Virtual Israel-Golan Heights Tour with David Sussman

hey everybody this is david sussman and i'll be your first presenter here in a four-part series being brought to you by project inspire before we get started i just want to say thank you to rabbi simcha barnett and rabbi jose friedman and to everyone at project inspire for coming up with creative and innovative ways to bring israel into your homes and connect you to your jewish identity and of course our shared heritage and for remembering us tour guys who have been suffering quite a lot here during this pandemic period so thank you again for making this all possible this is a four part series today myself david sussman will be bringing you to the golan heights in israel's north i'll be followed by rabbi ken spiro and patrick amar who will be bringing you to various sites in the city of jerusalem and last but definitely not least steve garr will be bringing us to the holy city of chevron hebron and the tomb of the patriarchs and the matrix all of these tours will be excellent for you and your families to connect with israel and if you haven't signed up for the future tours make sure you do so and i hope you enjoy today's tour of the golan heights today we are focusing on the beautiful golan heights the golan heights is a small parcel of land although you wouldn't think that with the amount of attention it receives in the media today but it's only roughly about 50 miles long and maybe 13 miles wide at its widest point but strategically speaking this cliff and plateau is seriously important for the safety and protection of the entire nation of israel what are the boundaries of the golan heights well to the north you have the large mount hormone rising 10 000 feet above sea level it even boasts its own ski resort to the south you have the yarmouk river which flows into the jordan river and at that point you have syria jordan and israel all touching one another at a beautiful place called hamat gadar these great hot springs that one can visit on their trip here to the golan to the east you have the rakad river and to the west behind me you got the gorgeous hula valley one of the bread baskets of israel but it always wasn't a bread basket in fact that huge green lush area you see behind me was nothing but swamp land for literally millennia it wasn't until those modern zionists came here those stiff-necked jews that we know we that we know we can be that were so stubborn and refused to leave even though there was starvation and malaria there they said this is our land we will make it bloom once again well in the 1950s with the help of the french believe it or not they built these trenches on the eastern and western side and drained the swamp leaving behind black gold no not oil but an extremely nutrient rich soil that the farmers here in israel took full advantage of but like any human we took too much advantage of it and we over tilled it over fertilized it abused it what happened was in the early 90s caverns opened up underground and spontaneously combusted you had these infernos raging under green underground which was destroying the vegetation up above that's when israel realized that by draining the swamp we had caused severe ecological damage so we reintroduced the swamp with the agmon lake in addition to reintroducing that swamp we also reintroduced the traditional migration pattern of the birds traveling from europe to the west and the rest of asia to the east that are going down towards africa for the winter and then back home for the spring and summer months which makes israel a prime location for bird watching literally 500 million birds each migration season passes through the land of israel just look at some of these beautiful sights right here of that bird migration in the agmon lake region so how do we get here how did israel take possession of the golan heights so to answer that question we gotta go back to the six day war which takes place in june of 1967 because the entire golan heights was controlled by syria between 1949 and 1967 and they built hundreds of bunkers like the one i'm sitting on right now that speckled the entire golan heights and especially along the cliffs that looked down onto the hula valley down below you have dozens of kibbutz and agricultural developments and thousands of jews who are living there during that time they were under constant threat by the syrians who were sitting in this bunker right here staring down at them and occasionally firing upon them as well now the six day war was a miraculous war i mean they don't even teach the six day war at west point for military strategy because it's it's mind-numbing it's mind-boggling we just can't understand it was miraculous really six days a small nation the nation of israel against the mighty egyptian i almost want to call it empire like the mighty egyptian army which is funded and supplied with armament from the russians as well as the syrians how in the world is israel going to be victorious in fact we prepared for this war by digging mass trenches not to stop tanks from entering israel but for burying our dead that's how serious this was we knew that nasa the egyptians in syria that they were going to attack they had thrown out u.n peacekeepers and lined up their troops and their tanks and their armaments on our border near the sinai desert and area lot stretching all the way up to the gaza strip and we knew that we needed to strike first so we flew in early in the morning in the beginning of june and literally just bombarded their entire air force giving us supremacy of the air now before we end our discussion about the war and the battles that took place here i want to move to another site and i want to discuss an individual who may be one of the most major personalities of the six day war even though he died in 1965 so come with me so i'm sure many of you saw the netflix documentary about ellie cohen called the spy our man in damascus so he's the individual who probably had the biggest impact on the six day war here in 67 even though he died in 65 and that's because he went behind enemy lines as a spy pretended to be a syrian and was so successful that he actually became friends with the president of syria in fact some people say that he was one heartbeat away from becoming the president himself that if the president had died many people would have rallied behind ellie cohen to become the next president of syria just imagine that unbelievable character lots to talk about him and lots to discuss but we don't really have the time but definitely look him up and if you haven't seen the spy on netflix you gotta watch it it's really unbelievable but here in the golan he told the generals and the ministry of defense in syria to plant eucalyptus trees like you can see behind me over there to give shade for the soldiers and to build barracks here and to create some type of recreational activity if there's living water pools places where people can cool off a little bit here in the hot summer well this is also where later on the syrians would actually put their stashes of weaponry and when we came into 67 we knew exactly where to bomb because of these eucalyptus trees and you can see bombed out bonkers all over the place and you can still see a standing mosque right behind me where some of these syrian soldiers would actually go and pray and all of this amongst the beautiful golan heights that is so gorgeous right now as we're still in the middle of winter if you can believe that there's a huge storm coming up here pretty soon and but yet it's very green the flowers are in bloom there's snow on the hermone the birds are chirping the butterflies are flapping their wings all over the place and here we are sitting in the middle of a war scene from like you know 55 years ago 1967. anywho let's move on and tap into some of the historical jewish aspects of the golan heights so come with me let's talk about the heyday of the golan heights which is about 1500 years ago during the talmudic period when there was over 200 000 people living here in the gola now put that in contrast with today's population which is around 36 000 half of which are the jerus people minority living here in israel whom we'll talk about a little bit later during the show well this talmudic period here in the golan with 200 000 people living here spread out over 40 different villages with a population of roughly 5 000 in each their main source of income was olive oil olive trees grow great in this region and there are many different stations to the pressing of olive oil this is in fact the second station after they initially crushed the olives they'd come here and put the sludge in these baskets and with these weights press it down and extract even more oil that oil was important because that was you know that was the oil of the day right today we need oil to run this world well back then they needed olive oil it's the way that people used to light their houses with with candles on shabbat right we still to this very day light are shabbos candles usually with olive oil or at least that's the best way that's that's the optimum way to light your shabbos candles using olive oil and the talmudic period is important in judaism because that's when the oral torah was codified it's when we took all of that oral transmission from generation to generation to generation all the way back to harsee knight to mount sinai when we received the written torah the oral torah described how to fulfill those mitzvot well that all ended after the destruction of the second temple when the romans kicked us out of jerusalem and forbid one another from teaching torah so this great rabbi rabbi yehuda nasi and the great rebellion of the time had this massive debate that lasted you know many many years in order to codify jewish law known as halacha but doesn't really mean law it comes from the word which means to go it's the way of the jew it's the lens in which we use to judge right from wrong in this world now it has been expounded upon expounded upon and expounded upon where you have tens of thousands of books known as safarim all about jewish law or the way of the jew and you have to understand that the rabbis that you're connected with they're like phd scientists in jewish philosophy and the way of the jew they went and studied in the yeshiva for 10 years for 15 years and they didn't stop there they continued to learn you know and probably will all the way until they're 120. well jewish law is so defined that it goes so far as to tell you what shoe to put on first and i know what you're thinking right now you're like what should i put on first like no no wonder we're so neurotic you know that you know it it guides our actions in life so precisely tells us what should i i don't want that well you know what if you don't scratch the surface in judaism then all you will see is an ancient archaic way of life but all of these actions and all of these mitzvoth that we have as soon as you scratch that surface just a little bit and understand the reason behind it then you'll see the beauty in all those actions now which shoe do we put on first in the morning we put the right shoe on first because we want to like step forward in life with the right foot right and the right side in judaism represents hesed it represents kindness so when we get up in the morning we put that right shoe on first we are reminded that when we go downstairs and greet our spouses and our children and our family and our community and our workplace and whomever we come into contact that day that we want to come in contact with them with kindness with the right foot first you know i'm just going to share a very very quick story i was doing a virtual tour in yad mordechai and this place is on the border of gaza and they produce honey here in israel and we went out to the honeycombs you know to the beehives and we took out one of the combs and it was covered it was all gray and i had little bits and pieces of grass and leaves in it from you know the bees coming back with the pollen and the honey and it looked disgusting and the bee keeper said now take your nail and just make a small incision and i did that and all of that golden beautiful honey started to pour out that's the same here in judaism you need to scratch the surface ask the questions find out the meaning behind the commandments and the mitzvot in order to attain that higher sense of living that you can't get through our ancient way the way of the jew let's now head to a national park here known as gamla to see the ruins of a second temple period village that existed here all the way up until the romans came and destroyed it in the year 66 ce so let's go unfortunately the nature reserve here in gamla is closed due to coven 19 so we can't access the ruins that date back to the second temple period but i do have some great footage from my television show land of the bible where we did a great show here pre-covet time so let's enjoy some of that footage and i'll meet you with my friend yaakov sullivan who is a captain in the 188th tank brigade who that was stationed here in the golan heights to talk a little bit about the logistics and what is happening here today and of course the civil war that's been raging in syria the golan heights has been the scene of warfare for thousands of years we can read in the bible the conquest of joshua we know that there was battles here during the first temple period as well as the second temple period in fact the ruins of a city you see behind me was one of the three fortified cities here in the golan during the great revolt where the jews rebelled against the romans well the romans sent their number one general a guy by the name of vespasian with three roman legions to defeat that city but the city was well fortified and not only that the only way to descend to the city was through a very narrow path it's the same path that taurus can walk down today to visit those ruins this gave the advantage to the jews inside that city and they were actually able to repel the romans well the romans regrouped they attacked the city again they breached its walls and they defeated the city and all nine thousand people were eventually killed today after excavations have taken place tourists can visit the national park here in gamla and see the ruins of that great battle but not only that archaeologists have discovered a 2 000 year old synagogue one of the oldest that has ever been discovered so not only is a trip to gamla an educational experience about the great revolt but it's also a spiritual pilgrimage for many let's continue as we learn more about the modern battles that took place here on the golan heights so here we are with my good friend majiyako sullivan who lives in a small yeshua of a neighborhood known as yonatan and it's literally seven miles from the border of syria how does that make you feel one i talked about the period of time where there was no government here and that was a rare window of opportunity where the barriers fell down and we had an opportunity to have a direct connection with the locals living here when you say barriers you mean like the border the border didn't fall down actually a new a new fence was built but i mean the mental barrier meaning if i wanted to contact a syrian farmer 10 years ago there was a government in between i couldn't talk to the average local suddenly the average local has no government his son was just shot there's no functioning medical system in syria there's no government so he brings his son to the border with israel and an idf soldier comes to the board and takes his son and saves his life in the hospital in safari naharia and we're talking about six over six thousand syrians treated in israeli hospitals over 1400 syrian children why did we do this first of all because we're jewish secondly because we realized that this is a key for the day after we understood at some point the assad regime the syrian regime together with their iranian friends will take over the region again and we were planting the seeds for the day after now i told you iran is trying to recruit here they're having a very hard time the locals are not just joining them because if iran wanted to use us as a common enemy with the locals until the locals yes we don't really get along but you know what there's israel they're the devil let's fight them we're not the devil anymore they have to pay a lot of money and several locals are joining them i can tell you david in the past few months there's been intensive riots against the iranian regime against the iranian presence in southwest syria the locals actually assassinated the head recruiter for the iranian militias who was going around the villages trying to recruit young guys to come and join these anti-israel militias and they as they assassinated him meaning something something happened there um today there's tens of thousands of syrians in syria today who are still wearing clothing they got from israel who might even be eating food they got by israel whose life were saved by israel and this is a game changer this is something that gives me hope for for a better future wow amazing so hopefully this new administration in america will keep the sanctions on iran preventing more fighters from hezbollah and militias funded again by iran and we'll continue the diplomatic work and building relationships across the board i think this is all incredible you also run a program called slingshot now a lot of our viewers out here when covet is over please god will be soon plan on bringing their families to israel so tell us a little bit about the program that you run here at telsaki okay so i'll say i served in the idea for almost a decade and today when i i protected my country i fought in the 2014 gaza war and when i left the army four years ago i found a way to continue to contribute aside from my reserve duty so i explain to people from the world what's happening here and israel's challenges so they can bring out our voices around the world like we just explained but also i do motivational speaking in the army and i try uh motivating the soldiers who are protecting our homeland so aside from my motivational programs i also make sure that i always every time you know you brought dozens of groups to the golan and we always go out and treat the guys and make sure you know how much they know how many people love them in the world well incredible you know as major sullivan said i have brought dozens of groups to his presentation at telsaki and everybody loves it meeting the soldiers saying thank you to the soldiers learning about the heroism from the various wars that were fought here and of course the courageous activity that is being taken place right now here in the golan major thank you so much for your time and i hope to see you again soon in healthier times one of the great things to do here in the golan heights is to visit one of the several wineries in the region and wine from the golan heights is world renown because the vineyards are grown in that volcanic rock that we talked about earlier which gives the wine a real full body flavor now the biggest winery here in the golan one of the most popular ones is the golan heights winery and if you've been to israel most likely you've been here they produce some excellent wines from the hormone which is their least expensive all the way up to the yard den which is their most expensive now an interesting aspect of wine in judaism well first of all we need to realize is that it is a fundamental aspect of judaism right we say kiddish on shabbat the holiest day of the year which we celebrate every week on a glass of wine havdalah when we take shabbat out on passover we have four cups of wine if you're a male and you had a brit milan the male who does the circumcision puts a drop of wine in your mouth in ancient times israel was known to produce some of the best wines in the world we exported a lot of our wines so how come when people think of kosher wine they think of manor chevits which is horrible you've got to be at least 70 years old to enjoy manichevits my mother god bless her soul she's 82 years old every time that i visit her she opens up the refrigerator and says let's have a look i am and she takes out some mana chevits and i'm like mom we really have great kosher wine now in fact some of the wines here in israel are winning awards around the world i just want to share one incredible little story that i heard from i believe his name was yitzhak flam who owns the phlom winery just outside of jerusalem he won an award in france a wine competition and and during the when he received the wine they said wow it's amazing what you've been able to do with our grapes particularly chardonnay and he says you got it wrong chardonnay is not a french grape it's an israeli grape because when you take the word chardonnay and you break it down to two hebrew words you get sha'ar adonai which is god's name chardonnay right this is the gateway to heaven and that's why on shabbat after a full week of working you know back in the day in the fields but today at the office wherever it is and always looking behind your shoulder or who's looking at you checking your pockets it's somebody trying to rip you out what in the world and then all of a sudden come shabbat and you're supposed to enter this spiritual time how do you bring it down or bring it up in order to tap into the sanctity of this time well you do it on a coast yarn on a glass of wine chardonnay the gateway to heaven so we can't come here to the golan without talking about the drew's people a very interesting minority living here in israel roughly about 120 000 and they are an intricate uh piece of the fabric of israeli society in fact we have members of knesset who are from the drew's people and a large percentage of the males actually serve in the military here now they're an offshoot of islam coming out in the 11th century and as a result they were persecuted by the muslims around the middle east so they sought out safety by settling in the valleys of the large mountainous region here near mount hormone and further north in lebanon in syria and even in jordan the community seat below me is called meijdal shams and this is the capital of the jews people here in the golan heights so we have a very special guest with us today from the drew's community his name is boujee he's a guide here showing people around and showing the hospitality of the druze people so he's going to tell us a little bit more about the life of the druze here in order to do this interview we're just going to keep it safe and then we're going to put on our mask boujee thank you so much for joining us today we really appreciate taking the time and telling us a little bit about your people so please tell us a little bit about the livelihood what you guys do here i mean it is so beautiful so take it away hello well first of all thank you for having me and uh i want to tell you a little bit about mazda's fans in the beginning it's about 11 000 people live here and all of them are drews except for about maybe two three families are christians and it's a very nice place as you can see beautiful like in spring and summer and in winter you have the ski you have the tourism here yeah there's not so much snow i thought there would be a lot more snow well it's coming in two days two days big storms a big storm coming uh hopefully it won't be too much actually and i want to say a few things about mazda chance it's uh the it's in the north and here if you can see behind me you have the buildings where the buildings end and the green starts that's syria there so wow from our vantage point you can actually see the fence yeah you know so the building stop you have a fence and where it's green that's serious buildings are right next to the fence they live there and we can actually see syrian buildings as well on the other side syrian cars and or what you can see and uh yeah uh it's a very touristic place we are famous with food a lot of people come here for food good hospitality and yeah very nice people and come to ski also talking about tourism the main thing here is not only ski it is snow and ski but also the cherries season which is in may june it's sure with tourism everyone comes here to eat right from the tree as you know this is the new organic yeah and something more about the truth the jews live always oh they have always lived in um on the mountains or higher places if farming is in every drew's village you see farmers and they are hard working uh as to holidays we don't have we have one holiday the whole year which is nothing then we don't have another uh holidays like shabbat for the jewish and stuff so they always work so they are hardworking people um so are you looking forward to the snow coming in a couple days and maybe israeli tourists obviously international tours can't come here today but israeli tourists yeah hopefully with without the corona it was a lot better sure hopefully it will continue to be good and hopefully the there will be some skiing this year uh with the situation experience well you know my kids who are six and a half have never really had a memorable experience in the snow so maybe after this storm you know we could come visit and maybe stay by you of course you're more than welcome mooji you've been great we really appreciate your time thanks for joining us and let's continue as we explore more of the golan heights thank you very much one can't talk about the wars that took place here in the golan heights without visiting the what is now known as the valley of tears where an incredible battle took place during the yom kippur war of 1973 and it's called the yom kippur war because on october 6 syria surprise attacked the nation of israel that's right on our holiest day the syrians bombarded the northern region of israel and here in the golan heights which was liberated as we discussed earlier in 1967. now all of the trees you see planted here were planted in memory of the soldiers who fell in battle in this incredible sight the reason why it's called the valley of tears is from all of the loss of life that took place here during the yom kippur war now just imagine first of all it's yom kippur it was a surprise attack the only soldiers here defending israel from the syrians were two tank brigades you had the 77th and the 188th the 77th which was located here in the northern part of the golan heights was led by colonel avigdor kahalani and he tells about the battles that took place during the 6th and the 7th of october that the fighting became so close to one another that you couldn't even see the difference between the israeli lines and the syrian lines and no place is that depicted better than right here where you literally have an israeli tank almost touching a syrian tank now these tanks were brought here later on they weren't actually this close but they were dozens of feet apart from one another when the commander of this tank saw the syrian tank and first of all just look at the two tanks okay the israeli tank outdated it's like ancient in those times okay israel of course added some armament and added new technology inside but this is like ancient technology compared to the incredible t-62 night vision capability precision shooting tanks that were given to the syrians by who else other than the russians that's right the russians supplied all of this and all of these tanks are coming in we were so outmatched both in number as well as the technology however where we reign supreme is with the heart the devotion the passion and the understanding that a battle for israel is a battle of life and death and because of that the soldiers here were able to fight with such incredible bravery that even though they found themselves just literally dozens of feet apart from one another they were able to load the cannon shoot the tank defeat the syrians and lead them or should i say push them into any retreat and then we did our counter-offensive right we actually did an offensive against the syrians and pushed them back into syrian territory that we were literally in canon shot of their capital the city of damascus unbelievable bravery that has now given us this beautiful valley which is known as the valley of tears but now maybe it should be known as the valley of blessings because as you look around you can see how green how lush how beautiful it is with vineyards and pastures and groves and orchards and such incredible amount of life that is just blooming everywhere you look and we have to thank the incredible soldiers who fought here during the yom kippur war nimrod's fortress is one of the largest fortresses that has been discovered from the medieval period not just here in israel but all over the middle east called nimrod's fortress dating back all the way to nimrod from the book of genesis who was described as a mighty hunter and the fortress here which was built by the mom luke's in order to protect the major trade route which consists of the hula valley that we saw a little bit earlier just a little bit to the west and this trade route connected beirut and lebanon through the hula valley and then across the golan heights all the way to damascus making this an important junction and the mom lukes who built this saw the importance and strategic advantage of building this fortress up high so that you can see far and wide and protect your interests come let's walk through the fortress and see some of the beautiful sights here [Music] [Applause] one of the most beautiful stella's stone inscription that was discovered here in the land of israel and for sure here in the golan heights has to be the bibar's inscription the beautiful stone stella that we see here chiseled out of limestone in arabic talks about the warrior bibars who defended the mamluk people and the arabs who were living here in the land of israel in the 13th century from the onslaught of the largest standing army ever assembled by man and who are we talking about obviously not the romans but genghis khan and the manga world they were heading south towards africa but it would be bai bars and the mom lukes who were living here that would stop them in their tracks making one by bars one of the greatest warriors of all time just like any good fortress nimrod's fortress also has a secret exit the secret exit is also equipped with special windows that are broad on the inside but narrow facing outside and this was for archers to shoot their bow and arrows out the window at any advancement a army is making on them so let's walk through the secret passage check out some of those windows as we head out of this area hope you all enjoyed the tour today of the golan heights from the northern section of nimrod's fortress all the way down to gamla and several points in between you know it's just incredible to see this rich heritage of jewish life here that dates all the way back to really the book of genesis through the first and second temple period the talmudic period of course and now in the present as we met major yaakov sullivan and all the residents of the golan heights thank you again to project inspire for making this happen and for all of you for joining me and if you have any questions pertaining to the tour today or anything about israel or visiting israel please contact me via facebook look me up like my page i got great content there as well david sussman israel tours in the meantime let's enjoy this incredible sunset here over this beautiful reservoir in the golan heights you