 The Dome of the Rock and Wailing Wall, in Jersusalem |
For all its historical strategic significance as a crossroads of the world, for all its spiritual importance to Jews, Christians, Muslims and other faiths, Israel is not much more than a geographic flyspeck. The absurdly tiny dimensions of this compact country, just a tad bigger than New Jersey, means that visitors from much vaster lands find, to their astonishment, that one can drive from the lush green of the Galilee to the arid brown of the stony Negev in an easy afternoon. Yet within those close (and continually disputed) borders lie treasures untold.
Journey from the walled city of St. John of Acre (Acco) near the Lebanese border to the north, down past the vital sea port of Haifa, the Crusader ruins of Caesarea and the aggressive cosmopolitan street cafe flair of Tel Aviv, over to the Eternal City of Jerusalem, the untamed Beersheba, and the symbolic majesty of Masada, and up to the New Testament centres of Nazareth, Tiberias and Capernaum and you will have taken in places of residence, worship, inspiration and activity which have been revered, reviled and, at the very least, read about by millions upon millions over centuries.
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