creative jewish mom

Stunning August Sunset Over Mount Meron, Northern Israel

A stunning fiery orange and very dramtic sunset over Mount Meron in Northern Israel was something that one had to be near a window to catch, as it passed quite quickly! I am so very blessed to have a stunning mountain view that never gets old, especially with sunsets and cloud formations like these! And yes, I do plan to paint all of this, even as a daily practice, but in the mean time I have photos to record some of the clouds that seem unreal, and really do belong in a painting!

Stunning Mountain Views From The Car In The Galil

The views we experience on almost any car trip are just so inspiring and often take my breath away! I'm hoping to start painting using these photos as inspiration, but in the mean time I wanted to share them with you. This photos above is the end of the Meron mountain range, the view we see from our home, but experiencing the length of the range and understanding what we are looking at is so interesting. Here I've compiled photos taken from the car as we approach the city of Tzfat, or Tsfat or Zefat or Safed, though I spell it Tsfat! Enjoy!

A Touch Of Fall Color In Northern Israel!

Fall has certainly arrived here in Northern Israel, and I'm grateful for even one little tree proudly displaying its fall color! So sweet really, as it can be seen from afar, which is why I ended up taking a walk with camera in hand to begin with! Of course there are many bare trees and lots of patches of earth normally covered with greenery, and the meadows seem to be slowly drifting off to sleep, but there is nothing like orange hued leaves to shout out, hey, winter is coming! So enjoy the photos I took yesterday on my neighborhood fire trail, and how about making a sketch from one of them, great idea!

A Sunburst Over The Galil In Northern Israel Just Before Sunset

Yesterday as I was pondering whether I had time to do a #sketchfrommywindow for my ongoing Instagram sketching challenge, when I suddenly spied rays of light coming from behind a cloud, and ran to grab my camera! Not every spectacular thing in the sky can be captured by a camera, or at least not mine, so I was very pleased to see that I did manage to capture this "sunburst" over the Galil, and more specifically over the Meron mountain range! So now, when someone draws a sun with rays coming out of it, well, we can say we've actually seen something just like it! Okay, lets take a peek at some more photos, shall we?

A Pomegranate Orchard In Meron, Israel

Just before Rosh HaShana, my husband and I took a mini vacation and enjoyed two very peaceful nights on the Moshav of Meron, just a 20 minute drive from our home, and actually part of the view we enjoy everyday! I just shared photos of vines laden with grapes in Meron, here, and now, a peek at trees laden with pomegranates, equally if not more stunning! Fall in Northern Israel is one of my favorites times of year, and I don't think I'll ever tire of watching the pomegranates mature and ripen, so lovely! The interesting thing is that the week prior to our mini vacation I was painting pomgranates and making pomegranate collages, and when we arrived at our vacation rental which happened to be right next to a pomegranate orchard, my jaw literally dropped! I spent many hours at a picnic table under a huge oak tree just looking, ahhhhh, Enjoy!

Horses At The Top Of Mount Meron

Ever experienced something totally unexpected, and then an even more unexpected something comes along to completely blow your mind? That is exactly what happened this past Passover, on a family outing, as we first discovered this stunning rain pool on the top of Mount Meron, that had gone totally beneath our radar despite living not that far from it, and then, in this isolated mountaintop location with red soil, and breathtaking views, all to ourselves, a horse show? A very memorable afternoon for our family, and I also took some wonderful portraits of the kids, to boot.

I you are wondering about the boy in the photo, he is a Druze Israeli and lives in Beit Jaan, a Druze village not far from this location. He is wearing traditional Druze pants and a white skull cap. Religious Druze people have their own very specific dress code which distinguishes them from everyone else. There are around 150,000 Druze people in Israel, and they are citizens generally, and the boys serve in the army, and we work together. It is true that the greatest Druze populations live in Lebanon and Syria, with whom we are not at peace, so that can get sticky, but generally it's all good. Druze are not Muslim by the way, and their history is very interesting, look it up, I just did!

Okay, back to the story of the horses.......come along with me!

A Visit To Mount Meron And The Seasonal Rain Pool

This past Passover we had the very great pleasure of at long last visiting the top of Mount Meron, the very mountain that comprises our stunning view. We driven past the turn off to the Mount Meron National Park countless times, as it is on the way from our home to Nahariya, where 2 of my boys have been in Yeshiva for the past 4 years between the two of them. But you know how life is, the wonders of nature that are closest to home somehow don't get the attention they deserve! And boy were we surprised, not only because we didn't even know that this amazing rain pool existed, but because it was truly one of the most special places I've had the great honor to visit. Something about the mountaintop location, the red soil, the fact that we were alone, well mostly (more on that later) and that it was a total surprise to boot. WOW, WOW, WOW. I can't wait to go back next winter when it will be fuller, or even this fall to see how it looks before the rain fall. In any case, if you have a chance, do visit this amazing spot and if you need help in advance finding it (because I have not seen it documented anywhere, even on the National Parks website) just ask, happy to help! For most of you, enjoy the photos, and it is my great pleasure to share with you our beloved land.

Cattle Egret Roosting In A Tree In Israel

This past Passover vacation we found ourselves in Meron visiting the gravesite of the great sage Rebbi Shimon Bar Yochai. As the sun was setting, or a bit before that, my daughter and I were waiting for my husband and boys and we paused on the descent road to look at the view. All of a sudden we saw a bunch of white birds flying towards a tree, and then realized the tree was literally packed with these white birds! I could not exactly capture the entire scene with my camera, but I did my best. It was such a wow moment that I tried to point it out to a few kids passing by, but sadly no one seemed to understand how amazing this was, or maybe it was too strange that this woman was pointing out large white birds? I have never seen such a sight and I just had to share it with you. In our location in Northern Israel we are on the migratory path for birds, but cattle egret in a large group, truly a new experience!

Pink Clouds At Sunset In Northern Israel

When nature mimics art (ha ha) I am always running to grab my camera! This week as the sun set over the Meron mountain range in Northern Israel, the cloud formation was very unusual. It looked as though as lawn mower had created strips of mowed areas across the sky, and as the sun continued to set those strips of clouds became a deep pink, stunning and so unlike anything we consider to be natural, funny enough. So dear readers, when you have a moment to try painting or drawing some clouds, just remember they really can be pink with deep eggplant shadows! Enjoy this little show that I witnessed from the window right next to the sink where all the piles of dishes are washed, meaning I'm standing in this spot for many hours each week.

A Walk In The Neighborhood At Dusk Northern Israel Style

Yes dear readers, this really is my neighborhood in Northern Israel, and sometimes I just have to pinch myself when I realize that I'm so very fortunate to be living in such a gorgeous place with rich history and stunning views. It feels like we are living out in the country, and yet we live in town of 35,000 and with everything we need either right next door or within walking distance! This is because we actually live on the edge of the town, and all our neighbors down the hill are those buried in the cemetery, both old (from a long as 2,000 years ago) and new, and a very special bunch indeed. Nature is just outside our door, and a small 45 minute hike through the neighboring native preserve/grazing land is like truly setting out on an adventure! This week has been really HOT and I am now missing my evening walk, so hoping the weather cools down a bit so we can enjoy the great outdoors once again. In the mean time, join me on my walk, and enjoy! Hope you are wearing comfortable walking shoes and you don't mind a bit of a workout, getting back up the hill is exercise!