The Caribbean

Some of numerous islands are: Antigua, Montserrat, Dominican Republic, French West Indies (Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Barthelemy, etc), Grenada, Netherlands Antilles (Aruba), Barbados, British Virgin Islands, United States Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Curacao, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, etc.

The islands’ economies are based on fishing, tourism, boat building, furniture making, small industries, export crops (bananas, pineapple, sugar, rum, coffee, cocoa, spices), shrimp growing.

Antigua’s capital, St. John, is a picturesque village with two-store stucco buildings and a historic cathedral. The island has about 4,000 acres of woodlands, the main species being red cedar, white cedar, mahogany, seaside mangrove, and acacia.

Grenada is a curious commingling of sunstruck suburbia and Caribbean exotica. Its capital is St. George.

Barbados has one of the healthiest climates and the most British traditions in the West Indies. Bridgetown, the capital city, which is a combination of the old and new, charming English churches, Victorian architecture, green parks.

Grand Bahama is divided into two major areas – the West End and Freeport\Lucaya. West End is an important port of entry and a complete resort area. Freeport\Lucaya has luxurious resorts, casinos, golf courses, marinas, nightclubs, and restaurants.

New Providence has a deep and sheltered harbour, where the capital city, Nassau, is located. The city boasts imposing government buildings and historical churches, magnificent hotels and residences. Offshore, but linked by a toll bridge, lies Paradise Island, which features the famous Paradise Beach and resort facilities.

Greece

Greece is a land of mountains and of sea. The country has an area of 50, 949 square miles, of which one-fifth constitutes the Greek islands – more than 2,000 islands, of which 170 are inhabited.

A Greek legend has it that God distributed all of the available soil through a sieve and used the stones that remained to build Greece. The country’s barren landscape has been a powerful factor impelling Greeks to migrate, a process that has continued for centuries until very recent times. The Greeks, like the Jews and Armenians, are a people of the diaspora; there are several million people of Greek descent in various parts of the world.

80 percent of the land is composed of valleys and peaks, with Mount Olympus, the legendary home of the gods, rising to some 9,570 feet. Only 30 percent of the land is arable, but the fertile plains of Thessaly and Macedonia support the country’s major crops: wheat, cotton, and tobacco. Cypress groves, oleander, and olive trees dot the rest of the country. Greece dominates the seas with its large merchant and fishing fleets.

This rugged country offers an invigorating climate and a challenging topography. It’s a mountainous country bounded by seas.

The country’s capital is Athens.

Greece lies at the juncture of Europe, Asia, and Africa. It is heir to the heritages of classical Greece, the Byzantine Empire, and nearly four centuries of Ottoman Turkish rule. Greeks take great pride in their cultural heritage, and the notion of an unbroken continuity between ancient and modern Greece is an essential element in the Greek self-image.

From ancient Greece the modern country inherited a sophisticated culture and a language that has been documented for almost three millennia. From the Byzantine Empire it has inherited Eastern Orthodox Christianity and from Ottoman rule attitudes and values that continue to be of significance, not least in shaping the country’s political culture. Its heritage of Ottoman rule and Orthodox Christianity set it apart from the existing member states as the Greek lands had been insulated from many of the important historical movements, such as the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution, that shaped the destinies of the countries of western Europe.

Athens, the capital of Greece, is generally considered to be the birthplace of Western civilization.

Israel

The state of Israel, the country in the Middle East, is bounded to the north by Lebanon, to the northeast by Syria, to the east and southeast by Jordan, to the southwest by Egypt, and to the west by the Mediterranean Sea. The total area is 7,992 square miles excluding East Jerusalem and other territories occupied in the 1967 war. Jerusalem is the capital and the seat of government.

With the notable exception of Jerusalem, the inland capital, most people live in the cities and towns along the coast.

Only about half of the population is native born. Among the population of Israel are hundreds of thousands of immigrants, many of them survivors of Nazi persecution in Europe or victims of anti-Semitism elsewhere. Most of the population are Jews.

The country has a temperate climate that varies with the topography. The northern part of the country and the coastal plain are fertile and get most of the annual rainfall, which occurs during the winter months. The southern part of the country is desert. In January you could be either skiing on Mount Hermon in the northern part of the country or skin diving in the gulf of Eilat in the south. Spring is the prettiest time of the year in Israel, but sometimes in the spring and again in late summer a very hot dry wind blows out of the east for two or three days at a time.

Jerusalem, the capital, is a city of coexistence between Jews and Arabs. From the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem you can see the remains of the Temple Compound and the Western Wall, to which Jewish pilgrims have come over the centuries to pray for the redemption of Israel. Within the Old City are numerous other shrines; close-by Mount Scopus commands a view of the Judean wilderness and the Dead Sea. The New City is the site of the president of the state, the Knesset (elective legislative body), the Supreme Court, the Chief Rabbinate, the Hebrew University, the Israel Museum, and other state and cultural institutions. In order to retain the beauty and special historic atmosphere of the city, heavy industry has been barred, and many parks and neighbourhood gardens have been established. A greenbelt has been developed as a national park around the walls of the Old City, where archeological research and restoration are being carried out.

Tel Aviv is Israel’s commercial and cultural centre, with concert halls, theatres, and museums. A long street of hotels skirts the seashore, where a plaza of shops and open-air cafes overlooks the marina.

Israel is a vibrant, exciting country that has welcomed immigrants since its birth.

Israel enjoys a standard of living as high as many modern European nations.