Jerusalem & Friends - The Camels. Now Think On This by Steve Martin

Jerusalem & Friends

- The Camels

Now Think On This

Steve Martin

“Then Rebekah lifted her eyes, and when she saw Isaac she dismounted from her camel.” (Genesis 24:64, NKJV)

Rebekah was a natural. Being she was raised among camels, the normal means of desert travel, she certainly knew how to get on and get off properly. She probably never gave it a second thought. A camel girl well trained!

On any tour to Israel one thing you really enjoy looking out for are the roaming camels. These beasts of burden have been around since before Noah I would imagine, who would have had two on the ark. Abraham and his two sons certainly had many, being rich in favor. Jacob and his boys accumulated herds of them, roaming the deserts of the Promised Land under the watchful eye of the Living God of Israel.

Each time I have had the opportunity to ride the touring bus through the Land, my camera was always ready, hoping to catch the Bedouin’s camels walking in the nearby hills along Highway 1 headed down to the Dead Sea from Jerusalem. You can often see these created creatures among the black tents of these desert people or corralled within a makeshift fenced-in area nearby on the sloping, sparse landscape. To both young and old, seeing a camel out in their natural habitat is a real delight.

My first experience in riding one didn’t go so good. It was at a tourist restaurant stop on the way to Beersheva, with its robed owner awaiting any tourist, even the not-so-knowledgeable ones. Anyone ready to give him $5 for a few short laps, or at least two, around the food stop parking lot. My thought, “I can do this. Get the camera out and watch me ride!”

Already down on his really thick knees, head proudly held high, this camel gave me a look, and stayed somewhat still while I pulled up onto his single hump, covered with multi-colored blankets and some leather under them to serve as the saddle. I was given a few instructions on how to hang on, and then slowly walked around the parking lot. Not a big deal, until the dismount.

What I failed to hear, or even to be told, was most likely thought by both owner and camel one of two things. I was either a seasoned rider, or I was smart enough to figure it out - how to properly prepare for the upcoming, or down coming, dismount. Being I hadn’t paid any attention to others I had seen on other occasions, or because they typically had a platform to get on and off from, I had little idea how it would happen.

The camel did his normal thing. He stopped, bent his front knees forward, and dropped down to the blacktop. HARD.

As for me? My head jerked back at first, and then before I could say, “Help!” I flew over his brown head. Down I went, flying head first into the hard ground.

No, it wasn’t a “10” on the dismount. Maybe a “2”.

My glasses smashed first, giving no cushion for my head. This photo tells the result. At least I could still smile!

Would I do it again? Why certainly! But now a bit wiser, and paying attention to the fact that you must lean way back, hang on tight, and act like a rodeo master when on the back of a camel just naturally preparing to let you down.

When you make it to Israel, hoping for that opportunity and provision to come, go ride a camel! The ones along the road in the desert are just waiting for you to show them you have what it takes to ride ‘em!

Shalom and ahava (peace and love in Hebrew).

Now think on this,

  

Steve Martin

Founder/President

Love For His People, Inc.

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One of my favorite camel photos! Near Eilat, Israel at the Camel Ranch. (Oct. 2008)

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Now Think On This #333 - in the year of our Lord 11.23.17 – “Jerusalem & Friends – Camels”, Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. My 63^rd birthday. 11:00 am 

VIDEO: A Land of Diversity

Thursday, February 05, 2015 |  Israel Today Staff

Israel is often maligned as a racist, even apartheid state. But the truth, as demonstrated in the following video, is that Israel is a land of unprecedented coexistence given its tiny size.

The video was put together by filmmaker Matty Brown who during his travels through the Holy Land was overwhelmed by the local diversity. Modern city life, Bedouin desert encampments, Orthodox Jews at the Wailing Wall, and so much more are what make up the fabric of Israel - a land of true diversity!

By the way - as Brown points out, the title of the video is not misspelled. It is an invitation to take a peek into the real Israel, not the negative caricature the international community likes to promote.

This Isreal from Matty Brown on Vimeo.

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Where the Buffalo Roamed -- Israel's Hula Valley -- The Malarial Swamps that Were Drained -- and Now Being Reflooded

Israel's History - a Picture a Day (Beta)

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Where the Buffalo Roamed -- Israel's Hula Valley -- The Malarial Swamps that Were Drained -- and Now Being Reflooded Posted: 28 Jan 2014 Herd of buffalo near the Hula swamps. The Golan Heights are in the background (Library of Congress, circa 1900)  See also here. Buffalo wallowing in the Hula swamps.  The Naftali ridge is  the background. See also here Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California Museum of Photography  at UCR ARTSblock, University of California, Riverside)  Old maps of the Holy Land showed three bodies of water along the banks of the Jordan River  -- the Dead Sea in the south, Lake Hula in the north and the Sea of Galilee in the middle. The Hula Valley region appears in writings dating back to Josephus, but the area was not the most hospitable to human habitation.  The valley is 15.5 miles long from north to south and 4-5 miles wide. One third of the valley was lake, one third was land, and one third swamps/marshes. Malaria in the region was rampant. According to State Lands and Rural Development in Mandatory Palestine, 1920-1948 by Warwick P. N. Tyler, a concession to the Hula Valley "was granted by the Ottoman Authorities in June 1914 to two Beiruti merchants 'for the drainage and reclamation of the Hula marshes.' The concession area ...consisted of state land..." Original caption: "Land provided to the Arabs by government,  in place of area being drained. Hebrew settlement of Yesud HaMa'ala on Hula Lake" (Library of Congress, 1940) "When the concession was granted in 1914," historian Tyler continued, "the Arab population in the Hula Valley lived in 19 villages and numbered between three and four thousand.  Most belonged to the Ghawarina people -- outcasts of society, the descendants of deserters from Ibrahim Pasha's Egyptian army which had captured the region in the 1830s, escaped slaves, fugitives from the law and refugees from family feuds."  Weaving mats in a Bedouin village in the Hula Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California Museum of Photography  at UCR ARTSblock, University of California, Riverside)    In 1882, a Jewish community, Yesud HaMa'ala, was established on the shores of the Hula Lake on land purchased in 1872 by Yaakov Chai Abu from a Bedouin tribe. Some of Yesud HaMa'ala's first settlers were members of the Sobbotnik group of converts from Russia led by the fabled Yoav Dubrovin.  Tyler wrote in a Middle East Studies article, "The Huleh [Hula] Concession and Jewish Settlement of the Huleh Valley, 1934-48, "In 1934 Jewish interests acquired the Hula concession to drain and reclaim Lake Huleh and its swamps in northern Galilee.  During the previous 20 years, when the concession was in Arab hands, no significant drainage work had been undertaken. The Palestine Land Development Company agreed to pay the  former concessionaires, the Salam family, £191,974 to acquire their rights." Hula Arabs in their reed huts (The "Cigarbox" Collection) The Arab tribe in the Hula Valley was known for their mat-weaving, pictured here.  According to Tyler, they "were decimated and enfeebled by malaria and lived a wretched existence in reed houses and mud hovels."  In the 1930s, the British Mandatory government attempted to restrict Jewish land purchase "by draconian restrictions," Tyler wrote.  "Any hope that a policy of [Arab] agricultural development would be implemented was dashed when Palestine was engulfed by racial strife in 1936-9." During the 1948-1949 war and the invasion of Arab armies into the Jewish state, the Arab villagers fled.  In the 1950s, Israel undertook a national project to drain the Hula Valley to create new farmland.  The damage to the region's ecological systems, however, led to a new plan to reflood part of the valley and to create wildlife preserves. Click on pictures to enlarge.  Click on the captions to view the original pictures.