I can’t believe that today is only Monday. The day started with a visit to the ancient city of Acre (aka Akko). Yael our tour guide extraordinaire walked us through the history of this ancient port town, from Arabs, to Crusaders, to Ottomans, to the British. One of the easily overlooked attractions is yet another AV presentation which went over the city’s history by way of it’s bath house. I know, whacky right? But still, I’ve seen it three times already, and enjoy it every time. The trippers were enthralled, so that ought to give you an idea of how cool it was.



Afterwards, we went on a beautiful but harsh 3 hour hike to a small river in between Safed and Mount Meron. Never have I ever enjoyed dipping my toes in a stream more before. We then drove off to the center of Kabbalah – the town of Safed. They cleaned up really well after last summer’s rain of Katyushas from our Hezballah friends in Lebanon, no doubt thanks to the efforts of Leading Up North and Livnot. We visited a few of the synagogues including the one used by the Ari’zal. While the trippers bought all manner of tchochkes, I ran into Rafi, one of the participants at Jewlicious at the Beach 2.0. He’s been living in Safed for the last 5 months and while he looked all frummed out, the rakish angle of his tzitzis and his Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt were evocative of his former mischievousness. Rabbi Yonah will be pleased to know that he looks well fed and is also duly employed as a graphic artist. Just letting you know.

Now I am writing from the main lobby of the guest houses at Kibbutz Haon on the banks of Lake Kinneret. Looking forward to some good sleep – tomorrow because the trippers have been so good, Yael has allowed us to sleep in till 8 am! Why does this excite me so?

rockin' the tri-blend

Check us out rockin’ the tri-blends! Available both in crew neck and v-neck, I challenge anyone to find me a shirt better suited for Israel’s harsh summer sun. And it is so. friggin. soft. American Apparel and Kabbalah have never gone together as well.

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About the author

ck

Founder and Publisher of Jewlicious, David Abitbol lives in Jerusalem with his wife, newborn daughter and toddler son. Blogging as "ck" he's been blocked on twitter by the right and the left, so he's doing something right.

16 Comments

  • Jewlicious.com: never, ever missing a chance, or missing a chance to make a chance, to pimp American Apparel. Because, like, American Apparel is really Jewish. And stuff. They have billboards with Woody Allen! Jews love Woody Allen!

  • Uh… Michael? I brought you one of those shirts. You tell me it isn’t the best shirt ever. You’ll see. Besides the fact that AA has been extremely supportive of Jewlicious, they remain the only major manufacturer of t-shirts that does not use sweat shop labor. I don’t know if that’s a Jewish value, but maybe it ought to be.

  • “Looking forward to some good sleep – tomorrow because the trippers have been so good, Yael has allowed us to sleep in till 8 am! Why does this excite me so?”

    Because you’re old, dude. 😉

  • CK, could you tell us more about the participants? Who are they? Where are they from? What kind of experience are they having? Did any of them know what they were getting into? Is anyone talking to them about what’s going on in Sderot?

    Inquiring minds wanna know.

  • Since you spent some time in Tsfat (Safed, Tzfat, whatever), maybe you can answer a major theological question that I have.

    WHAT THE HELL IS WITH THE OBSESSION WITH AMERICAN APPAREL???

    Is this some front for the Elders (please give them my number, I’d appreciate being part of the consipracy) or were these shirt deemed Kosher by Rabbi Kook? I just don’t get it!

  • That’s an easy one, Boomer, ck has a soft spot for companies that don’t receive enough publicity or word of mouth promotion.

  • Geez man. The shirts are awesome and I thought it was funny that three of us were randomly wearing them on the same day. Would you all now please focus on the trip?

  • Don’t look at me, man. Boomer asked. After Michael asked.

    As for the topic at hand, what can I say, you landed one good looking bus.

  • Dude, I frickin’ love my tri-blend (i have it in every style). I actually would like to buy another two of the vneck and crew-neck just to have on hand. I’m not kidding, ck. Come back and let’s go shopping!

  • You got it girl! I’ll be back in august. I’m glad someone understands! I’m glad you all think my bus is attractive but really, they’re great kids. That’s why I love ’em so! They are gelling nicely, kinda getting it and every day their questions get better and better. I think I may have a couple write posts so that you too can understand who young American Jews are today.

  • Tri-Blend? In Tsfat? Thats not Kosher!

    Lev 19:19 “‘Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.” (not vouching for the translation)

    Oh the heresy!

  • Michael, It’s bidness as they say in Texas. Used to be there were independent “underground” papers, (Village Voice, LA Freep). Today they are mostly chained into mini publishing empires. Politics turned laissez faire/C of C with maybe a Tom Tomorrow cartoon. Why would there be surprise that there is some commerce connected with Jewlicious? At least here dissent does not go to the round file.

  • Heh. Commerce. Heh. This kinda “commerce” would seriously put me in the poor house. BUT… 5 people were wearing Tri-Blend AA shirts as well as other AA stuff. I wisely wrote about it and then AA picked up the story and we got more and new traffic as a result. That small part of the post was a darned good idea. If AA paid us for post mentions there’d be a lot more.

    Servers don’t pay for themselves.