At least 500 million birds - including pelicans, cranes, storks, falcons, eagles and warblers - wing their way across Israel's skies twice a year during the transcontinental migration seasons. In the fall, they make their way south to Central Africa and in the spring they return to Europe and Asia to mate and reproduce.

Israel owes its remarkable avian biodiversity to geography: the country - situated between the equally impassable desert and the Mediterranean Sea - lies astride the birds' major migratory corridor along the Syro-African Rift Valley. As well, 525 species of birds live in Israel year-round, which is quite high for such a small country. And to the fascination of professional and amateur ornithologists, the best bird-watching site of all is the Agamon Hula Preserve in the Galilee Panhandle (www.agamon-hula.co.il). (Agamon is the Hebrew diminutive of agam, meaning a little lake.)

Hula Valley Nature Reserve. Photo courtesy: Travelujah - Holy Land tours

The wetland preserve was ground zero for the week-long 2nd International Hula Valley Bird Festival, which wrapped up Nov. 18. (See www.hulabirdfestival.org.)

"Sometim

Patriarch Kirill I, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church of Moscow and All Russia, arrived in Israel Sunday on an official visit together with a delegation of senior Church officials from Moscow. The primate visited Israel's holy sites, and placed a wreath in the Hall of Remembrance at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. Since becoming head of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2009, Kirill - whose secular name Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyayev - has promoted ecumenism.

The visit is part of Kirill's worldwide book tour promoting his tome, Freedom and Responsibility which includes a collection of his thoughts on ethics and religion in the post-modern, secular world. "Through your book, many people will be exposed to your words of wisdom," said Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein, who invited Kirill to Israel. "You have made great efforts to [advance] universal values and I hope that they will be realized in our life time."

A reception Monday at the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem, Kirill presented Patriarch Theophilos III with a certificate for seven bells that will be installed at the belfry of the Church of St. John the Baptist in Jaffa. The bells were cast by the Vera plant in the city of Voronezh at the order of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations. The St. Gregory the Theological Charity Foundation helped with financing.

Pilgrimage an

The adage that Israel is a country with too much history and too little geography was born out here twice recently - with the opening of a temporary exhibit on the historic 1898 visit of Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II to Ottoman Palestine, and the dedication of a bust of Winston Churchill - whose decisions as Britain's Colonial Secretary and later as wartime Prime Minister left a profound effect on Israel and the Jewish people.

The exhibit "The Kaiser is coming!" which opened at the Tower of David Museum October 29 and runs through March, documents the imperial visit through a modern lens, cleverly utilizing iPads disguised in antique cameras to project a series of huge images and virtual newspapers illustrating the story of the royal tour. Visitors can pose for a picture in a reconstruction of the imperial tent and then Facebook it to their friends.

Sailing from Venice on the imperial yacht SMY Hohenzollern II - collectors of postage stamps from the Second Reich's overseas colonial empire will recognize the ship - the Kaiser (1859-1941) docked at the brand new jetty in Haifa at the foot of the town's German Colony, today renamed Ben Gurion Boulevard, built by pioneering archaeologist Gottlieb Schumacher. From there the entourage with its 112 luggage trunks made its way to Jerusalem. A high security 75-tent encampment was set up on the posh Street of the Counsels, today ha-Nevi'im Street, not far from the Old City.

Unperturbed by the uncertainties of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the world's smallest ethnic community will gather here Friday, May 4 on Mount Gerizim for the biblical observance of Passover.

Samaritans gathering at Mt. Gerazim for the annual Samaritan sacrifice; photo courtesy Travelujah

The 760 Samaritans in the world are the last remnant of the once flourishing biblical kingdom of Israel. They trace their descent back to the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.

After the death of King Solomon in ca.920 BCE, his northern subjects gathered at Shechem (modern Nablus) to secede, rejecting his arrogant heir Rehoboam (I Kings 12:1-20). The breakaway kingdom bolstered its political independence from Judah by theologically challenging the beliefs of the older kingdom. The Samaritans maintained that God's chosen site for His sanctuary is Mount Gerizim, an 881-metre peak looming over Shechem from the south, rather than Mount Moriah in Jerusalem 63 km to the south. The Samaritan religion became fossilized i

Israel Independence Day (Yom ha-Atzmaut) this year begins on the eve of Wednesday, April 25. It's the sixth such celebration since my wife Randi and I made aliya (immigrated to Israel) in 2005.

What's life like for a middle-aged, middle class guy from Toronto, Canada adjusting to quotidian Jerusalem, you may wonder.

Good, mostly, I suppose.

Our first year here trying to immerse ourselves in our new-old country, Randi and I went to a series of state ceremonies in the eight days leading up to Independence Day. The first was to go to Yad Vashem to hear then President Moshe Katsav and then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert memorialize the six million victims of the unremitting tragedy that we label the Holocaust.

We followed our visit to Yad Vashem with a ceremony at the Kotel (Western Wall) mourning the 22,123 Jews, Druze, Bedouin and others who have fallen in defense of Israel and the pre-state Yishuv - a figure which does not include victims of terror.

And the next day, almost without a breath in between, we switched emotionally draining gears to join the perhaps 50,000 Independence Day revellers who thronged downtown Jerusalem's Zion Square, Jaffa Road and the surrounding streets in a raucous, hyperbolic display of patriotism symbolized by concerts, stage shows,  Israeli dancing in the streets and of course, the infamous Israeli barbeque. Every piece of green is taken up by people staking out their spot in

On May 4, 2012, the Samaritan's of the Holy Land will celebrate the annual Passover sacrifice. But who are the Samaritans? And how is it that this community continues to survive in the Holy Land?  Part 1 in our series of the Holy Land Samaritans

In 722 BCE, 200 years after the split between Solomon's sons Jeroboam and Rehoboam, the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians. Much of the vanquished population were deported as slaves to Mesopotamia (present day Iraq). Vassal peoples living in what is now Syria and the border between Iran and Iraq were brought in their stead to settle the barren land.

Jewish tradition maintains that the Samaritans are the descendants of these colonizers who adopted some Israelite rituals (II Kings 17:24-29), a charge adamantly denied by Elazar and his fellow Samaritans.

Christians visiting the Holy Land in the spring sometimes fail to appreciate the link between Passover and Easter: Jesus came to Jerusalem in April circa 34, making his triumphal entry on the Sunday of the last fateful week of his life, in order to offer a Passover sacrifice at Herod's magnificent newly-built Temple. He celebrated the Passover seder banquet that Thursday night, an event commonly referred to as the Last Supper. Returning with his apostles to their encampment at Gethsemane on the nearby Mount of Olives, he was arrested that evening after being betrayed by Judas. On Friday, the holy day of Passover, he was tried and then crucified. His corpse was hurriedly placed in a new sepulcher or family tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea near to the Skull Hill execution grounds so as not to violate the Sabbath that began Friday shortly before sundown. Sunday morning it was discovered that the rolling stone sealing Jesus' tomb had been shifted, and the sepulcher was empty. Jesus had arisen.

Good Friday procession in Jerusalem; photo courtesy Travelujah

Thus Passover and Easter began on the same date. But Christianity the daughter religion of Judaism, was an