The Beaten Path

A view from the top of the Seter HaMadrega outpost, just west of the Kfar Tapuach settlement in the West Bank. (photo: Yuval Ben-Ami)

The Beaten Path epilogue: Is this the place? (Part 13)

Nothing in the Holy Land is very imposing in and of itself. What visitors seek is a connection to holiness, to an ancient story or to one currently unfolding. The deconstructed tourist trail ends with a realization: Everything here is a trace. The final installment in Yuval Ben-Ami’s journey to Israel and Palestine’s most-trodden tourist…

By Yuval Ben-Ami December 29, 2014

The Beaten Path: Tel Aviv’s after hours – a night apart (part 12)

Tel Aviv isn’t a single bubble, but rather a bubble made up of myriad sexual, political and social identities. But between the sex, drugs and rock n’ roll lies a city whose nightlife is also full of homegrown segregation. Part 12 of Yuval Ben-Ami’s journey through the Holy Land’s most popular tourist sites. It was American-Jewish thinker…

By Yuval Ben-Ami December 25, 2014

The Beaten Path: Jericho, city of flexible time (part 11)

On we go, deconstructing the tourist trail, except this time it melts in our hands, much like Salvador Dali’s clocks. Welcome to Jericho, oldest city on earth, established right this moment. Part 11 of Yuval Ben-Ami’s latest journey. When I visit Jericho with groups, the visit is typically brief. This sweet, ultra-historical desert town is…

By Yuval Ben-Ami December 17, 2014

Latest

The Beaten Path: Looking the other way at Masada (part 10)

Contrary to the strict Israeli narrative, Masada is really what you make of it: it can be the site of a majestic palace, the place where Jewish rebels committed mass suicide, a backdrop for an opera or a tourist attraction complete with the golden arches of a local McDonald’s. Part ten of Yuval Ben-Ami’s journey through…

By Yuval Ben-Ami December 12, 2014

The Beaten Path: Seeking refuge in Eilat (part 9)

Israel was borne of a need to escape a violent Europe. Now Israelis feel a constant need to escape a violent Israel. The deconstructed tourist trail reaches the deepest south, which is where they often go. Part nine of Yuval Ben-Ami’s journey through the Holy Land’s most popular tourist sites. Off the Sinai smuggling routes, there’s…

By Yuval Ben-Ami December 4, 2014

The Beaten Path: Framing the story at Yad Vashem (part 8)

Exploring Jerusalem’s Holocaust museum allows us to understand the way in which the Zionist narrative deals with the destruction of European Jewry. But is it the whole story? Part eight of Yuval Ben-Ami’s journey through the Holy Land’s most popular tourist sites. In the early years of the 11th Century, the Holy Land was taken over…

By Yuval Ben-Ami November 25, 2014

The Beaten Path: Time traveling in Bethlehem (part 7)

Seeking the past in a land with an overwhelming present can be challenging, and ever more so in the extremely compact city of Bethlehem. Part seven of Yuval Ben-Ami’s journey. If you want the world to hate you, turn Bethlehem into a prison. I can’t fully fathom why my government wants the world to hate it…

By Yuval Ben-Ami November 17, 2014

The Beaten Path: Fixing a hole in Safed (part 6)

The deconstructed tourist trail reaches the mystical Galillean town and its many ghosts. Safed is the incredible shrinking city, forever threatened by its own capacity to be more than one thing. Part six of Yuval Ben-Ami’s journey. Safed makes me sick. Literally. As soon as I hop off the bus, take in the obligatory breath of…

By Yuval Ben-Ami November 7, 2014

The Beaten Path: Fishing for the real at the Sea of Galilee (part 5)

In an over-mythologized, pre-imagined land of promise, the Sea of Galilee is a dream waiting to be shattered. Here it is, deconstructed. Part five of Yuval Ben-Ami’s journey. Ruthie, My girlfriend, hates movie spoilers. Tell her so much as one detail of the plot, any detail, and she’ll pass on the entire film. I joke that…

By Yuval Ben-Ami October 31, 2014

The Beaten Path: The unholy hierarchies of Nazareth (part 4)

If the heart of Nazareth is sacred, its outskirts are very much the opposite. If anything, they provide a perfect example of a system that stubbornly preserves a hierarchy of communities: Arabs below, Jews on top. The third stop on the reconstructed tourist trail. There is a painting by an Italian master, the great Pierro della Francesca,…

By Yuval Ben-Ami October 27, 2014

The Beaten Path: Baha’i Haifa, Banana St. and the ultimate Other (part 3)

From afar, the flight of the fancy complex and the boxy city appear rather harmonious. It is upon close inspection that they are revealed to be made up of entirely contradicting notions. The second stop on Yuval Ben-Ami’s journey to deconstruct Israel’s well-worn tourist trail is something of an exception, in every sense of the word.…

By Yuval Ben-Ami October 21, 2014

The Beaten Path: The Western Wall as military parade grounds (part 2)

It’s still beautiful and moving, but recent decades have done something strange to the ‘Kotel,’ our first stop along the deconstructed tourist trail. What happens when a site is the object of both religious longing and military identity? Read part one of The Beaten Path, ‘An introduction, or how to ruin a good story’ There are…

By Yuval Ben-Ami October 15, 2014

The Beaten Path: An introduction, or how to ruin a good story (part 1)

In a new series of adventures, travel writer Yuval Ben-Ami sets out to deconstruct the Holy Land’s most famous and heavily trodden tourist attractions. To begin, he deconstructs the entire country. The Holy Land has no history. I mean it. It is a land without any history at all, insofar as “history” can be said…

By Yuval Ben-Ami October 15, 2014