Tel Dan

Tel=archaeological mound fun to explore. Dan=place in northern Israel where the Israelites put a golden calf and built a pagan Temple just after Solomon’s time. The place is incredibly close to the Lebanese and Syrian borders, so it saw a good amount of action during the wars. One of our guides got a medal for bravery in firefighting during the last conflict in 2006.
We visited the Natural Reserve located around Tel Dan and did some work. Some of us coated the fence with a protecting paint, I and others pruned an emergency path for tractors. It was fun manual labor and allowed us (well, those of us who were able to speak Hebrew) to chat with our guides on a different level than we have been. We had two Druze guides! Huzzah! I got massively excited. Yael chatted with them a good amount, so I have all sorts of fun bits of information in my head. The guide we worked with during pruning is a non-citizen. Many Druze live in communities up in the border mountains and can decide whether or not to be Israelis or Syrians. Some of them choose neither citizenship. He was able to study in both Syria and Israel (and both educations were paid for or at least subsidized by the respective state). He has training in medicine and in sociology…and is now working as a park ranger! He’s looking at a long-term career either as a sociologist or a paramedic, though. Talk about a fascinating community to have some insight into.