Two days later, as I was leaving, an elderly room keeper, stopped me prior to my entering the elevator and asked whether I was leaving without giving her a tip. When I paid no attention to her inquiry, she moved her hands disdainfully and said something in Hebrew which I did not understand. Ironic as it may seem, I had already left something in the room - a dollar for each of the nights I had slept there.

In my career, I visited 65 countries. Except for a frighteneing cab ride in Teheran and a driver who wanted a tip in advance prior to getting me to the airport if I didn’t wish to be left in the middle off nowhere in a dark night, I had never experienced similar behavior anywhere…

Everything is politicized. There is a strange mindset I have not experienced elsewhere. The wall is a tangible object of what I sensed throughout my travels. Only in Israel have I been lobbied for US government assistance and money. Even the King David Hotel staff wanted to discuss US Politics and the upcoming 2008 election. I’m a freaking tourist! I don’t want a debate or to be drawn into their petty range wars.

My next tour to Israel was a year later over the Christmas & New Year holidays with General Tours (a company I have traveled with many times). The airline lost my luggage, which happens but the local tour company was of little assistance in ensuring the suitcases caught up with the itinerary. My luggage was playing catch-me for over half of the tour. The local company should have known our itinerary and which hotel I was at, but they could have cared less. Our tour guide smoked every step of the way no matter how many times we implored him to not smoke around us (not to mention it is a violation of the contract with General Tours). Our tour guide did not follow the itinerary but took us to military sites (he had been in the military) that were staked with ‘caution land mine’ signs. Christmas we were told there were no churches so we couldn’t attend church. I asked the Sheraton Tiberas concierge if there were any churches around and he quickly helped locate a church for a Christmas service. He said the tour guide had lied to us. Our tour guide made up strange stories and lies about historical facts. How do we know? He joked about it to other tour guides while in our presence! Talk about humiliating. While at the area that is the center of Jewish Mysticism he refused to answer questions and made nasty jokes about members of our tour group. I asked about Jewish Mysticism and he told me to ask Madonna. Apparently the pop singer Madonna has traveled there to study. He also screwed up our transfer to Petra, Jordan. My child and I spent half a day detained by the Jordanian military because the tour guide had directed the driver to take us to the wrong border crossing (where we couldn’t purchase entrance visas). After we returned from our ‘adventure’ in Jordan (I must say, however, the Jordanian military and local tour company were top rate), I received an e-mail from the company I scheduled the tour with. It was a “welcome home, take a minute and tell us about your trip”. I responded with an e-mail outlining the above. Within 36 hours the US tour company e-mailed the stateside company headquarters who e-mailed the local Israel Tour company (Gordon Tours—avoid at all costs). The night before flying home we were packing to leave and some manic nuisance of a man claiming to be President of Gordon Tours in Tel Aviv called me at the King David Hotel and harrassed me for complaining. Apparently there was fallout over my e-mail. What made it even worse was Gordon Tour company blasted me for not being happy and relaying our experience. You would think they would be concerned about an unhappy customer, the guy launched into a tirade yelling at me and pitching a fit. I hung up. Spent over $10,000 on our tour to Israel and that’s what I got. They even stalked us down the last evening in country to belittle and harrass. Blech.

If this were my only travel experience to Israel I would caution everyone to stay away. But the problem was a bad tour company (Gordon Tours).