our bikes up an incline similar to that found on a stalled escalator. By the time we arrived at the trailhead, at around 8am, we were exhausted.

Mercifully, the subsequent ride south was largely downhill, rattling, bumping and skidding over dirt and gravel paths and weaving around rocks. Occasionally, we hit a stretch of paved road and freewheeled downhill and around bends before being punished with another uphill climb.

To our left, the lake shimmered in the sun and for about two hours we giddily followed trail markers only having to double back just twice. Apart from the odd farm worker collecting honey or picking mangos, we didn't pass a soul.

We had about 15lbs on our backs, including clothing, bike repair kits, food and, for my friend, water. Between the weight of my pack, the heat and the concentration needed to remain upright while hurtling downhill, I was sure an accident was imminent unless we found water soon. My friend graciously offered me sips from his dwindling supply. We reached the village of Kinneret, near the southern lakeshore, about 45 minutes later, and refilled. But an hour after that we had to stop again. This time, we collapsed in a bus shelter. My friend lay on a bench and concentrated on breathing. I felt as though a heater inside my head was about to explode.

This state pretty much epitomized the following day-and-a-half of riding; perfect as Israel is for cycling, with its diverse landscape (desert, mountain, forest, coast), it has one handicap in summer: heat. Temperatures each day topped 30C.

The ride was supposed to be fun, so we vowed to stick to a 40-mile route that ran alongside the lake.

According to locals, the shoreline is rideable by a novice in about six hours. But some of the lakeside roads include long and taxing climbs - especially on fat, mountain bike tyres - so seven or eight hours is nearer the mark in summer.

On the eastern shore of the Kinneret, we were sandwiched between the hills of the Golan on one side and a succession of pebbly beaches on the other. We rode so close to banana plantations and mango groves that we could reach out and touch the fruit.

Rather than trying to complete our ride in one day, we stayed overnight at Moshav Ramot, on the northeast shore of the lake. Our hosts were Racheli and Dudu Goldstein of the Hachi Nof Sheyesh (Best View Ever) guesthouse.

Over a meal of kosher smoked lamb ribs and sirloin steak at their cosy Habikta restaurant Racheli explained that tourism is thriving at Ramot, which has 200 rooms spread among a variety of family-run hotels and guesthouses. We stayed in one of Hachi Nof Sheyesh's two-storey wooden cabins, whose luxuries included flat screen TV, two showers and two Jacuzzis, one perched on a balcony with views over the lake. Unsurprisingly, we were slow to saddle up the following morning.

The northern tip of the Kinneret is perhaps the most dangerous for cyclists. The highway twists and turns. In places, the hard shoulder disappears. At one point I became so nervous that I rode into a ditch. My friend joined me after being buzzed by a speeding truck.

Israeli drivers are no joke. On Highway 90, a few miles from Tiberias, we witnessed a crash less than 100 feet from where my friend had been standing a moment before. Aware of the danger, Galilee tourism authorities recently unveiled plans for a bike path that will allow riders to circumnavigate the lake in safety.

By the time we reached Tiberias, around 7pm, I think it is fair to say that we had had enough adventure.

I would certainly ride the lake shore again when the bike path is complete. And as for those mountain bike trails, by all means give them a try. Just get a lift to the trailhead, consider taking a guide and don't try it in the summer.

Unexpected Israel: music, wine and spas

Anthea Gerrie — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:29:49 +0100

While wine, womanly pursuits and song are not the most obvious reasons to visit Israel, the country is nevertheless becoming a fabulous holiday playground for hedonists.

Even those who thought they knew the country well may be surprised to find its vineyards are winning international prizes and opening up to visitors. And where there is wine, centres of well-being are never far away, particularly in the north, close to Israel's most noted spas and retreats offering numerous opportunities for New Age-style spiritual renewal.

Autumn - especially Succot - is a great time to be in Israel, for music lovers as well as grape aficionados, though some of the sounds on offer may be more rousing than the season of mellow fruitfulness suggests; this year will see Ozzy Osbourne's Ozzfest in Israel for the first time at Tel Aviv's Yarkon Park on September 28.

A week later the famous Scorpions will play the city as part of their farewell tour, and on October 5, Britain's great guitar hero, Jeff Beck, will play the atmospheric Roman amphitheatre in Caesarea. This lovely coastal venue is not the only monumental site in Israel where alfresco music can be enjoyed; next year will see a spectacular staging of Aida at Masada, following the huge success of Nabucco this summer.

Top jazz musicians from all over the world will descend on Jerusalem for the annual Globus festival at Harmony Hall in the last week of November, fast becoming an unmissable date for music-lovers. As is the city's International Chamber Music Festival, which has just finished for this year but will be back at the end of August 2011.

Jerusalem is, surprisingly, the best base for exploring Israel's first official wine trail. True, there are far fewer vineyards here than the vast grape-baskets of the Galilee and Carmel Hills. But the maverick growers who defied received wisdom that it would be impossible to work the small plots of the Jerusalem Hills where wine was first grown more than 2000 years ago are now the ones winning top international prizes. Connoisseurs may be aware of Clos de Gat and Castel - both on this trail and happy to receive visitors who call ahead - but less familiar with Kibbutz Tzora and Flam, which also make fine, though less widely exported, wines. Flam, at Rishon Le Zion, is next door to the Spice Farm, the lunch stop of choice in this area that straddles the Judean Hills and the coast. A rustic barn, half is a casual, but really fine, restaurant; the other half a dazzling delight of nuts, grains, tahinis and all kinds of gourmet take-away edibles.

The Carmel Valley is where wine production - which began 2,000 years ago - almost ceased until Zionists from Europe returned to the Holy Land.

Given a proper kick-start by Baron Jacob Rothschild in 1882, the Carmel Winery is still the country's largest producer, and its plant at Zichron Ya'akov offers good tours and tastings. While there, don't miss the town, which resembles a Napa Valley wine-country village with craft shops, galleries, fashion shops and cafés, running the length of a charming main street,

Lovers of good food and wine will also want to visit nearby Tishbi, which has, as well as a café in Zichron, a wonderfully bucolic restaurant in verdant countryside just outside; there's nothing quite like eating among hills and vines to stimulate the appetite as well as feed the senses.

Before the first boutique wineries sprang up in the Judean Hills, the Golan Heights Winery was making Israel a contender in the field of premium, top-quality wines. There's little romance in its busy modern plant, with its vast stainless steel tanks, but the Yarden and Gamla wines, particularly, are well-worth sampling at the tutored tasting that end the tour.

While the winery is so big and clinical that visiting can be a slightly dispiritng experience for individuals - who often have to fight groups for tour appointments and elbow room at the tasting counter - there is stil a warm, personal welcome on hand down the road at tiny Chateau Golan, whose co-owner and winemaker, Uri Hetz, gets a kick out of meeting wine aficionados
- and his wines are world-class, too.

A good place to stay for a visit to the northern wineries is in the foothills of the Golan - but inside the Green Line - at Kibbutz Kfar Blum, which operates an excellent guest house. Their steam-table dinner cuisine is not exactly appetising, but there are a couple of rustic restaurants in this beautiful rural area beside the Jordan River, one serving locally-caught river trout, the other barbecued meats.

And down at Tiberias, Decks is a famous kosher barbecue restaurant serving meat from its own herds which attracts foodies from all over Israel. Kfar Blum has a very pleasant, if not especially sumptuous spa, and given the link between wine and well-being, it's no surprise that there seem to be spas in Israel wherever there are vineyards.

The country's most famous is the Carmel Forest Spa up in the Carmel Hills, just south of Haifa, and operated by Isrotel, which serves some of those fine Israeli wines to accompany its delicious and (if you are there to lose weight, all too abundant) food.

Visitors love the distant sea views, the cool forest air (a particular treat in high summer), the extensive gardens, the fabulous indoor and outdoor pools and the sublime massages and treatments for which Carmel Forest seeks out the world's finest pairs of healing hands.

The north has other very fine - albeit less high profile - residential spas, notably Mizpe Hayamim in Rosh Pinah, Israel's only Relais & Chateaux property.

But also intriguing are the New Age holidays focusing on yoga, meditation and alternative therapies offered, ad hoc, in the hill villages of the Misgav region of the Western Galilee.

Here, Boaz Gershon co-ordinates a group of B&B - sometimes called zimmerim - owners, who are keen on helping their guests recharge their emotional, physical and spiritual batteries. Infinitely knowledgeable about the area's provision, he will take visitors through the many options on offer.

One centre of note is Hararit, where the many accommodation choices include a self-contained apartment in the spectacular home of charismatic dance therapist Ruth Pardess. Michmanim, where a local architect and his Japanese wife have created six zen-inspired B&B rooms to complement their Japanese restaurant, is another good choice for a base. Their next-door neighbour offers yoga and swimming in a spectacular hilltop setting, and local artist Orna Oren offers painting classes with lunch.

Although spas have not yet arrived close to the vineyards of the Jerusalem Hills, there is a branch of Carmel Forest Spa at Isrotel's Royal Beach Hotel in Eilat, and a number of women return to the Red Sea resort year after year to swim with the dolphins off the beautiful private beach of Dolphin Reef where treatments are available. As befits a good resort, Eilat is also packed with good restaurants, both in and out of the hotels whose extensive wine lists include Israel's finest vintages.

And, of course, fine wine, fine food, massages and music can also be enjoyed year-round in Tel Aviv, which has no shortage of concert halls, jazz clubs, day spas, yoga retreats and truly excellent restaurants, cafés, bars and wine bars.

Getting there

El Al (020 7121 1500; www.elal.co.uk) has 11 flights per week to Tel Aviv from Heathrow and six a week from Luton, from £349 return. Kfar Blum (00972 4 6836600; www.kfarblum-hotel.co.il) has double rooms from 751 NIS (£128) half board; Carmel Forest Spa (00972-4 8307888; www.isrotel.co. il) has two-night breaks for two people sharing, from $1,385 (£898) full-board. Mitzpe Hayamim (00972 4 6994555; www.mizpe-hayamim.com) has two-night breaks for two sharing, from $760 (£493), half-board. For tailor-made holidays in the Western Galilee/Misgav region contact Boaz Gershon (00972 4999 0106; boaz@hakal-misgav.co.il).
El Al's Superstar Holidays is planning to introduce wine tours of Israel from 2011.

Tel Aviv a top beach city

Jennifer Lipman — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 16:40:24 +0100

Tel Aviv has been named one of the ten best beach cities in the world.

A National Geographic survey placed the Mediterranean coastal city on the list alongside Honolulu and Rio de Janeiro.

The magazine described the city, home to everything from a buzzing port, busy markets and sandy beaches, as “Miami Beach on the Med”

Although Tel Aviv was beaten to the top seaside spot by Barcelona, Israel was the only Middle Eastern country to make the list.

The Israeli city, which has just celebrated its 100th anniversary, came in at number nine, with the list’s writers praising both its nightlife and daytime beach scene.

They wrote: “Tel Aviv is the Dionysian counterpart to religious Jerusalem.

“Eight miles of beach literally steps from town. Head to wide and sandy Gordon Beach to sit in a seaside café or take a dip in the saltwater pool.”

Tel Aviv has also been listed as one of Forbes Magazine’s top “Party Cities”.

BA strike causes Israel Pesach anguish

Leon Symons — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:54:07 +0000

Families looking forward to Pesach in Israel may face heartbreak as a result of the proposed British Airways cabin crew strike.

BA has cancelled all flights to Israel this weekend and will not resume until Tuesday. However, the main travel time is the following weekend — March 26 - 28 .

Former United Synagogue property director Alan Koch was one of those whose Pesach plans could be ruined by the strike.

Mr Koch, 65, of Kenton, said: “I am booked on a flight on March 28. BA has told me that if the strike continues and the flight is cancelled, they cannot get me out there until the following Thursday. That means I would miss seder nights with my two sons and three grandchildren” .

“The trouble is I may not know anything until next week, when it will be too late to try to find anything else. I would have to make Pesach here when I had no plans to do so. It’s not easy because I suffer from multiple sclerosis.”

United Synagogue vice-president Keith Barnett was also facing difficulties. He said: “My wife is booked on a flight on March 25, which is okay. But I am booked on the Saturday night flight. We could face the prospect of spending Pesach apart. ”

BA apologised for the problems, which it blamed on what it called the Unite union’s “unjustified strike action”.

BA’s flights will continue until Friday and will resume on Tuesday March 23. It has managed to place some travellers with El Al. But the airline is waiting until next week before it deals with flights for the following weekend and says it will try to give its customers as much notice as possible about flight changes if the strike continues.

El Al sa ys it will not be adding any extra flights to Tel Aviv as a result of the proposed strike. It will be operating flights as published but may bring in larger aircraft to try to accommodate more passengers.

El Al launches Eilat flights to improve poor access

Jan Shure — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:09:55 +0000

El Al has announced it is to operate three daily flights in each direction between Ben Gurion and Eilat, commencing in March.

The airline, which ceased direct flights between the UK and Eilat in 2007, is adding the internal flights to improve access to Israel’s Red Sea resort for visitors flying in to Israel from Britain and other, mainly European, destinations.

Until this season, when Eilat’s leading hotelier Isrotel launched its own direct flights between Luton and Eilat – branded as the Isrotel Sun Express – the resort has not been regularly served by direct flights from the UK since March 2007.

Passengers wishing to fly to Eilat from the UK had to do so via Ben Gurion, switching planes and arriving in Eilat late at night.

For the return leg, if they wished to check in their baggage in Eilat City, only one flight to Ben Gurion was available to them: departing at around 7am to connect with the morning flight to London.

The timings effectively wiped two days off a holiday, and is believed to have contributed to a steep decline in visitor numbers from the UK to Eilat. These fell from 45,000 in 1997, to 5,000 in 2003, when the Iraq War started.

That figure barely recovered to 6,000 in 2004, and in 2008, with Eilat holidays hit by the credit crunch and images of the Gaza conflict, the number of UK visitors to Eilat fell back to 2003 levels.

The JC understands that the mayor of Eilat, Meir Yitzhak Halevi as well as senior figures in Eilat tourism, have lobbied the ICAA and the Tourism Minister, Israel Katz, for improved links between the gateway airport and Eilat amid the realisation that if potential visitors have to endure lengthy and inconvenient journeys they will simply choose to go elsewhere.

Charlene Blake, manager of El Al’s Superstar Holidays – which, ironically, has been hit as badly as other operators by the flight issue – welcomed the move: “We have been waiting for this for a long time and will be a tremendous boost for the destination.”