The settlers appealed to French Baron Edmond de Rothschild, whose overseers came to Israel and set up various industries. One of the most successful: grapes.

The story of those early settlers is told in The Museum of the First Aliyah. It was built by the Arison Foundation and dedicated to Ted Arison's grandparents, Moshe and Sara Arisohn, among the region's early Jewish settlers.

It's one of the few historical stops on the tour - but one that connects dots, sketches a circle. This is a small land with history both infinite and ongoing. Jews are exiles and immigrants in every sense, both original settlers and newcomers.

Much of that is lost on the students and visitors who come to the museum and other historical sites that have made the cobbled village of Zichron Ya'akov a required stop for Israeli school groups. It's a cozy hillside town of cafes and galleries - a harpist offers regular concerts- as lulling as any country town could be. Still, the school groups are accompanied by armed guards. It's a requirement of all school groups since 1974, when Arab terrorists attacked a group of students on a field trip.

We drive into the Carmel hills south of Haifa, to manicured and serene Carmel Forest Spa. It's a full-scale retreat: comfortable guest rooms, exercise classes, pools indoors and out, billowy gardens, lavish but healthy buffets, and the latest in spa treatments - at half the price of an American resort. The worries of the world - any world - lie far away.

Our journey takes us on, through wide fields of land now drained and tamed and increasingly forested, thanks to government programs. Through the fabled Plains of Armageddon - covered not with blood but with sunflowers and cotton.

In an olive garden we taste oils, hinting of grass and spices; Israel produces 6-7,000 tons annually. An herb farm offers a lesson on medicinal herbs; the calendula, said to heal imperfections in skin, can't be resisted. Lunch one day is at a goat cheese-making farm owned by a former Texan struggling to deliver cheese without the benefits of FedEx. Another day, we chow on massive burgers at a real cowboy restaurant - complete with wooden saddles as bar stools - looking out a paddock of mares and foals; it is run by kibbutz that raises cattle and offers guest rides.

We drive through farmland - some fields marked with signs warning of mines, others advertising U-pick fields and wild gazelles crossing - into the Golan Heights, a strategic lava highland of wineries and military training camps. On a clear day, you can see both Lebanon and Syria.

Our base in north Galilee is a historic farmhouse-turned-deluxe B&B in the artsy village of Rosh Pina, overlooking a wide valley that leads to the Golan. The inn, Pina Barosh, offers cozy suites of stone walls and welcoming Jacuzzi-style bathtubs. The stone terrace rimmed with geraniums recalls the south of France. The inn was the dream of a local artist Nili Friedman. The well-known restaurant, Shiri Bistro, is the work of her daughter, Shiri, who studied with Bernard Loiseau in Burgundy and Daniel Boulud in New York.

We linger over one of her famous breakfasts - fresh cheeses, yogurts, salads, herring, smoked fish, olives, eggs - as she and Arison catch up on Shiri's mother - traveling in India; on friends who live down the road - the wife is doing much better after a stroke; on business - finding good employees is difficult; on Shiri's children - how many hours per day should she leave them in day care?

The conversation brings to mind something Shatzberg, the winemaker, said a few days earlier - a sentiment repeated here often:

"The most important thing for me is to show people there's a normal world here. People make wine, go to school, have a nightlife. It's a living place."

Living, certainly, and normal, yes - but in the Israeli sense. In the distance, we hear the boom of cannon fire, soldiers practicing at a Golan Heights military base. At home and abroad, it's jarring to realize that security and normalcy come at a price.

Did we mention the food? Oh, good heavens. Loosen your waistband. The food.

"When Ted was growing up, it was all falafel and hummus," said Arison. Service was brusque and dismissive.

By the time she and Ted moved here in 1991, the situation had improved significantly - and it's only gotten better, said Arison. Now service is knowledgeable and friendly, if not always sharp. And the food ...

One meal is more spectacular than the next. Duck foie gras, bouillabaisse with lemongrass foam and baked marrow at trendy Messa in Tel Aviv. A splendid country spread of bulgar wheat with aubergine and tahini, cabbage in pastry and a casserole of tomato and onion topped with poached eggs at Il Baccio - better known as Hanishika, the Hebrew word for "the kiss" - in Zichron Ya'akov. A refined meal of smoked goose breast and smoked spare ribs marinated for a week, spicy stuffed grape leaves and grilled portobello topped with artichoke hearts at Auberge Shulamit in Rosh Pina. A fresh, memorable chef's tasting of California-style dishes-- oven-baked breads, ceviche with sesame and cracked pepper, salmon with silvers of radish and melon and bean sprout, sushi with beets, pumpkin risotto with cardamom, tempura zucchini flowers stuffed with parmesan - at Lechem Erez in Tel Aviv.

Artisanal foods, too, have taken hold. One of the best-loved farms is that of Shai Zeltzer, about 30 minutes south of Jerusalem in the Judean Hills. Not so far from where David killed Goliath.

Dusty lanes around the hills and through an olive grove lead to a simple, rocky patch. Without the pictographs of a goat pointing the way, you'd never find it.

Here Zeltzer - famous among European and American cheesemakers - keeps 140 goat mothers and crafts his tomme and chevre and hard, manchego-style cheese, aging them in a chilled cave cut into the hillside. He's a charismatic figure, looking like a Bedouin in beard and amazing clean white. The place is open to the public only on Fridays and Saturdays. By happenstance, our Thursday meeting matches a monthly event: artisan bread maker Yiftah Bareket has come to bake in Zeltzer's wood-fired oven. Today he will make more than 100 loaves for friends and family.

"Bite and chew it," Zeltzer urges. "You will hear the voice of the bread."

The bread, cheeses and dried tomatoes soaked in date honey are matters of art, science and medicine. Talk revolves around enzymes, aging and curative powers of the cheese, influenced by seasonal growth in the grazing pastures. One man buys only cheese from milk culled in January and February, when the goats eat a plant that has been shown helpful to people with diabetes.

Talk inevitably turns to Israel and how it is changing.

"It's beautiful. It's complicated," said Zeltzer. "It's our way of life to be confused."

A glass of Castel wine is raised - not the first. "To life. L'Chaim."

A light breeze ruffles the olive trees as the full moon rises above them. The first of the loaves comes off the fire, and we toss aside our plans of an Arab dinner in favor of cheeses, fresh bread, plums and peaches just off tree.

"We live here according to the seasons," Zeltzer said. "And with the seasons, everything changes."