I'm going to Eretz Yisrael-looking for ideas, advice…

If you’re going to be here for a year it’s probably not worth it to get an apartment because it means having to patchke a bit more, which might detract from your vacation experience.

I’d recommend a bus tour of Chevron, at the very least. You may want to do others especially if you don’t have a car. Public buses are a pain. It makes it much easier to get around if you have an organized group.

Do you want the big sites (especially if you haven’t been here in 20 years)? Or are you looking for just small cool things to do?

A cool thing to do in general- Temple Mount Sifting Project. A pain in the neck to get to by bus but pretty ok by car, it’s in a gorgeous park next to Har Hatzofim. 20 shekel for two ridiculously cool hours of sifting through dirt from Har Habayis for an archaeological dig. Until you’ve found a Bayis Sheni lamp in a pile of pebbles you can’t fully understand how cool that is.

Highly recommended.

Yep.

Basically, what happened is that the Waqf was building an illegal mosque on Har Habayis and to do so shoveled out about 60 tons of dirt and dumped it in Nachal Kidron. Backhoes and archaeology don’t mix, so unfortunately most of what is in that dirt is fragmented, but archaeologists realized that they had a great opportunity to archaeologically research the area of Har Habayis, which is normally impossible due to both the sanctity of the site and the Moslem control over it. This dirt provides a way past both of these. They’ve been sifting through the dirt for over 10 years and are still only 60% through it, so one of the ways they found of both crowd sourcing the archaeology and raising money for the Ir David foundation was allowing tourists to sift through the dirt and make really amazing discoveries. There are archaeologists supervising to make sure that the right stuff is saved and that you don’t miss anything, but otherwise, you’re the one finding mosaic tiles, pottery, bones from korbanos, and even sometimes coins. You find things from eras ranging from pre-Davidic to modern (we actually found a lot of plastic). The lamp I mentioned was actually found by a friend, but I personally found a chunk of a Turkish cannonball. It’s really amazing.

Some great things you can do: daven at Rav Kamenetsky’s minyan in Bnei Brak, go to amuka, tzefat, meron, take a tour of tzaddikim up north. the grave of choni Hamagal is amazing! Tiveriya is stunning, and you can daven by Rabbi Meir Baal Haness and then go to the separate beach down the hill! Head towards Yerushalayim-endless things to see and do! After. go to the Dead Sea to relax! Take a hike at Nachal Ein Gedi, go to Ein Bokek, see the museum at Arad….

I am on my solidarity trip to Israel, and went somewhere great this morning:- I prayed Shacharis & Mussoph @Kossel this morning.

How about all of you out there also coming to Israel.