First week in July

We spent Friday June 30 driving up to the Golan heights. We spent the early afternoon at Tzippori, which was a vital trade spot on the round-the-Mediterranean routes. It was a thriving Roman city and became one of the first melting pots even before the destruction of the Second Temple. Digs have revealed dozens of...mikvahs. Which is strange considering that there are a few in Chicago, a few in New York, a few in Jerusalem. So either everyone went all the time, or the women were afraid to walk around town at night, or, as one person put it, "They were getting it on a lot." Or, and this one makes the most sense, Tzippori was a place with a huge population of Kohanim. Since rules of טמא and טהור were still in play, Kohanim were constantly required to go to the baths.

Tzippori has a famous ancient synagogue with a mosaic that retells several stories from the bible and, interestingly, has a zodiac centered around Apollo in the middle of the floor. Explanation is that after Constantine, paganism wasn't a threat and this was a way of showing that. Still seems kind of shaky because Judaism was never a universal religion. The grander mosaic there, though, is the one of Dionysus and Herakles.

Before we hit Tzfat we stopped for lunch on the southern shores of the Kinneret. Israelis in their natural state: sitting in a circle in lawnchairs in the lake...and smoking.