In Hebrew, Arabic, or English, Holyland is the same. In fact, it says "Holyland" in Hebrew, which as far as I know doesn't translate into anything, because this is just a former hotel (thanks, Asher Samuels). Courtesy Matt Kleiman.


In the West Bank area, courtesy Doug Swift. National Route 1 is red here, approximately equivalent to a US Highway. Elsewhere, NR 1 is blue, approximately equivalent to an Interstate highway, and carries the "M" (Motorway) designation. Routes can change colors. The road Doug was on is clearly a three-digit green route, though I can't make out which one - those are the equivalent of state highways.

Remaining photos are courtesy MRK (not Matt Kleiman).


Speaking of red routes and blue routes... The standard order of languages seems to be Hebrew, Arabic, English. In the first two photos, that appears to be violated, but M.R. Samuels pointed out that the order is maintained when reading from right to left - which is the standard reading order for Hebrew. (The Arabic being below the others in the first photo may throw you off. It's the exception that proves the rule, and I mean that in the original sense of "proves," as in "tests" (think proving grounds). Mr. Samuels explains that it still reads right to left, which it does if you ignore vertical spacing. It smacks of a design compromise.)


Still on M-4, this photo looks north at the M-1 interchange outside Holon. The ramp splits toward the bottom of the photo are for the NR 44 interchange just to the south on M-4.


Yes, H is for hospital, but what's that target sign for? Is that a bomb shelter - or do you want to be as far away from there as possible? Also, this sign has a typo - "En Kerem" should be "Ein Kerem." This sign is on NR 396 west of Jerusalem.


Some examples of regulatory signs. The first is at the end of an M-20 NB exit in Ayalon, Tel Aviv, possibly Sderot Yoseftal, showing the standard STOP sign that matches no other country. The third is on NR 7513 at Alonim Junction heading away from NR 75, a No Passing sign that seems to only apply to trucks. The last two photos are on the left and right of an alleyway somewhere (there's no way to identify with such scant clues) with non-standard (or perhaps quite old) speed restriction signs.


One of my favorite regulatory signs, clearly out in the desert on NR 31.


Two lessons here. First, street signs look the same all across Israel; these are in Jerusalem (near the Old City) and Herzliya, respectively. Second, the vowel markings beneath the Hebrew letters are usually not written (as you may have noticced on the other signs above), but street signs seem to often break that grammatical rule.

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