Most raise their hands. Everyone agrees that Israel looks quite different in person than what they’ve seen on television. “Israel is more beautiful and safer than what we see on the news,” they constantly tell me, regardless of whether the group comes from Germany, Switzerland, Holland, England or any other country.

Personal experience is always necessary to bring imagination and reality into sync. Only by being here can you truly witness the controversial Canaan and its inhabitants unfiltered. You breathe the air right where biblical story took place, continues to take place. You meet people who, quite unlike how they are portrayed abroad, are not monsters at all. You are confronted with completely new smells and impressions in the lively markets, and wonder at how modern the young State of Israel is. One comes to realize to what extent the foreign media reports on Israel are faulty, and just how small, unique and full of life the Holy Land is in our days. It is simply not possible to get a full picture of Israel from your television screen....

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