Israel. Your advice.

By the time you read this, I hope to be in Israel -- where I’ll be carrying the largest stack of letters I’ve received in my 15 years of writing this column. Last week, I asked you to tell me what you’d like me to report back about from my first trip to Israel. It seems that the topic and my timing unleashed a perfect storm of interest.

Even with all the high anxiety of visiting a land under siege, several people first wanted to be sure I didn't miss out on the fun.

Stacy writes that I must get to Ellot, the beach resort south of Jerusalem, "because it is sooo freaking cold here in Philly." I should also be sure to stop at a spa on the Dead Sea. And I should eat lots and lots of falafel.

But the food that another writer, Courtney, wants me to enjoy is ice cream.

"They have the best ice cream," she declares of a fact that may account for how cool-headed some Israelis are in the face of danger. Courtney recounts her own experience of a bomb scare in a mall.

"Needless to say, I almost wet myself," she said, adding that when she screamed to a native friend to get out -- quickly -- that friend "basically laughed in my face."

Richard's impression of the people is almost the opposite. He thinks "most people were suffering from a persistent low-level depression, brought on by anxiety," and that "humor and laughter were in short supply." He suggests a visit to Jerusalem's Hartman Institute, which is dedicated to teaching tolerance and seeking justice and just happens to be spearheaded by a Temple grad.

Sorin, an Israeli who lives here now, wants me to seek out yet another activist, Uri Avnery. According to Sorin, Avnery "fights for peace in any way imaginable" as a magazine publisher and broadcaster from a pirate station on board a ship in the Mediterranean. Sorin also advises a trip to both Nazareths, Arab and Jewish, which once got along, but apparently no longer do. The divided city, he writes, is a "great stage" to put a human face on the "disaster faced by the two people [who] share a common desire for peace."

Dani also writes at length about the intractable conflict. An Israeli expat, she came to America because -- as she later told me on the phone -- she grew weary of stepping out of her doorway every day "wondering if I would return." Dani is a talented writer, so I hope she'll soon share her story with us directly.

And finally there's Rusty's request to "talk to the young" about their hope for peace.

"Talk to them, Bruce, and bring us back a story worth reading," he wrote.

I'll try, Rusty.

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