Some random comments:
Originally Posted by
ludocdoc
Thursday: Arrive, Drive to Dead sea area
Friday: Negev hike (maybe Timna area or Mitzpe Ramon), dead sea chillin
Saturday: Masada at sunrise, drive to... Jerusalem?
You could technically do all this stuff as separate day trips if you base yourself in J'lem. It'll be a lot of driving back and forth, but less shlepping to new hotels, depending on whether you want to stay in one place and not have to pack/unpack or not. That is, stay in Jerusalem and do Masada / Dead Sea one day (and even hike around Ein Gedi which is right nearby, if you have the time), and go to Mitzpe Ramon the second day. Though, that would not allow you to do the Masada sunrise, which I personally think is cliche and not the world's most picaresque sunrise. I'd highly recommend hiking around Mitzpe Ramon -- the craters are, in my opinion, one of the coolest natural sites in Israel; I did a nice day hike there and can look up the route if you need it.
Sunday-Wednesday (maybe Tuesday): Jerusalem several days including WW tunnels, Yad Vashem, etc.
Sounds like you've got this covered. Make your tunnel tour reservation in advance. One less common site -- if you're at all into architecture / history / politics -- is the Supreme Court, which could be Israel's best building. There are English tours. Combine a tour of the court with the Knesset next door.
Wednesday-Friday needs help. I'm not sure we can do this all from one base (ie Tel Aviv or Haifa or Tiberias) or need to change hotels a lot. For sure:
Tsfat (or whatever English transliteration it is)
Jaffa
Acco
Tiberias and hike in Arbel Nat'l Park
She's less into Caesarea and Rosh Hanikra (hmph). She's into Ashkelon if theres time. I've suggested Tels Dan and Meggido. I think Tel Aviv is the least Jewish/Israeli of the things she wants to see -- it's a nice city, but I never found it to have much Israeli ambiance. The Diaspora museum does appeal.
Sounds like you should pick one base in the north somewhere for this stuff. Jaffa is kind of out of place here. I know you say below that TLV doesn't interest you much, but your flight will be out of TLV, so perhaps stay the last night in TLV and hit Jaffa and whatever other TLV stuff you want to see that last day.
Since you say Wed-Fri, make sure you don't go there Friday b/c things will close early for Shabbat. Maybe stay in Tiberias. Leave J'lem early on Wednesday and drive to Tsfat, spend the day in Tsfat, and return to Tiberias. Then spend Thursday going to Akko and Haifa or anything else more in that direction. And spend Friday around the Kinerret area and doing your hiking, and head out at night. You can squeeze the other stuff in depending on time or interest.
Friday: return to Jerusalem for last night, nice hotel overlooking walls, etc
Saturday: Her birthday. Walk old city again, shopping in Muslim quarter, etc, late flight home
Not sure why you're backtracking and returning to J'lem a second time, especially if you need to fly out of TLV. Just do J'lem all in one shot, unless you really want her b-day to be spent in J'lem. And J'lem is dead on Shabbat, so your options for a nice B'day dinner are rather limited.