We left our hotel in Haifa and headed to the port city of Akko, where we entered what was considered by the British to be the Alcatraz of Israel back in the 1930's and 40's. A number of Jewish freedom fighter were sent here during this period. Of course, unlike Alcatraz, where it is said no one ever escaped (well maybe 3 prisoners did), 40 freedom fighter's managed to escape here with the help of the Community blowing a hole in the wall. Unfortunately 9 of these freedom fighters were later caught and all of them hanged.
The other claim to fame for this prison is it is where the movie Exodus (staring Paul Newman) was filmed. Below are some pics.
Entrance to the Prison
And it has a moat (I think the soccer field was added later)
Life on the inside for Samantha
No single cell rooms here, you fit as many people inside as possible
Unless you wound up here, only one person at a time was allowed to "hang" around this room
Apologies for the pun above as it is important to note that this prison now serves as a memorial to those freedom fighters who we incarcerated here the nine who lost their lives here.
After this tour we drove some, shopped some and then arrived at our hotel which was part of a Kibbutz.
Now for my non Jewish friends I'll explain a Kibbutz is basically a co-operative association. In it's true form it is communism as Karl Marx envisioned it, everyone shares equally in the expenses and revenues of running the operations. What you do or how much time you spend doing it is irrelevant.
There are a number of Kibbutz communities in Israel and they were very popular in the 20th century but there was a noticible decline in members over the years so in 2000 about 80% of these Kibbutz communities adopted a more capitalist model. With this change these communities have started to increase in size again. Of the 20% that did not move to this model, 1/2 was because of religious reasons and the other half was because they were making so much money that everyone in the Kibbutz was a millionaire (the communist model has no issue with being rich as long as everyone is equally as rich)
Well that's it for today. Tomorrow we tour the Golan Heights. Hope they provide us with bullet proof vests.
Now for my non Jewish friends I'll explain a Kibbutz is basically a co-operative association. In it's true form it is communism as Karl Marx envisioned it, everyone shares equally in the expenses and revenues of running the operations. What you do or how much time you spend doing it is irrelevant.
There are a number of Kibbutz communities in Israel and they were very popular in the 20th century but there was a noticible decline in members over the years so in 2000 about 80% of these Kibbutz communities adopted a more capitalist model. With this change these communities have started to increase in size again. Of the 20% that did not move to this model, 1/2 was because of religious reasons and the other half was because they were making so much money that everyone in the Kibbutz was a millionaire (the communist model has no issue with being rich as long as everyone is equally as rich)
Well that's it for today. Tomorrow we tour the Golan Heights. Hope they provide us with bullet proof vests.
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