On Thursday morning we had a relaxed schedule. No uniforms required for breakfast which opens at 630am and no work. Instead we boarded a bus with our weekend luggage at 930am and drove to the Israeli Air Force museum. On the way we encountered this street scene in the city of Beersheva which, with its' palm trees all in a line, could easily be a picture taken in Southwest Florida.
To show how modern Israel has become, we passed a sports complex shown below.
We had a guided tour at the Air Force Museum which told us of how the Israeli Air Force began in 1948 during the War for Independence when the Jews could not find a country to sell them weapons to defend themselves against the arab armies attacking on all borders. Only one country, Czechoslovakia, agreed to sell them four planes, all in pieces. The airplanes were surplus German Messerschmidt fighter planes which were shipped in pieces to Israel and assembled.
There was no time to test the planes before they were called into battle and were successful in driving back Egyptian tanks on the road to Tel Aviv, which might otherwise have cut Israel in two and resulted in an arab victory.
At the end of the tour we climbed the stairs into a Boeing 707 where we watched a documentary movie of the history of the Israeli Air Force.
This Boeing 707 was part of the famous raid on Entebbe when, on July 4, 1976, Israeli soldiers flew to Uganda to rescue more than one hundred Israelis who had been passengers on an Air France jet which had been hijacked by arab terrorists and diverted to Entebbe, Uganda.
After the tour we boarded our bus and it took us to the bus and train stations in Tel Aviv. From there My friend Sidney Conn and I took a taxi to his apartment. Sidney and his wife, Eleanor, live in Birmingham, Alabama. Eleanor is working on a Masters Degree at Tel Aviv University. They moved to Israel one month ago. While Eleanor is in school, Sidney will do a lot of consecutive weeks of volunteering with Sar-El. After Eleanor gets her degree, they'll return to Alabama. Sidney and Eleanor's apartment is modern and airy
and is located across the street from the largest medical facility in Israel which is several hospitals joined together,
which is attached to a shopping mall
with a supermarket and lots of food places
. They can get along fine without a car (which is impossible to park in Tel Aviv).
Sometimes the cars are parked so close together that the cars in the middle cannot get out. I went for a walk to the post office to mail post cards and I got to work on my Hebrew skills asking for directions. There wasn't a long line at the post office but for busy times you can make an appointment for a specific time even if its only to buy stamps.
Tomorrow evening (Saturday after the end of Shabbat) we are walking to a rally commemating the death of Yitzcak Rabin, Israeli prime minister, who was murdered 22 years ago. The people hold Rabin is high regard and it will be new to me to see such a gathering in Israel.
It's Friday afternoon and I feel a nap coming on. I'll post this and post more as the weekend goes on. Remember you can post public comments. Shabbat shalom from Tel Aviv, Israel.
No comments:
Post a Comment