Beth David’s 2023-24 monthly luncheon speaker series will begin on Saturday, October 14, with guest speaker Professor Shay Rabineau. He will talk about his 2022 Dead Sea trek, when he replicated a journey last undertaken in 1934 during the Palestine British Mandate period. People are encouraged to attend the morning service, which begins at 9:30 am. There is no charge for the luncheon. 

“As you can well imagine,” Rabineau said, “my 2022 circumambulation of the Dead Sea took place amid a vastly different physical and geopolitical landscape. I plan to illustrate what it was like to walk around ‘the world’s strangest lake,’ as I navigated international boundaries, military zones, industrial areas, sinkholes and minefields. I also plan to discuss the Dead Sea’s famous past, its character in the present and its possibilities for the future.”

Rabineau is an associate professor of Israel Studies in the Department of Judaic Studies at Binghamton University, and the associate director of the Center for Israel Studies.
“Shay is an avid hiker,” organizers say, “and has served as an expert trail development consultant, with strong trekking, fieldwork and strategic planning experience. He is currently working on a book project based on his trek around the Dead Sea, and we are thrilled to have him as our first guest speaker of the series!”