The German of Zichron Yaakov

Today, I saw one of the most surprising things I've seen in this whole trip.

Last night, I stayed in Zichron Yaakov/ זכרון יעקוב with a guy named Iftah who I met on couchsurfing. Zichron Yaakov is the kind of town that, if it were in America, I'd call a "tourist town." Israel is, in some ways, a tourist country, so it's hard to call one town a "tourist town," but Zichron Yaakov has that key combination of quaintness, smallness, and a sense that people there are very happy with their town and it's small size. And it has cafes, a pedestrian mall, antique stores, a winery, and one or two museums, all within about 500 feet of each other.

It also has an obscure kibbutz called Beth El. From Iftah, I learned that the founders of the kibbutz are messianic German Christians who build bomb shelters.

I learned more than that today, however. A second couchsurfer named Luke joined us. Luke is an American who moved to Germany to study in a university that is home to a particular scholar of Judaic studies who interested him. He wanted to find out the story behind these mysterious Germans. Iftah pulled the car up to the entrance to the kibbutz and Luke spoke to one of the Germans in German. Next thing I knew, we were on a tour of the kibbutz, conducted in Hebrew by a nice old German man.

He took us up into an office and gave us coffee and cakes. He talked about the ancient debate on whether the kingdom of heaven exists on earth or in our hearts. Apparently many Christians believed that Armageddon and the messiah would come in 1836, but that didn't happen, and so many of them abandoned the idea. But some still believe in the kingdom of heaven. The Germans on the kibbutz are followers of Albert Schweitzer, who apparently believed that the way to the kingdom of heaven was to help the Jews in earthly ways.

So, in 1973, these Germans started Kibbutz Beth El in northern Israel and the Israeli government asked them to manufacture bomb shelters, since that was something they needed and which there wasn't enough of. They became very good at these shelters, and demand for them exploded during the Gulf War. After the Gulf War, however, demand decreased, but instead of slowing down production and letting workers go, the manufacturers decided to expand their market. They built air filters for tanks and bomb shelters. They built isolation chambers for contaminated persons. We saw all of these things in various states of construction in the factory.

The filters were particularly impressive. They consist of a cyclone that collects the dust and a filter made of some sort of fiber that absorbs it. Apparently, it's far more efficient than just having a fiber filter to collect and absorb the dust. And apparently, it makes the air inside tanks and inside bunkers far more breathable.

We also got a preview of a machine that may be installed in future airports. It's an isolation chamber that looks tiny but expands to hold about 30 people. It's made to protect people if bomb experts have to examine luggage in the airport.

I don't remember the guide's name and I don't even recall if he told me his name. He was a good guide. He kept my attention 99% of the time, even though my mind was working overtime as I tried to visualize the physical science he described as well as rack my mind for Hebrew words I didn't recognize. Not surprisingly, it turned out that I actually didn't know most of the words, and I had to ask Iftah for translations a lot.

The more I think about it, it's truly amazing that this guy managed to hold my attention despite the language barrier. I think it was something about the enthusiastic and - by American and Israeli standards - awkward way he expressed himself. He moved his long, thin arms almost as much as your stereotypically hysterical Italian or Jew (except he had those giant Germanic/Scandinavian arms), his vocal mannerisms were a bit reminiscent of Max von Sydow, and he had a high-pitched laugh that seemed to be beyond his control.

Since writing that last sentence, I spent a good amount of minutes trying to figure out why I like people like him.

For some reason, I tend to like Northern Europeans. I think it's because they're funny.