The anglo who taught other anglos about hiking in Israel

Arnold Slyper recalls that he was already walking around the Old City the day after he immigrated seven-and-a-half years ago. He had no idea then that he would eventually have almost a second career promoting walking and hiking in and around Jerusalem. 

He had just retired from working as a pediatric endocrinologist in the US, and at age 66 he was still interested in working at least part-time in his career. He was fortunate to obtain a part-time position in Jerusalem with a health fund after doing his obligatory training period in Hadassah Hospital. In his spare time, however, he was often hiking in the city and in the surrounding countryside.

Hiking had always been one of his hobbies. Having lived in different cities in England (where he was born) and the US, his hiking repertoire was quite extensive. However, hiking in this incredible country is on a different level entirely. Here a person is surrounded by one’s own history rather than another people’s. This is particularly true for Jerusalem and the areas around it.

Slyper had been interested in Jewish history for a long time, but had never had an opportunity to study it seriously. Until recently, much of his knowledge came from Rabbi Berel Wein’s history tapes, which he used to listen to avidly. Many times, he was still listening to a tape in his car in the garage, even though he had already reached home. What he particularly liked about the tapes was Rabbi Wein’s ability to paint verbal pictures of various historical periods and the lives of the Jewish people at those times, and to fit them together. 

Something that Slyper found particularly fascinating about Jewish history was not only the happenings in a particular period, but why they happened. For example, what were the driving forces for the Great Revolt and the Bar Kochba Revolt? What led the Crusaders to engage in wars outside of Europe? How did the Temple Mount become holy to Muslims? These were fascinating questions, but they needed research to begin answering them.

He did consider doing a course as a tour guide, but appreciated that with his continuing to study Hebrew in ulpan and his part-time work in medicine, this would have left him little time for exploring Jerusalem. He also felt he would rather concentrate on one area of the country rather than trying to become a master of it all.

For no particular reason other than to keep up with what he was doing and not repeat himself, he started writing up the walks he was doing. He began realizing that there was limited detailed material written in English about walking in Jerusalem, and even less about hiking in the countryside around it. If there had been, there would have been little reason for him to write up what he was doing. He also started to read about and write short essays for himself on the history and geography of the places he was visiting. 

 

 

AFTER A WHILE he realized that what he was writing could be useful to others, and he created a new ad-free website, inandaroundjerusalem.com. It was not a particularly elaborate website but it did the job, and by tracking the number of hits he was getting he could see that an increasing number of people were using it. When he started promoting the website on Facebook, the hits increased even more. His website was becoming a popular one and many of the pages were being picked up by Google’s search engine. 

Slyper began developing a mission. Many immigrants, even when they have been in the country a considerable time, feel they need organized tours to visit sites in Israel. Slyper does not negate the value of organized tours, since he has participated in many himself, but he wanted to persuade people that they did not have to wait around for such tours and could discover Jerusalem for themselves, even without a car. They would need Information, of course, on how to get to a place, which way to go when they got there, and what to look for during their visit – and this he was providing. His experience using tour books in the UK and the US also helped him pinpoint what he felt was important.

He noticed, for example, that many of the organized walks he went on in Jerusalem tried to develop a topic as they were going along. However, they were not always successful in doing this because it was difficult to remember all the information provided. It was not always possible, but what he tried to do in his writing was to build up a picture of the place before starting the walk by means of essays. He also made sure to clearly separate instructions from descriptions, so people would not get lost if they skipped a description they were not interested in. 

He also went out of his way to make sure that readers of his website knew exactly how to get to the place he was describing and where to start that hike or walk from. Tour books in the past needed to include elaborate traveling instructions, but with programs such as Waze and Moovit this was no longer necessary. Moovit, in particular, allows everyone to get to many of the places Slyper was describing using public transportation.

It was not always possible, but for many of his hikes in the countryside, he took popular hikes and made them circular. Many Israeli hiking books describe one-way journeys because Israeli guides are used to having a coach waiting for them at the end of a hike. But unless another family comes along with a car, people have no option but to retrace their steps once they reach the end of the hike, and this can be somewhat boring. When experimenting with different routes, Slyper uses the app Amud Anan so he knows exactly where he is. He found that many of the circular hikes he had devised were even better than the one-way walks hikers were familiar with!

He also included nearby places of interest for many of the tours. Having finished a walk or a hike, many families are looking for something else interesting to do. Without any real intention of doing this, he was composing a comprehensive list of fun activities in and around Jerusalem. Entries on natural pools and outdoor swimming pools became popular pages on his website. Summers in Israel are hot and there are few places better for a summer family trip than an outdoor pool.

The next step was an obvious one. Convinced there was interest in his walks and hikes and that his website was doing what it was intended to do – getting people out of their homes and exploring Jerusalem – it was a no-brainer to put the best of them into a book. He called the book In and Around Jerusalem for Everyone. The Best Walks, Hikes and Outdoor Swimming.

Then the question arose. Now that the book was out, what should he do with his website? It was actually a no-brainer. They were in competition with each other, but the aim of each was the same, to encourage people to discover Jerusalem and its surroundings. Therefore, it was obvious that both had to exist. In order to publish the book, he and his graphic designer and typesetter Benjie Herskowitz had formed their own publishing company, Kochav Press. So he was under no pressure from a publisher to close his competing website.

His book and website include hikes around Jerusalem that are mainly in the Jerusalem corridor and up to a 75-minute ride from Jerusalem. There are also hikes in the Judean Desert and Gush Etzion. Living in Ma’aleh Adumim, Slyper has become familiar with the popular sites in the Judean Desert, but appreciates that many people do not know about them, even though they are often only a short distance from Jerusalem. This includes wonderful oases such as Ein Mabu’a and Ein Prat. His website also includes places in the Shefela, the Judean foothills, although his book does not.

Slyper admits that life in his retirement in Israel has been a load of fun. He is almost as busy as when he was working at hospitals in the US, but he would not wish it otherwise. He organizes a hiking club that gives free monthly hikes in and around Jerusalem and that has a mailing list of over 150 people. 

When he first came to Israel, he wrote a cookbook and nutrition guide called Family Friendly Mediterranean-style Cooking with a Groundbreaking Guide to Weight Loss, Weight Control and Cardiovascular Health. The guide promotes an Israeli-style Mediterranean diet; Israeli-style because it includes a moderate amount of dairy, which is not always the case in Mediterranean diets.

He is still writing scientific papers on obesity, his field of interest, and its interaction with nutrition. He has just begun work on another ad-free website for the North of Israel that will make it easy for people to plan vacations in that beautiful part of the country. 

Arnold Slyper’s book, In and Around Jerusalem for Everyone: The Best Walks, Hikes and Outdoor Swimming, is available in the Jerusalem bookstores Pomeranz Bookseller, Moriah Bookstore, Dani Books, Holzer Books, Katamon Books, Rehavia Bookstore, Sefer ve Sefel and the OU Center. Also on Amazon.