Scranton Central HS December 1955 Yearbook (Scranton, PA) - Guest Access

My A T la t we had arriv d in I rae!! After a five-day crui e aero the Mediterranean ea from 1ar eill , France, my tudent group of h enty boy and girls and four leader wa now tanding by th rail gazing at the white-wa h d port city of Haifa. B cau e of low landing procedure , it wa four hour before w l ft th pier and arrh·ed at our hotel, itu– ated on Mount Carmel, high above the city. Th next day w toured Haifa, an ultramodern city which ha b en in xi tence for le than one hundred years. The mo t impr . ive itc we Yi ited wa the Technion I rae]' technical college with a rating qual to that of the Ma a– husetts In titut of Technology. The following morning we loaded our American-made bu and met our Engli h- peaking guide, who ac– companied u throughout our entire two week in I rael. Our tour carried u north to th ancient city of Acre, who e high wall n over two hundred feet from the ea. It wharfs crumbling with age once upported the cru ader of the Middle A e coming to the Holy Land to battle the aracen . We veered slightly outh to on of th truly Arab citie of I ra I Nazareth. There we vi ited the home of Jo eph and Mary, now buried under the remain of five churche built over the e hrine . Down. down even hundred feet b low a 1 vel we plunged. to th city of Tib ria , ne tied on the hore of th fabled ea of Galilee. To a · the lea t it wa quite warm. DE EMBER 1955 Trip To Israel Th n w were in the heart of the Bible land of I rael. There we warn in the delightfully warm waters of the ea of Galilee and the renowned Jordan River and viewed many place of r ligiou significanc to both hri ·tian and Jew. One night we tay d at a "Kibbutz" or co- operative farm, an I raeli in titution which i uniqu . Our return to Haifa carried u through the ancient city of afed, in which the inhabi– tant live a they did in the time of Moe. fter an overnight tay in Haifa we drove traight down the coa. t through the lu h haron Valley to Tel viv. topping only at ae aria to view the xca,·ating of an old Roman Temple. After a night in Tel Avi' the mo t int re ting day of the trip b gan. Our rout carried u into th r ge' , or barren d crt of I rael, to the Gaza trip now a no-man' land where hea,· fighting had oc– curr d during I rael' War for lnde– p ndence in 1948. Th n w trav led to B er heba. d ep in the eg ,., through camp of Arab nomad complete with antediluvian water– hole. low lung tent and haughty camel . \ e tarted climbing through the mountainou. " witzerland of I rae!," two thou and fe t to Jeru a– lem a city holy to hri tianity J udai m. and Mohammedani m. While in Jeru al m for three day , w 'isited the Tomb of King Da,·id, Unit d ation Mediation head– quart r , the new Young Men' hristian ociation building and had th extreme honor of meeting th elderly Pre ident of I racl, Ben– z, i at hi Pre idcntial r idence. We reluctantly left Jeru al m and returned to Tel Aviv for two day f hopping and r t, and thence to Haifa in order to embark for Italy. A \·ve once again tood by the rail of our hip and watched th lights of Haifa lip into the ba ach of u · wa. xtremely proud of what he had en. For thi wa. I ra 1, the land of the Bible the Promi ed Land today a. in th time of Mo , a t p forward with an ye to the pa t. Richard Phillips, 56 7