Still searching for the perfect holiday gift?

Running out of time to find something unique, something special, something that entertains, bemuses and perplexes that certain someone special who seems to have everything?

Why not buy them donkey doo from the holy land?

This year, Israeli tour guide Menachem Goldberg has developed one of the most remarkable gifts of the holiday season: Donkey doo sealed in hardened, see-through plastic.

"It can be very nice for Hanukkah or Christmas," said Goldberg. "It's very, very special."

Goldberg is the 36-year-old founder of Kfar Kedem, a tourist stop in the Galilee near Nazareth that is billed as "life passing through a time tunnel to the Galilee of antiquity."

Kfar Kedem is a recreation of a 2,000-year-old village where vistiors are encouraged to wear Biblical dress as they press olives, stomp on grapes with their bare feet, herd sheep and take extended multi-day donkey rides "in the footsteps of Jesus."

Goldberg started Kfar Kedem six years ago as a way to lure tourists to the Galilee.

This year, he had a unique epiphany: Why not turn the donkey dung into a cherished memory for his guests? 

The idea was rooted in a joke someone made to Goldberg several years ago.

"Somebody at the tourism ministry said that, if I wanted to be a rich man I must do this and write on the cube: Holy Shit from the Holy Land," Goldberg said in a telephone interview from Kfar Kedem. "I thought about it, and it's not so nice to compare, or make a connection to, our holy land with a sentence like this."

So Goldberg didn't give the idea much serious thought, until this year when he came up with his strategic marketing ploy.

Instead of writing "Holy Shit from the Holy Land" on the cube of donkey doo, Goldberg has put a saying from the Jewish Talmud that is part of a debate between two rabbis over the coming of the Messiah.

"Let the Messiah come," one of the ancient sages is reported to have said. "May I be worthy to sit in the shadow of his donkey's dung."

And thus the Holy Land Donkey Dung gift was born.

Goldberg had 50 chunks of donkey doo encased in clear plastic with the Talmudic lesson written on the side.

They are on sale for $70.

If sales are brisk, Goldberg plans to produce more. A friend says he plans to put one up for sale on E-Bay.

"Nobody in the world has anything like this," Goldberg boasted.

(Photo: Menachem Goldberg and his Donkey Dung gifts/Ygal Levi-Flash90)