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- Why did you become a
guide?
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The
first couple of years after I came to Israel from
Connecticut, I taught English in a kibbutz school in
the Beit Shean Valley. During school vacations I
would go to the Sinai on 8-day trips organized by
the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel.
Every trip we would climb a different mountain
reputed to be “the” Mount Sinai from which Moses
descended with the Ten Commandments. One trip was
particularly memorable – we walked for three days
straight, with camels carrying our food and sleeping
bags.
I fell in love with the Sinai – with its
umbrella-shaped acacia trees and sudden oases, the
Beduin with their vibrant folklore, the ragged
granite mountains and so many theories about where
the Israelites actually did their 40-year wandering.
Enthralled by all the stories and adventure, I fell
in love with every guide I ever had – and I wanted
to be just like them. So I applied to become a guide
myself.
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Photo:
Peter Giordano |
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It's Gila on tour |
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Ironically, exactly one month after I began the
guide course, Anwar Sadat, President of Egypt,
unexpectedly came to address the Israeli Knesset
(Parliament), which set in motion the Israeli
withdrawal from Sinai. Despite two and a half
decades of guiding experience throughout Israel, I
have never guided the Sinai!
But during the guide course, I discovered the rest
of the country. South of Bethlehem we swam through a
grotto of springs channeled by Herod the Great to
the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. By Mount Sodom, on
the shores of the Dead Sea, we crawled through a
flour cave in total darkness. In the Galilee, we
climbed down the face of the Arbel cliff before
there were ropes to hold on to (that was scary!) and
we hiked every major dry river canyon between Dan
and Beersheba. |
- What is your favorite
site today?
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| Without
a doubt -- Tel Dan, in northern Israel. Guiding
biblical sites is today my passion. And there are so
many biblical passages that can be discussed and
illustrated at Dan. As we walk along the roaring Dan
springs, we make a detour to reach the altar to the
Golden Calf, King Jereboam’s religious shrine
established to rival Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem.
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Photo: Bill
Creasy |
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By the High Altar at Dan |
Here I’m pointing to the
original stones in the 9th century BC altar at Dan from
the time of Ahab, King of Israel. The archeologist
Abraham Biran was amazed when he realized that this
altar – to the golden calf we think – was built with
three layers of dressed stone followed by a layer of
cedar wood, apparently to cushion against earthquakes –
exactly the description of the building of Solomon’s
Temple in First Kings 7.
As we sit on the 8th century BC steps leading to the
high altar and ponder the First Kings chapter 12 story,
discussion inevitably leads to the issue of whether we
have embraced the worship of modern-day idols in our own
lives.
By the triple-arched 18th century BC mud-brick gate, we
read about Abram’s chase after his nephew Lot, the
world’s first recorded hostage and by the king’s
“throne-seat” we recall how David mourned his son
Absalom, until he took his “seat by the city gate.” And
there’s a lot more!
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- Who’s your
favorite Bible character?
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David, the shepherd, musician, warrior,
outlaw, and king! I once planned and guided
a tour in the Footsteps of David. Was it
ever great. Original, too. We sat below Gath,
Goliath’s home town, and talked about David
burying his sword before going into the
city, pretending to be insane. It could have
been right below the picnic benches where we
were sitting. That was a thrilling thought.
It’s great fun to reenact “David versus
Goliath” in the Valley of Elah, where the
battle actually took place. I narrate the
story from First Samuel 17 while the biggest
fellow in our group plays Goliath and a
small redhead or a kid with freckles plays
David the Bethlehemite. I even bring a
slingshot along
which “David” gets to take home as a
souvenir. |
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- What was the
biggest surprise you arranged for a group?
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By pulling
many strings, I once managed to arrange a
7:00 a.m. mass in the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher for a group of 99 American
pilgrims, of which I was chief guide. It was
difficult, for there is a very strictly
enforced “Status Quo” agreement of several
centuries which dictates which denominations
can celebrate mass at what hours in which
chapels.
My group of 99 pilgrims had the
extraordinary privilege of celebrating mass
just outside the Tomb itself. Unexpectedly,
as the mass ended, the organist, whom I had
been schmoozing with earlier, burst into a
glorious rendition of the “Star Spangled
Banner.” There wasn’t a dry eye |
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Photo:
Gila Yudkin |
by the Tomb. Afterwards, every single |
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Entrance, Church of the
Holy Sepulcher |
member of the
tour hugged me for that |
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highlight.
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- What was your
most embarrassing moment on tour?
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Tripping over a knee-high pillar in the
courtyard of the church commemorating the
Feeding of the 5,000, I fell on my face in
front of 50 Malaysian pilgrims. Whoa – that
was a humbling experience. My nose was
broken in three places and I required 17
stitches on my face.
But, after only five days, when the cast was
taken off, I greeted my next tour at the
airport, shiners and all. The group joked
that I looked like a cat with whiskers, for
some of the stitches were sticking out above
my upper lip. It was hard for me to sing,
and that was one of the few tours that I
waited till the very end to teach “Hava
Nagila,” my groups’ favorite Israeli
folksong. |
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- What was your
most difficult tour?
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When Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, I was
with a group in the Galilee. I had gone to
bed early and was only half listening to the
TV, while I was getting dressed the next
morning. When I heard that the prime
minister was dead, I screamed and dropped on
the bed in disbelief. That day was so hard –
I insisted on carrying out our planned
itinerary, but my tour leader, Dr. Randall Lolley, senior pastor at the First Baptist
Church in Greensboro, North Carolina, asked
that we stop somewhere along the way to
watch the funeral broadcast. So I called a
kibbutz and asked permission for our group
of 44 pilgrims to stop by their clubroom,
where they had a TV and a large enough space
for everyone to sit.
Dr. Lolley asked that we watch it in the
Hebrew original, (not the CNN translation)
so that we all would “experience” the
funeral. We were with kibbutz members, and I
stood to translate for the group. When
Rabin’s granddaughter Noa gave her eulogy,
it was so beautiful that I broke down in the
middle of her speech.
We arrived in Jerusalem the following
afternoon and after depositing the group in
their hotel, the Palestinian driver and I
bought a wreath at a florist shop in East
Jerusalem. The next day we all visited
Yitzhak Rabin’s grave on Mount Herzl.
Two years later to the day, I sent Dr.
Lolley a postcard, saying that I had just
visited the grave. Here’s what he wrote me
in response, |
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"Thanks for thinking of us as you
visited Mr. Rabin's grave site on the
second anniversary of his death. We will
NEVER forget your poise, pain, and
confidence in the peace process which
shined through your grief. We all mourn
his death and hope every day that the
principles for which he worked (and even
died) will prevail.”
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Above, a bumper sticker in Hebrew which
reads, “Shalom Haver,” meaning “Goodbye, my
friend.” President Bill Clinton concluded
his eulogy for Prime Minister Rabin with
these Hebrew words
which touched the heart of every Israeli. Soon afterwards a majority of cars in Israel
displayed the sticker. I sent one to Dr. Lolley, and he put it on his car and drove
around Greensboro, North Carolina. |
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- Can you give
us an example of a historical tale you
relish telling on the bus?
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Anyone who has been on my bus knows my
favorite story --
Cleopatra. I find her
absolutely fascinating. Cleopatra’s
contemporaries claim her allure was in her
charm, not her beauty. In fact, there’s a
coin with her portrait on it in the British
Museum which shows her with a beak nose! One
historian says the essence of her nature was
a “combination of female charm and a
masculine brain, both bent on the pursuit of
power.”
Her story is connected to a number of sites
on our pilgrimage route – Caesarea, Masada,
Ein Gedi, and Jericho. She delighted in
exotic perfume, especially balsam grown in
Jericho and Ein Gedi. On her birthday, Mark
Antony surprised her with the deed to the
balsam plantations. Herod the Great was
definitely not a happy camper when he heard
about this!
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Photo:
Bill Creasy |
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Entrance to Masada from
the Snake Path |
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In the guardroom at the entrance to Masada,
above, I’m telling the group why
Herod went to all the trouble to build this
fort in the Judean Wilderness.Remember
that this is the same Herod, mentioned in
the gospel of Matthew, as responsible for
the death of the infants in Bethlehem. He,
of all people, was so afraid of Cleopatra
that he built the fortress of Masada as a
refuge in case she ever succeeded in
fomenting a rebellion against his rule. |
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- What’s your
favorite music?
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Blues and gospel. I love singing spirituals
on bus rides. I surprise my groups with
funny stanzas they have never heard for “Go
Down Moses” or “Down by the Riverside.” I
connect songs with places they didn’t know
the songs were about. Everyone knows “Joshua
Fit the Battle” goes with Jericho, but do
they know “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” is also
connected to Jericho? I even teach
Hebrew songs, and we
establish a little repertoire of Israeli
hits. |
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- What’s the
most unusual praise you ever received?
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This took place in a period when groups were
being pestered by hawkers and pickpockets. The thieves knew that if they stole from
anyone in my group, I would report them. (Wallets picked out of pockets of my
pilgrims were nearly always returned.) A
big, husky guy on tour with me told the
group, “If I were President of the United
States, I would want Gila to be my
BODYGUARD!” |
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- What’s your
hope for Jerusalem?
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Photo:
Gila Yudkin |
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View of Jerusalem as seen
from Dominus Flevit
on the Mount of Olives |
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That Zechariah’s prophecy (chapter 14)
promising the eternal security of Jerusalem
will be fulfilled in my day. And I wonder
where I’ll be and with which group when the
following comes to pass: “On that day His
feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives,
which lies before Jerusalem on the east; and
the Mount of Olives shall be split in two
from east to west by a very wide valley; so
that one half of the Mount shall withdraw
northward, and the other half southward.”
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Are you considering
leading a tour to the Holy
Land? Everything you would
want to know -- from A to Z! |
If there are other
questions
on your mind, about pilgrimage, Jerusalem, the
holy land, or yours truly, just contact me. Or read what
others have asked about the holy land, the holy
sites, pilgrimage, Judaism, Hebrew, or
archeology in
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