Tel Aviv

Coming from Jerusalem with a majority of Orthodox Jews wearing clothes more suited to the 1700s than today into Tel Aviv where the new, blatantly secular, Jewish young people wear tight jeans, sip iced lattes, and smoke cigarettes in outdoor cafes is such a contrast!  Tel Aviv is high rise condo after high rise condo along a beautiful white sandy beach looks like Miami.  In addition to American Jews, the biggest buyers of these condo right now are French Jews who are afraid of anti-semitism in Europe.

Modern Orthodox Jews wear a special knitted skull cap and think that the formation of the country of Israel is the first spark of the coming of the Messiah.  They work, serve in the army, support and/or live in the illegal settlements of the W. Bank and send their children to Israeli schools, 

Ultra Orthodox feel "how dare we push the hand of God and when he is ready to bring his people home, he will."  They don't work,  they study the Torah and Talmud, live on welfare, don't serve in the army, don't participate in the ceremonies of Israel or sing the National Anthem and have lots of children to.  There is currently a bill in the Israeli legislature to make the Ultra Orthodox work and serve in the army.  At the start of Israel, they numbered less than 500 and David Ben Gurion thought they'd just die out, but they are now the faster growing group in Israel.  There is also concerns that as their number continue to rapidly grow, their influence will impact Israeli life.  Israel is a secular, Jewish, democratic state and most people want to keep it that way.

Israeli Arabs don't serve in the military.  According to our guide, they don't want to serve and the Israeli government doesn't want them fighting other Arabs.  OK--

Old Yaffa, south of Tel Aviv, was a city 5000 years ago when Tel Aviv was just another wide strip of sand on the Mediterranean.

Before Israeli independence the area was 85%  Arabs.  When indepence was declared in 1948, the Arabs fled--according to our guide Israel had no intention of kicking them out, but it became a place of fierce fighting between Arabs and Jews and the place was destroyed and left in ruins until the 1960s when the Israeli government gave the houses and shops to artist and regentrification started. There are still areas in need of renewal, but apparently the prices are quite high because of the potential of the area.

 There are many Biblical reference to the port of Jerusalem, as Jaffa was known.  Like most of the Middle East, the area has changed hands many times with the oldest inhabitant being Ramses II.  Napoleon conquered it, but lost half of his army to cholera.  Jaffa is also the place where Jonah tried to run away from God and got swallowed by the whale. The sea is a beautiful turquoise and the sun was shining.

Even though Jesus never walked here, the streets are full of Fundamentalist Christians because St. Peter raised Tabatha from the dead and also it is the home of Simon the Tanner, where Peter, a Jewish man, in a vision was commanded by God to eat animals that Jews would never eat. The relaxing of dietary rules opened Christ' message for pagans and Gentiles. 

Ok, we are in the secular part of Israel, but since we are leaving Friday night, it is hard to find transportation to the airport.  The trains and buses quit running at 5 PM and many taxi drivers don't drive on the Sabbath.  In Orthodox Jerusalem, there is 24 hour transport to the airport.

In front of the church of St. Peter, a Jewish guide was explaining to a Jewish group the story of Simon the Tanner, and why Christians started eating pork, shrimp, and other forbidden food. 

Tel Aviv is having a real estate boom with more and more high rises being built and prices going up.  There are also lots of 30 year olds from hi tech companies and start up tech companies that will eventually sell to Microsoft, HP, etc. and it is creating the same phenomen en as we experienced in the US with our "Microsoft Millionaires".  There is a book about this,  Israel, Start Up Nation.
The older areas of Tel Aviv are quite European with wide Rothschild Blvd,

 

coffee shops on every corner

 

 

 

and Bahaus architecture. 

 



There has been a large influx of Somali Jews in the mid 1990s and we asked our guide, "are Jews color conscious?"  He said, "Jews accept all Jews as equals. Unlike Christianity which is very individualistic, Jewishness is about community and doing what's good for the community.  They value human life above all else in life and it's the Arabs that want to kill us."  To quote "Jesus Christ, Superstar"--strange as it seems--- 

Walking in Jesus' Footsteps

We spent last night at Nof Ginosar, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  The kibbutz was founded 1937 on Purim, a Jewish holiday,  It is adjacent to the leased land of Migdal and was needed as protection during the Arab revolts in 1936-1939. What started as an agricultural settlement is now solidly tourist based and sits adjacent to the town and school of the same name.  It is a very popular place to stay and draws thousands of fundamentalist Christian tourist because of not only it's proximity to the sites of Jesus ministry, but in the mid 1980 the "Jesus Boat" was discovered by two fisherman from the Kibbutz Ginosar.  This boat has been carbon dated to 50 AD is likely to be like the one that Jesus and his disciples used and is mentioned number times in the New Testament of the Bible.

  One of them of the most secure sites we've seen is the National Water Carrier--the source of most of Israel's water.  This is a desert and without water, it would be uninhabitable.  The Sea of Galilee is fresh water and is 200 ft. below sea level. The water flows in an open channel from the Sea through a filtration system, then a closed system to the rest of Israel.

Jesus lived in  the northeast part of Galilee and his ministry was centered there among the Jews.  His message was for the Jews, not the Gentiles until later.  Over a Byzantine church is the modern day Church of the Beatitudes, built by architect Antonio Barlucci.  It is octagonal to represent the 8 beatitudes, and was the first place that a Roman Pope visited.  1964, Paul XI post Vatican II and John Paul II in 2000.  The traditional site of Jesus' sermon on the Mount is on the hill to the right of the  church.  Our guide, whose Zionist feelings became more and more obvious, reiterated to us over and over that Jesus' message was for the Jews, to reform them, not for the gentiles.

Tabgha, the site of Jesus' miracle of feeding the multitudes with 5 fish and 3 loaves of bread .

After the Resurrection of Jesus, he had a breakfast with his disciples by the Sea of Galilee where he said to the apostle Peter, "feed my sheep".  This is called the Peter's Primacy when Jesus say to Peter in Matthew 16:18 

     Thou art Peter and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail 

     against it.

It has caused a rub between Catholics and Protestants since the Reformation.  It's certainly a beautiful place. This statue shows Jesus telling Peter of of his responsibility and the Sea of Galilee is in the background.

 

 

The last three years of his life is spent at Capernaum, which is on a "super highway" between the two super powers of his day--Mesopotamia and Egypt.  Because of the trade between the two areas, this becomes a cosmopolitan, more liberal region, whereas Nazareth, Jesus' home remains orthodox and backward in his time.  Someone from Nazareth would have been considered a "hillbilly" in the time of Jesus.  Jesus' message was to the Jews first, the gentiles next and he probably chose this location for non-Jews to hear his message.  He wasn't having a lot of luck giving his message to the Nazarene Jews and their numbers remained low.  Capernaum was a prosperous town and the black stone basalt building that are still standing attest to it's wealth.   A early synagogue where Jesus is reputed to have taught is of limestone and still stands in the middle of town.  Synagogues came into existence after The Temple--with a capital T--the only temple in Jerusalem that was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE was for reading the Torah and teaching.  When the Torah was put away, the building was probably used as a community center.  As in the time of Jesus, the Torah was read Monday, Thurs. and Saturday.  Monday and Thurs were market days in ancient times and it was the day that people would congregate in town and Saturday was the Sabbath.  The Torah is still read on those days. This synagogue from 2000 years ago has 3 doors facing Jerusalem like synagogues of today. Nazarene Jews started to pray using the example Jesus gave them in the "Our Father",  and orthodox Jews added prayer much later in time.  (Info from out tour guide, not me!)

 

In Capernaum, under an early Byzantine Church is a house that Biblical Scholars and archaeologist believe to be the house of St. Peter.  The early Byzantine churches were octagon shaped and describes the structure surrounding the house.  Above it the Catholic church of St. Peter that was built with a glass floor to look down into the Byzantine octagon and the house inside. 

 

The early Jewish symbol of their faith was the menorah, not the Star of David, that came from India much later.  This "star of David" is thought by archaeologist to be a design feature  to predate it's use as symbol of Judaism

 

 

We passed through the sparsely populated Golan Heights, home to 17,000 Jewish settlers since the 1980s. This area was annexed by Israel after the 1967 war and almost lost again in the 1973 Yom Kippur war.  The US gave arms to Israel to prevent them launching a nuclear attack against Syria. At the time, David told us the Israelis would rather perish than lose the Golan Heights back to Syria.    This is a very quiet area today with no Arab population and just a few Druze villages which are not as hostile to Israel now that they are  minor tourist attractions with the "visit a Druze village for lunch" tours and apparently their have some wonderful food! 

 

Anita was baptised int he Jordan River close to where John the Baptist baptised Jesus. 

History is at every turn--the hill where the Muslim, Saladin, defeated the Crusaders.  Cana, the town where Jesus performed his first miracle of turning water into wine at a wedding.  Nazareth, where Jesus lived and the place of Mary's birth. Nazareth is no longer a Christian town even though it has the largest Christian church in the Middle East, the Basilica of the Annunciation, to commemorate the angel Gabriel telling Mary that she would be the mother of the son of God.

 

 This is the place where Pope Paul VI met with the Patriach of Constantinople, head of the Greek Orhodox church, in 1964 for the first time in over a 1000 years to try to mend their divide of long ago.  A large statue marks the occasion. 

 

 .  

Today the town is predominately hostile Muslims and a few years ago, there were plans to build a Mosque across from the large Basilica. The Vatican approached the Israeli authorities. The church didn't get built

 

 Interesting--a Christian woman in the gift shop told us that the Vatican changed the date that Easter is celebrated this year in Nazareth and Bethlehem to coincide with the Greek Orthodox Easter on May 5.  So Easter is next weekend and she is not very happy about it.  Her comment was, "Let's see if they (Greek Orthodox) celebrate Christmas with us!"

Development Towns

We're driving from the northern coast inland to the Sea of Galilee to spend the night at a kibbutz, and on  the way we pass Arab villages and Jewish tract housing.  These "development towns" came after independence when Jews from all over the world flooded into Israel.  First the new arrivals went to refugee camps, then tents and shacks and then to public housing.  In the early 1950s about half of the  new arrivals were Holocast survivors and half Jews from Arab lands. Other more religious Jews, some from backward places and some thinking the Messiah was coming.  Most of these people were penniless.  Initially refugees were moved to the desert and if they were European and sophisticated enough to know the system, they soon moved up to a better situation.  The developement towns were soon poor places with patricarchial families that were destroyed further as fathers were unemployed and children went to work.  This created a loss of respect for the fathers and led to severe social problems.  As the residents stagnanted and seemed unable to get themselves out of this situation, they became more disatisified and angry at the "Askanazi elites". 

These more traditional and orthodox Jews were also against the militant secularism in Israel post independence and didn't like their children educated in the kibbutz where there was no kosher food, their curls were cut off and the religious aspect of Judism was ignored.  Lot of political changes in leadership happened at this time.  A sort of rescue came in the 1990s when one million Soviet Jews went into the old developments alongside the disinfranchised because the rent was cheap.  They brought with them symphony orchestras, doctors, art and many educated people.  There are still many social problems, but the governement seems to have learned a great deal from forced assimilation and when the Somali Jews arrived a few years later, social workers were on hand to teach them some very basic things like how to use electric lights, flush toilets, and washing machines. 



 

Caesara, Akko and the Druze

Leaving old Jerusalem,  we drove through the modern city of Jerusalem, the capital of Israel.  The Knesset is the heart of government and stands tightly guarded in the downtown area .  The 120 Ministers of Parliament range from ultra conservation Jews to Israeli Arabs that are hostile to the Israeli government.  We passed more extensive settlements that were built shortly after the 1967 war.  The size of these developments was a big surprise to me--they are huge. 

The Judean hills are absolutely beautiful with lots of rolling green hills and many trees that has been planted by the Jewish National Fund.  The "Jerusalem Corridor" goes west towards Tel Aviv.  Even thought the Sea of Galilee is northeast of Jerusalem, we need to go west to almost the coast and then go north and back east because it's not safe for Israelis to travel through the Palestinian areas.  I won't go into the history of Ottomans, British and in 1948, an independent state of Israel, but the Arab accounts and the Israeli accounts differ greatly!  David told us that the Arab population fled their homes for fear of what the Israeli would do to them.  Those that chose to stay, became Israeli citizens with all the rights and  privileges of the Israeli Jews, but for safety reasons, all Arabs villages were cleared on the "Jerusalem Corridor"-Highway 1 from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv.

On  the coast we visited to the ancient city of Caesarea. Biblical history comes alive with names like Pontius Pilate whose name of found on a stone tablet stating he was governor of Caesarea and Herod, the Great, who built the city as his showplace.  Herod, paranoid schizophrenic, megalomaniac, master builder built an inner and outer harbor that is submerged just off shore as is part of the palace.  No picture I took does the place justice--it's enormous and follows the edge of the sea.

The theater has been rebuilt and was being prepared for a concert.

The fundamentalist Christians are the biggest group of tourist in Israel today.  They are very supportive of the Jews and David said one asked him, "how can you let them (the Arabs) keep control of Dome of the Rock?"  And then suggested that the Israelis blow it up!  A common theme among his fundamentalist pilgrims is that God gave the land to the Jews and the Arabs should be kicked out. In the Christian book of Revelations, the end of  the world and the second coming of Jesus won't happen until the third temple is built on Temple Mount and they want to speed up the timeline as much as possible.  Just FYI, the 2nd temple was destroyed in 70 AD and the Muslims have control of a mosque called Dome of the Rock that was built in 688 AD and sits on part of the former temple area.  The rest of the Temple Mount is empty except for trees.

The southernmost Druze village  of about 15,000 inhabitants are just before Haifa.  A secret religions that only their clergy knows anything about, but it does allow women to reach the highest level of the clergy. They believe in one God and that there is a finite number of souls in the world and that these souls are recycled.  They have no rituals whatsoever, and the average Druze doesn't know anything about their religion.  The Druze must be loyal to the state in which they live.  The Haifa Druze are amazingly loyal to Israel and  serve in the Israeli army.  The Syrian Druzes show the same loyalty to Syria. There are 2 Druzes villages in the Golan Heights that were captured from Syria 1967 war, and initially the people were very hostile to Israel, but tourism has become very lucrative for these villages.  Once a year Israel opens the border for marriages between the different tribes since there are so few Druze and so many are marrying outsiders and disappearing into the Arab population.

Next stop--Akko or Acre which is a UNESCO site and a 100% Arab city close to the Lebanese border.

It is the best preserved Crusader city in the world.  The prison break portrayed by Paul Neuman in "Exodus" was filmed here. When the actual prison break happened here in May 1947, a hole was blown in the floor during the real prison break and through the hole, this ancient city was discovered.  Instead of destroying the city, it was continually built on top of and sand from the beach blew in and covered everything. This was the home in 1099 or the Kniights Hospitaler and the Knights Templar, not especially nice guys who ruled the Holy Lands for about 200 years. 

Israeli soldiers are everywhere, and both men and women serve.

Baha'i Gardens in Haifa.

 

 

Dead Sea Scrolls and Masada

Passing though a tunnel out of Jerusalem lands one in the Judean desert, one of the smallest deserts in the world and in a rain shadow that give it no precipitation.  We are on highway 1 heading east back toward Jordan. The Palestinian are permitted to drive on this road and plans are being made to build a parallel road for the Palestinians.  Technically, this is the West Bank and Palestinian territory but the highway is under total control of Israel.  Again, these opinions are those of our guide, David if I am recalling them correctly! There are large, what the rest of the world calls illegal West Bank settlements on the land around us. They look like the crusader forts looming along tops of  hills for miless.  Most Jews would say it's a suburb of Jerusalem and wouldn't dream of giving it up. 

We are viewing two Jewish groups today that don't exist anymore. The Essenes and the Zealots.  First stop is at Qumran on the Dead Sea to visit the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by a Bedouin shepherd in 1947 as he was looking for a lost sheep.  In a cave in the side of the hill, he found large clay jugs with the parchment scrolls .  This is the cave where they'd been wrapped in linen  for almost 2000 years.

Archaeologist have found a village of Essene Jews nearby.  They were a small sect who were obsessed with ritual purification and big on good vs. evil in the world.  They lived a communal life of supposedly just men, but two women were found during the excavation.  John the Baptist is believed to have stayed here for some period of time. All of this is prior to Jesus' appearance. 

Leaving Qumran, we went though another military check point since we were reentering Israel--this part recognized by the UN and everyone else.  The Dead Sea is drying up and shrinking at an amazing rate.  Lots of land and not much Dead Sea!

Part of the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan gave both countries rights to the Jordan River which feeds the Dead Sea.  Irrigation is pulling so much water from the river, there's not much left when it reaches the Dead Sea. 

We're on our way to Masada.  This is looking over the Judean Desert at the flat top of Masada.

This hilltop palace/fort started as a palace for Herod the Great, paranoid schizophrenic and greatest builder of his time.  Even though he was a Jew, he loved all things Roman including their decadent lifestyle and tried to emulate it , but out of the sight of the Jews of Jerusalem, so Herod came here to get away and he entertained the likes of Anthony and Cleopatra at his palace here.

This is the original plaster and frescos in one of the room.  The black line in this picture is around every structure and wall in Masada.  Below the black line is original and above it is a reconstruction.  Much is in ruins, but the synagogue remains fairly intact and is the site of American bar mitvah!

The palace was abandoned and in 73 CE,  960 Zealots, a right wing sect of the Jews moved into this place after the fall of Jerusalem when the Roman burned the Second Temple and drove the Jews. After they realized fighting the Romans was a lost cause, the Zealots decided to kill the children first, then women, and each other to avoid capture and becoming slaves of the Romans.  The Roman story of this tells of the drawing of lots among 10 men for the last one to die since that person  will have to commit suicide and suicide is one of the worst sins that a Jew can commit, and this way, only one man would have to commit suicide.  A few years ago, an Israeli archaeologist found ten pot shard with names written on them giving credibility  to the story.  The Israeli Defense Force used to hold their military swearing in on Masada  finding the bravery and resolve of the Zealots something to admire, but now the Zealots are viewed as more of an embarassment and not people to glorify--much having to do also with their behavior in Jerusalem before it fell--they burned the grain stores to make the Jews fight the Romans and killed other Jews who were not militant enough.  Swearing in of military officers is now done at the Western Wall. 

 

A stop at the Inn of the Good Samaritan and a look at the ancient Samaritan mosaics.  The Samaritans lived north of Jerusalem in the area of Israel that was the home of the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel.  There are about 800 remaining Samaritans who write an ancient form of Hebrew, do not associate with their Arab neighbors, consistently side with the Israeli and have a Torah similar to the Jews.  DNA testing shows markers that would indicate a common recent ancestor with the modern day Jews of Israel.  A very interesting photo display of the Samaritans was in the mosaic museum.  

 

This is a map of this part of Israel and I know it's hard to read.  The grey/brown areas are under full Palestinian control, both military and government.  The yellow are Palestine for civil matters, but Israel security forces are still there. The beige/ light yellow area is under Israel control.  It looks like swiss cheese with no way for the Palestinians to get between their various properties.

Last night in Jerusalem.  Of to the coast tomorrow. 

Jewish Jerusalem

We entered old Jerusalem through the Mt. Zion gate this morning.  In the time of Jesus, this part of town with where Jesus, a Nazarene sect of Judaism who believed that a rabbi from Galilee was the son of God, and his followers lived in a commune or kibbutz.  In 1948 during the Israeli war of independence, Jerusalem was taken by the Jordanians and remained so until the 6 Day War in 1967 when Israeli forces took the old city.  There are bullet holes all over the facade.

 

Inside the city walls is the Jewish quarter which is populated by Orthodox Jews.  Israel is a Zionist state whose whole purpose is to bring the Jew back to live in Jerusalem and create a living city, not a museum.  The map of Jerusalem that we saw in Madaba, ,Jordan,has been used by archaeologist to understand Jerusalem. That our tour guide, David.

 Of note is that Temple Mount is completely missing from the Masade map--this is a form of early anti-semitism.  Now, remember, all of this information is coming from our guide.  I dont' know enough  to even have an opinion!  The hatred of Jews by early Christians caused them to used the area of the destroyed temple as a garbage dump.  It remained so until the Arab conquest in the 7th century when it was cleaned up by the Arab who had a great respect for the Jews.  Almost all ruins that one sees in Jerusalem date to the Second Temple period, but there is a wall called the Broad Wall that dates from the First Temple period of 1000-586 BC. Looks like rubble now, but is the ancient city wall.

  When Israel retained control of Jerusalem in 1967, it was in rubble and extensive archaeological work was carried out prior to rebuilding the Jewish section of Jerusalem.  Under the new condos and shops are ruins of the Jewish and Roman city that are now open to the public and we toured several of these.  The streets of 2000 years ago are several meters below the current street level.

There are 3 Jewish ethnicity's--85 % are Askenazi Jews of European descent, Sephardic Jews who were exiled from Spain in 1492, and the Mizrahi-Jews who never left the Middle East.

 

The traditional room of the last supper--also had been a Muslim mosque and this part was added during that time.  It's also Gothic architecture so must have had some other remodeling.

 

Most Jews in the Israeli state consider Jewishness a nationality, not a religion.  In fact, most of the early Israelis and their leaders were either non-secular Jews or atheists.  David Ben Gurion, the first Israeli Prime Minister was not only an atheist, but thought the Jewish religion would die out within 10 years--obviously that didn't happen.  Jerusalem is very orthodox today and you see many ultra orthodox as well as modern orthodox people on the streets.  We are staying in an orthodox neighborhood.  Most of the restaurants are kosher and there are meat restaurants or there are dairy restaurants--they are never served together.  Inside a food court yesterday, the chairs outside a bagel place (dairy) and a shish kabob take out (meat) are color coded so that you only sit at the appropriate tables.  If one person is having a bagel with cream cheese and the other a shish kabob, they cannot sit together. 

 

David, our guide, was born in Brooklyn, raised in Dallas Texas, and made aliyah to Israel as a young man.  It is not called immigration--only non-Jews immigrate.  For Jews, this is a return to their rightful homeland and is granted to every Jew.  Also there is a foundation that will send any young, American Jew, all expenses paid, to Israel to experience their culture.  That was another thing that the founding fathers thought--all Jews, including American Jews would come to Israel to live.  

 

We walked through many ancient cities, temples and ruins today, but one of the most fascinating is the City of David in East Jerusalem which came  under Israeli control during the 1967 war. It is the Arab town of Siwal.  The Oslo Accord in 1993 gave Palestine Liberation Authority some control over East Jerusalem as well as the other West Bank lands that are considered autonomous area under Palestinian National Authority control.  They would be self governing. This area of East Jerusalem is where the original City of David is located and a right wing Jewish group back by right wing American Jews and American Fundamentalist Christmas pump a lot of money into this area in a rush to excavate the ancient Jebbite city that David conquered and set up a Jewish city.  There are 5 archaeological digs going on concurrently.  The above people are anxious to prove such a connection to the Jews that the land cannot be taken away from them--but sounds like as part of the Oslo Accord, it already has been given to the Palestinians.  There are also people with families who live in houses built on the City of David.  This is part of what is considered the illegal settlements and has created a lot of animosity with the Arabs in this area.  Bullet proof truck sit on the street in front of the entrance.

There are three types of Arabs in the land of Israel

1.  The Israeli Arabs who live in places like Arco, Gallilee, Tel Aviv who are full Israeli citizens.  They have full voting rights and can come and go from Ben Gurion Airport as they please.

2.  West Bank which is autonomous Palestinian Territories, like Bethlehem or Hebron.  They cannot leave.  They have no passports, just travel documents.  If they want to leave the West Bank, they must go through the Allenby Bridge Border crossing that we used and go into Amman and are not allow to leave via Ben Gurion Airport.  They have never signed a peace agreement with Israel and won't be granted any kind of statehood until they do.

3.  The Arabs in E. Jerusalem--where city of David is-- have a special status.  Since 1967, they have a choice to have an Israeli passports or travel papers from the Palestinian authorities. Whichever they choose, the above conditions apply. 

 

Very complicated stuff!!!!!

3.



Tour of Christian Jerusalem

We met our new tour guide, David, today and spent the day with him starting with a cab ride to the Mount of Olives  where we spent a little time looking at the Jewish cemetery.  Jews think when the Messiah comes they will all be wakened in their graves and will rise up in Jerusalem first.  so they want to be buried there. 

After an orientation to the old city and a great view Jerusalem ,

we walked the Palm Sunday route.  Below is an Arab man and his donkey on the Palm Sunday route.

to the Lion's Gate aka St. Stephen's Gate to the Via Delorosa in old Jerusalem.  This is the route that Jesus took on his way to the cross to be crucified, also called for Catholics, Stations of the Cross.  It is also where Israeli storm troopers in 1967 stormed Temple Mount and took back Jerusalem for the Jews after being exiled for 2000 years.  David differentiated between traditional Christian sites and historically accurate sites.  Traditional sites can't use archaeology to proved, but even before Catholic or orthodox churches, there were ancient Christians that came to venerate certain places and some of those traditions continue. Historically accurate sites use archaeology and the scientific community agrees that these sites correct.  The most important site in Christianity, Church of the Holy Sepulchre is one of these places.  The crucifixion and the tomb where Jesus was buried are historically accurate and scholars of Judaism, the Greek Orthodox church and the Catholic church in addition to scientists and archaeologist all agree that this is the site.  People waited for 2 hours today to get to walk in the tomb where Jesus was buried.  It looks nothing like when Jesus was buried there.

The Garden of Gethsemane, which means olive mill, does have olive tree that are 1000 years old--not 2000 like some people think

 

Also the spot where Judas betrayed Jesus is marked by the Church of the Agony.  It is also called the Church of all Nations and was built after WWI because that was going to be the war to end all wars and many nations including the United States contributed money to build a new church.  Remains of a Byzantine and then Crusader church were found there. 

   

David said the most common tourist to the Jerusalem is fundamentalist Christians.  We saw them walking around the outside of St. Anne's church and singing.  Apparently going into a Catholic church is problematic for them.  St Anne's church was the birthplace of the Mary's mother, Anne.  Most of the churches were destroyed when Saladin's troops took the Holy Land for the Muslims, but Saladin thought St. Anne's was so beautiful that he kept it and changed the inscription over the door to read that "I, Saladin the Great, declare this a Muslim seminary".  Hard to read, but that essentially what it says.

    There is an order of Nuns called the Sisters of Zion who live and work in the old quarter whose job is to create cooperation and understanding between the Catholic Church and the Jews.  One of the most important changes of Vatican is was that the church demanded that all Catholics change their view of Jews from being "Christ killers" and view all Jews as not being responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.  The Catholic church apologized to the Jews and said that they certainly couldn't do anything to change what's been done, but they will  go forward in a way to right whatever wrong they could towards the Jews.

David encouraged us while we're in the Holy Land-- try to connect with a human Jesus and a Jewish man of 2000 years ago. 

Bethlehem and the West Bank

After our long border crossing, our driver for the next week, Habib, drove us through the West Bank and to Bethlehem.  Habib pointed out the Israeli settlements--they are huge and go for miles.  I said, "is this the settlements on Palestinian land?"  He said, "It's Israel, there is no Palestine". 

The West Bank is very hilly and populated.  Bethlehem sits at the top of one of the hills and looks over to the flat top of  King Herod's mountain.  Ruins of his palace have been explored for year, but in 2009 an Israeli archaeologist ended a 35 year for the remains of King Herod when his bones were found.  None of this is currently open to the public.  We parked in Manger Square--I'll have to pay closer attention next year to the Christmas events in Bethlehem. 

 

All of this information comes from our Christian guide at the Church of the Nativity.  (She also said about our driver--"he's an Arab")  She immigrated to Israel from Romania in 1994.  Eight years ago, Bethlehem was 85% Christian and now it's now less than 25%.  The Church of the Nativity has quite an elaborate system of who takes care of the church.  It is jointly managed by the Greek Orthodox church owns the altar and the right chapel, the Armenian church owns the left chapel and the Catholic church has the Church of St. Helena, Constantine's mother that is new--1881 and built over a much older church.  This is the church where midnight mass is celebrated on Christmas Eve.

 

This is a picture Chris sent me from the Internet of the inside of the inside of the church of the Nativity--it's way better picture than anything that we took. 

 

The "undisputed" birthplace of Jesus in down steep steeps into a cave under the altar of the church.

 Once down there, people wait in long lines to kneel and kiss the spot where Jesus was born, which is marked by a star.

 

Peaceful and beautiful are the cloisters surrounding the Catholic church.  They were built in Byzantine times and enlarged during the Crusades.

The church and surrounding area was full of Russian tourists on large tour buses.  It is a 19 hour excursion from Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt to visit the holy land.  There are 48 people were bus and went the buses dump out--whoa!  It's busy. 

 

Finally to our hotel in an orthodox area of Jerusalem.  To get there, we went through the main checkpoint in North Bethlehem where cars were being  pulled apart and everything was checked.  The Israeli police opened the door and saw middle aged Americans and let us go though with minimal questioning. It' s also the area where the wall that separates Israel from the Palestinian territories is being built. 

  Our new neighborhood is quiet and beautiful.  It's also the Sabbath so nothing is open and no one is around.  It's a day of rest and tomorrow starts out tour.



Welcome to Israel?

We left our hotel at 8 AM for the one hour drive to the Jordanian border with Israel.  The border office had no one in line so Nabil suggested that instead of  the VIP service that costs an extra 100 Jordanian dinar (150 USD).  Smooth sailing on the Jordanian side having our passports checked and paying the 10 dinar exit fee, but as we went to the bus, there is another 5 dinar charge for per passenger and 1.5 for bags.  We’d deliberately spent  all of our dinar –luckily they accept US dollars. There is a few km of land between the two borders that I’m not sure who owns.  The process at the Israeli side was to take the bags out of the bus, stand in line to put out bags through a scanner and on to a conveyor belt to disappear into the building somewhere.  We then waited  in line for  passport control.  We watched as a  guard accepted money from an Israeli couple and a young woman to break the queue in front of us.  Another guard yelled at him and asked him what he was doing?  A shrug.  Another line and scanner for our hand luggage and we walked through another scanner—Louise’s knee replacement set off the machine and she was put to the side to be examined closer in a small room.  Next is picking up all of our carry on that  had been scanned.  As we’re having yet another check with another young female TSA type, he tells me to go "over there", so we all go "over there".   My luggage was there, but no one else's and they got pointed to another checkpoint.  They need to look in my bag and then they take my passport.  But the process is—the young TSA type said we need to wait for the security person who was smoking a cigarette under a “no smoking“ sign.  I was not to touch my suitcase.  As he came over, I was told to unzip my suitcase and then I had to leave to another room while she checked my suitcase.  I also had a clear view of my suitcase all the time.  I knew instantly that the problem was my Bedouin knife, but they were taking out a bag with my inhalers and another bag with some souvenirs and some rocks.  Then out came my knife and she pulled it out of the sheath.  Other people were called over to look.   I walked back in and was told to get out.  Finally she gave me my passport and told me to go.  I asked what the problem was?  "We can't tell you, but don't use your knife in Israel". ??  "Where do I pick up my luggage?"  She pointed to the same checkpoint that the others had used.  I stood in line to show my passport for the 4^th time.  I saw my bag going down the conveyor belt and motioned to the others who’d already passed though this checkpoint to  pick it up.  Finally out and another scanner that everyone except us was putting their suitcases through—Chris and I were motioned to go through for some reason.  Finally out at noon and met our guide Habib who’d been waiting for us since 10 AM.  I am less impressive with Israeli security than I was before my own arrival in Israel!

                                              The border

We’re leaving for Israel tomorrow, so some odds and ends—

Spring Wardrobe

Relaxing with a smoke

 

 

There are tourist police to make sure we’re safe.

 

Driving is a bit crazy-there are no lines on the roads.  We were driving back to Amman from Aqaba today and saw a car hit one of the few median in the middle of the road as he swerved to avoid another accident. 

Bedouins, their camps and their herds of sheep, camels and goats are everywhere. These pictures were taken on the outskirts of Amman.  The countryside has many more.  They are friendly, welcoming and offer us a sweet cardamon tea whenever we are around them. They live in long, brown tents with a white stripe on the side made from the hair of their goats because it's waterproof.  Sometimes 20-40 men, women and children of a family live in these tents. 
There are many tribes and there doesn't seem to be much mixing between them.  Petra's camel herders, horse handlers, donkey drivers and carriage guys are of only one tribe and anyone outside would be killed for trying to do business there!

This couple had a camel herd out of town.  We stopped and talked to that.  That is our guide Nabil with the Bedouin man.

 

      City Bedouins

                                                                                                               Country Bedouins

 

 

Contrary to how the Bedouins live, the gypsies live in multicolored tents made of anything they can find.  Their children--many children--wear rags and their yards are dumps.  How's that for a generalization based on a few days of casual observation and backed up by absolutely no fact?

Illegal Egyptians stand on street corners looking for work.  They are not refugees but things are so bad in Egypt that people come here looking for work.  We also saw the police rounding them up and putting in police wagons.

 The people have been wonderful.  We had one of our group get sick and the hotel gave us adjoining much nicer rooms, called to ask about her and our guide went to the pharmacy to get medication.  They are warm,  attractive people who liked talking to us and told Anita and Louise some very interesting things about camel milk—just ask them!

 The children were curious and followed us around, asking, “what is your name?, where are you from?, how old are you?”

If you have the ability to enlarge this picture, take a look at their teacher leaning casually against the back wall.

200 US troops arrived this morning headed for the Jordan/Syrian border- where we were denied entry to the cave where Jesus stayed because of the visit of an American VIP.  We've seen US Marines at Mt Nebo and also in our hotel in Aqaba. yesterday.  Nabil expects a war in the next couple of months and the Syrian government to finally fall.