Clothing to bring to Israel

Shalom Pilgrims! Please be sure to bring your bathing suits for swimming in the Dead Sea, Sea of Galilee and at the hotels. Also, please bring a plastic bag of some sort, to put your wet bathing suits in, just in case we leave the site before your suit is dry. To answer your question about proper clothing while in Israel. While on the bike tour, we would recommend that you get the correct biking shorts with the apporate padding, then normal shorts can be put on over the top of the biking shorts. You can also purchase pants where you can un-zipper the legs turning the pants into shorts, these are a great choice. The only critical rule is while we may be touring a Jewish Holy Site. The rule of thumb is knees and shoulders should not be seen. At Jewish Holy Sites women should not wear shorts, but pants, dress or a skirt that comes below the knees. Wear casual shirts or blouses, no spaghetti straps. At Jewish Holy Sites, Men, too, must not wear shorts. Pants and shirts are the rule. Men must also wear a head covering at Jewish Holy Sites. They will provide you with a disposable head covering prior to entering the Holy Site. You should bring a sweater or light jacket with you on the bus, especially when it’s getting towards the evening, it will cool off about 10 degrees from the daytime temperatures. I would advise you to bring some sort of head covering to keep the sun off your head, i.e. hat, sun hat or scarf. Now, there has also been some discussion’s as to what to wear, to the evening meal at the Hotels. We try and keep the evening meals to “tasteful casual”, that means No Pajamas, just kidding. After a full day of touring, most folks, just want to relax and get something very nice to eat. Tasteful casual means for men, pants and a shirt, no ties or over coats. This is also fine, even for Friday night, which is Shabbat for the Jews. For the Ladies, tasteful casual would mean no shoulder-less dresses or spaghetti straps, halter tops, etc etc. For the Breaking of Bread meetings in Jerusalem the usual meeting attire would apply. Except for the Ladies, hats are not required, but a head covering is required, such as a tam, vale or shawl. Hope this helps.