Float On

In the morning, my parents drove to Masada and took a cable car up the mountain to the ancient fortress.  Built by Herod the Great, this fortress overlooks the Negev desert and the Dead Sea and is one of a series of fortresses that Herod built a day's journey from each other (I believe there were seven in total).  Masada's real claim to fame, however, has nothing to do with Herod.  About a hundred years after Herod built the place, the abandoned fortress was taken by a group of Jewish fighters, the Zealots, who opposed the Roman forces swarming the region.  The Romans had already taken Jerusalem, and those who had fled had set up refugee villages in caves, fortresses, or wherever they could.  After all other rebel groups had fallen, wiped out by the ceaseless onslaught of thousands of Roman soldiers, Masada alone held strong.  The Roman army could not scale either of the thin, steep, winding paths up to the fortress in large numbers; spreading their forces into thin lines would eliminate the advantage of their large numbers.  As a result, the Romans literally moved mountains (of dirt) and built a giant ramp up to the fortress, with a tower at the very end.  This allowed them to use a battering ram and catapult, and fire flaming arrows down on the stronghold.  When at last they breached the wall, late one evening, the Romans withdrew to gather their forces.  That night, the Zealots decided that they would rather die at their own hands than surrender to the brutal Roman forces who would kill them anyway. The Romans would tell their enemies to surrender so that they might live, but they invariably killed them and made them slaves.  The Zealots also burned all of their belongings, so that the Romans could not plunder they village for their own gain.

How do we know this?  A few of the Zealots managed to survive.  We do not know how, but they told their story to Josephus Flavius and it has lived on until today.  This story has represented the courage of the Jewish people, their defiance, and (in an odd way) their ability to survive.  It was a story that gave the Palmach courage when they sought to fight their first opponents; Palmach troops would hike cross country to Masada to climb to the fortress and realize that they were the first Jewish fighters in that place in nearly two thousand years.

The afternoon was spent relaxing and enjoying the Dead Sea.  I was particularly excited, because this would be the first time I had ever floated in water.  After years of swim lessons, swim teams, and my own pool experimentation, I had never been able to float.  But with such a high salt content, the water of the Dead Sea was so dense that I would have to float this time.  And I did!  The water was like a bath because it was so shallow and the sun was so bright.  The ground was like a gravel of salt crystals.  The metal ramp leading into the water was crusted with salt.  Any small cuts burned in the salty water.  But once you get a bit further out, the water a few feet beneath the surface is cooler and you can float in a standing position with your feet not touching the bottom.  Or on your back.  Or any which way.  We had a blast, though we were diligent about not getting our faces in the water.

When we returned to shore, we enjoyed the other half of the Dead Sea experience: Dead Sea mud.  We had purchased a few kilograms of it and lathered ourselves up with the nearly-black mud.  Due to the high mineral content of the water and mud, it's supposed to be very good for your skin.  You smooth it on, bake yourself dry, and then go and wash it off.  

Sure enough, our skin came out baby smooth.  But the fun part was standing there like a human art project as we lathered each other up.

Spotted: Israeli hotel gyms.  They are small, if they exist at all, even in the larger hotels.  And they have limited hours, because they are always staffed.  In the US, you often just swipe in to the gyms and there is no attendant, but here they are required to have a staffer for liability reasons.  At the Isrotel, where we were staying, this attendant was a personal trainer who would come and correct your form if you were doing a move incorrectly.