January 4, 2001 — Mudeif Productions

Everyone is relieved to have tourists - whether in Bethlehem or Ein Gedi. It was a welcome relief to just play tourist (not even pilgrim, just plain old tourist). Our day began with sunrise at the Dead Sea (though it was too chilly for floating right now - that will require a return trip) and explorations of its tremendous salt formations. Down at the South end of the Sea is Sodom, where Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of the stuff.

We spent the rest of the day hiking in the Ein Gedi nature reserve, visiting the critters (hyrax and ibex) and the dramatic vistas of waterfalls and natural springs of Wadi David and Shulamit Falls.

Unfortunately, the Dead Sea is shrinking at the rate of an inch a year - it's hasty retreat is dramatic. As in most places, this has to do with the appropriation of its natural sources for other uses. According to our guidebook (we like our Lonely Planet), Israel (which draws on the Jordan River for the National Water Carrier System) and Jordan (with a similar project on the Yarmuk River) deprive the Dead Sea of over 600 million cubic meters of water per year. The future seems bleak for the sea.

*View of the Dead Sea from Ein Gedi, Israel.*

*Mosaic floor of the 3rd century synagogue in Ein Gedi, Israel.*

Finally we came upon the remains of an ancient synagogue (3rd century) with dramatic mosaics and inscriptions written in Hebrew and Aramaic. The figures in the floor are those of birds, because there was a strong belief in the injunction against portraying the human form as a "false idol" (so much so that some illuminated manuscripts we saw at the Israel Museum showed Biblical characters with birds' heads).

We finished an exhaustingly long day by returning to Tel Aviv to spend a few days in Old Jaffa.