Around London, Wednesday

Today was one of those "domestic" days.  Washing of clothes and ironing.  Fortunately there is a laundromat nearby and we can get an iron and ironing board for the room. While the clothes were washing, we wandered around the area admiring the hanging baskets and the old pubs.

Hanging Baskets

The Cleveland Arms

 After completing the chores, we hopped on the 23 bus for one of our favourite rides around London.  It goes through most of the West End, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and on to St Paul's.  It is a lovely ride and since we were not in a hurry, the horrendous traffic wasn't a bother. 

Eros in Piccadilly Circus

Trafalgar Square

St Paul's

What was a bother was something that has been creeping in to one of the great London traditions, the cabs.  No longer are they all black.  Now they seem to come in all colours of the rainbow and worse still, with advertising plastered over them.

Colourful Cabs

 At St Paul's we got off the bus and wandered through the Temple Bar gate into a lovely area, Paternoster Square.

Temple Bar

Some nice statues, places for coffee and restaurants.

"Paternoster" in Paternoster Square

Then it was back to the hotel for me whilst "guess who" hit the shops.  The smell of burning plastic was almost overwhelming.  When she finally came back we went out for a drink at the local pub and then for an early dinner.  Tomorrow it is on to Paris.

Goodbye to Israel, Tuesday

Up at some God forsaken hour to get our ride to the airport at 6.00 AM.  They say that the most dangerous part of travel is the trip to the airport and in Israel, considering the drivers, there is a degree of truth in that.  Our driver rarely, if ever, dropped below a speed of 140 kph and lane swapped as if that were a career option.

The airport was pure chaos.  The level of security at Ben Gurion may well be the highest in the world - and the delays, the longest.  Nonetheless, we finally got through.  Flying with El Al is a bit of a madhouse with passengers pushing, shouting and praying while children run up and down the aisles.  As we came in to land everyone seemed to ignore the instructions to be seated until one or two minutes before the plane actually touched down and as soon as it was on terra firma people were out of their seat belts and standing up to get their bags. 

Here are some pictures from Ben Gurion Airport.

Kosher McDonald's
So how do you make a Kosher Cheeseburger?

At Prayer in the Airport

A Serious Discussion

London airports seem to have the longest corridors in the world and for the first time we saw heavily armed guards there.  Once we finally got to immigration and customs we got through quickly and within an hour were in our hotel where we unpacked and collapsed (or was it the other way around)?

Windows to the World, Monday

Our guide asked us to be up for an early start in order to go to Hadassah Medical Centre. This is a medical organization that operates two University hospitals at Ein Kerem and Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, as well as schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacology affiliated with the Hebrew University.

The hospital was founded by Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, which continues to underwrite a large part of its budget. In 2005, it was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in acknowledgement of its equal treatment of all patients, regardless of ethnic and religious differences as well as for its efforts to build bridges to peace.

In the synagogue at the hospital are the "Jerusalem Windows" created by Marc Chagall.  These twelve stained glass windows represent the twelve tribes of Israel. They were installed permanently during February 1962 and each is approximately ll feet high and 8 feet wide.  It is hard to describe them in words except to say that they are awe inspiring and magnificent.

Chagall's Dan Window

From the windows we went to Valley of Elah where David met Goliath.  Seeing it really brings home the geopolitical forces at work at the time.  We read from 1 Samuel 17, which describes the fight between the two, easily a metaphor for little Israel surrounded by the giant of the Arab states.

The Elah Valley

On the way back to Jerusalem we visited the Road to Emmaus where following his resurrection Jesus first appeared to his disciples. The story is told in Luke 24.

We stopped briefly for coffee in one of the New Israeli towns where few if any tourists go.  In fact, the staff at the coffee shop spoke no English and had never before served tourists. but with some help from Ahron, and his wife who joined us, we pretty much got what we wanted.

Then it was back to the hotel for farewell drinks before dinner, dinner and packing for tomorrow's departure.

A Walk and Some Thoughts in the Old City

Gates of Old Jerusalem

Today was a free day and we took the opportunity to enjoy a late breakfast before taking a Taxi to the Zion Gate. There are seven open gates into the old city and four gates which are closed.  The open gates, with their dates of construction are:  New Gate (1887),Damascus Gate (1537), Herod's Gate (unknown), Lion's Gate (1538-39), Dung Gate (1538-40), Zion Gate (1540) and Jaffa Gate (1530-40).  The first three are on the Northern side of the Old City, Lion's Gate is on the Eastern side, Dung and Zion Gates are on the Southern side and the Jaffa Gate is on the Western side.  The major closed gate is the Golden Gate, built in the sixth century and sealed in 1541.

We entered through the Zion Gate, making our leisurely way through the Jewish Quarter and into the Cardo.  This is a Roman era main street which runs North and South.  More to the point, in Jerusalem it is a shopping street with all sorts of interesting stalls.

In the Cardo

We followed this street until we found the Via Dolorosa leading from the Lion's Gate to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 

After Jesus' arrest and conviction this was the route he walked to his crucifiction.  Five of the stations of the Cross are actually inside the Church, but the other seven are found on the Via Dolorosa itself. 

The Fifth Station of the Cross
Simon of Cyrene carries the Cross

We finished our walk by returning to the Cardo and continuing northward to the Damascus Gate.

The Cardo is fascinating.  Hundreds of small shops and stalls, the smells of food cooking, herbs, spices and others less easy to identify.  It is crowded with people buying, selling and bargaining.  Many of the shops have quite young children behind the counters or spruiking for trade.

A Spice Dealer in the Cardo

One of the things that we noticed was the freedom of the children.  No matter where we turned we saw them coming from school, going to the shops, or just playing, totally unaccompanied by adults.  It seemed as if the Cardo itself was watching out for them.


We exited through the Muslim Quarter via the Damascus Gate and  walked back to the hotel past the bustling Arab bus station.

The Damascus Gate

People Exiting the Muslim Quarter
through the Damascus Gate

From Masada to the Dead Sea, Saturday

Sheer Desert Cliffs around Qumran

Saturday saw an early start.  We were on the minibus by 7.45 and heading for Qumran, an archaeological site in the West Bank. It is best known as the settlement nearest to the caves in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were hidden, caves in the sheer desert cliffs and beneath, in the marl terrace.

The Scrolls were preserved in containers like these

Since the discovery from 1947 to 1956 of nearly 900 scrolls in various conditions, mostly written on parchment, with others on papyrus, and one on copper, extensive excavations of the settlement have been undertaken. Cisterns, Jewish ritual baths, and cemeteries have been found, along with a dining or assembly room and debris from an upper story alleged by some to have been a scriptorium as well as pottery kilns and a tower.

One of the caves at Qumran

From Qumran we headed off towards Masada with a diversion through a date plantation.

In a date plantation

Masada is a site of ancient palaces and fortifications on top of an isolated rock plateau overlooking the Dead Sea.

Herod's Palace, Masada

Cable car to the top of Masada

 It is best known for the violence that occurred there in the first century CE. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, numerous Jewish families fled Jerusalem and settled on the mountaintop, where zealots were already using it as a base for harassing the Romans. In the final accords of the First Jewish-Roman War, the Siege of Masada by troops of the Tenth Legion of the Roman Empire led by Flavius Silva led to the taking of Masada when, after two to three months of siege, the Romans finally breached the wall of the fortress with a battering ram.

Roman Camp at the base of Masada

Synagogue at Masada

According to Josephus, when Roman troops entered the fortress, they discovered that its 960 inhabitants had set all the buildings but the food storerooms ablaze and committed a mass suicide.

After a lunch stop we moved on toward the Dead Sea with a brief stop at a company which makes cosmetics from chemicals found there.  This body of water is the lowest place on earth, being 423 metres below sea level. With 33.7% salinity, it is also one of the world's saltiest bodies of water, and is 8.6 times saltier than the ocean. This makes for a harsh environment in which animals cannot flourish, hence its name. The Dead Sea is 67 kilometres long and 18 kilometres wide at its widest point. It lies in the Jordan Rift Valley, and its main tributary is the Jordan River.

A bathing beach on the Dead Sea

 The Dead Sea has attracted visitors from around the Mediterranean basin for thousands of years. Biblically, it was a place of refuge for King David. It was one of the world's first health resorts (for Herod the Great), and it has been the supplier of a wide variety of products, from balms for Egyptian mummification to potash for fertilizers. People also use the salt and the minerals from the Dead Sea to create cosmetics and herbal sachets.

We stopped long enough for a swim (or rather a float since the water is too buoyant in which actually swim).  Some of our group coated themselves in the mineral mud while others used the pool which is sulphur rich.

Bathing in the Dead Sea

Guess Who?

Mudding up in the Dead Sea

In recent decades, the Dead Sea has been rapidly shrinking because of diversion of incoming water from the Jordan River to the north, reaching a drop rate of 1 m (3 ft) per year. As the water level decreases, the characteristics of the Sea and surrounding region may substantially change.

Then we were homeward bound with a short drive through a nature park to see the native Ibexes.  We arrived back at the hotel in the middle of the afternoon.

Ibexes

Churches and Tombs, Friday

The Old City from the Mount of Olives

 Our first stop today was at the Mount of Olives.  An organisation called "God TV" was there filming for what appeared to be some sort of Christian revivalist group.  Not exactly our cup of guava juice.  Even so the view over the Kidron Valley to the Old City is breathtaking.  One interesting artefact is Absolom's Tomb,  an ancient monumental rock-cut tomb with a conical roof located in the Kidron Valley in Jerusalem, . Although traditionally ascribed to Absalom, the rebellious son of King David of Israel (circa 1000 BCE), recent scholarship has attributed it to the 1st century CE.

Absolom's Tomb from the Mount of Olives

From there we went to the Church of All Nations situated next to the Garden of Gethsemane. We thought the sign indicating what may or may not be brought into the Church was interesting.

Guns, bicycles and bull-horns not permitted?

Here were olive trees dating back more than 1,000 years.  After the last supper, Jesus walked across the Kidron Valley to this garden to pray and it was here that he was betrayed by Judas Iscariot.

Ancient Olive Tree with
new branches coming from inside

We then motored across the Kidron Valley to Mt. Zion where we visited King David's tomb and the site of the room of the last supper.  Unfortunately the room itself was closed.  We were not sure why it was closed but tension was high and, in fact, we cancelled a walk along the Via Dolorosa because it is in the Muslim Quarter and with Abbas about to make his speech at the United Nations Jerusalem is on high alert.

Statue of King David

We entered the Old City through the Zion Gate and walked through the Jewish Quarter which was almost completely destroyed during the Jordanian occupation but has been largely rebuilt.  We had lunch here before moving on to the Western Wall.  The difference in feel between daytime and nightime at the wall is quite distinct.  At night it seems less touristy and more genuine.

At the Western Wall

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which we visited next, is built over the last five stations of the cross and
is also called the Church of the Resurrection by Eastern Christians and Roman Catholics. The site is venerated as Golgotha (the Hill of Calvary), where Jesus was crucified, and is said also to contain the place where Jesus was buried (the sepulchre). The church has been an important Christian pilgrimage destination since at least the 4th century, as the purported site of the resurrection of Jesus. Today it also serves as the headquarters of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, while control of the building is shared between several Christian churches and secular entities in complicated arrangements essentially unchanged for centuries and not uncommonly leading to violence. Nowadays, the church is home to Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Anglican and Protestant Christians have no permanent presence in the church.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Faithful outside the Church

The Stone of the Anointing

Entrance to the Sepulchre

Our guide, changing to his Archaeologists hat, then took us through the bazaars to the Garden Tomb located  outside the city walls and close to the Damascus Gate.  It is a rock-cut tomb considered by some to be the site of the burial and resurrection of Jesus, and to be adjacent to Golgotha, in contradistinction to the traditional site for these—the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. There is no mention of the Garden Tomb as the place of Jesus' burial before the nineteenth century.  Ahron suggested this was a viable alternative but left us to draw our own conclusions.  Whatever the case, the setting is very peaceful and quiet.


After another exhausting day, we staggered back to the hotel!

A big day, Thursday

Another early start in a futile attempt to avoid the crowds.  We drove to Ein Kerem, a small town to the west of Jerusalem to the Church of Visitation.  It was here that Mary visited Elizabeth, soon to be, in old age, the mother of John the Baptist. The story is recounted in Luke, Chapter 1. 

Church of the Visitation

Mary's Well in the Church

Statue of Mary and Elizabeth

From Ein Kerem, we went to the Israel Museum where there is a very large and magnificent 1:50 scale model of Jerusalem in the late Second Temple period.  Our guide gave us a very interesting talk pointing out relevant areas on the model.  This proved invaluable in our visit to the Old City.

Model of the Old City

 While there, we also visited the Shrine of the Book where many elements and segments of the Dead Sea Scrolls are kept.  The shrine is beautifully developed and tells the story of the discovery of the scrolls at Qumran which we are scheduled to visit on Saturday. The Shrine of the Book is built to symbolize the scroll of the War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness - The shrine is built as a white dome symbolizing the Sons of Light, and a black basalt wall - symbolizing the Sons of Darkness.

Shrine of the Book

As if all this was not sufficient for the day, if not for a week, time did not allow us that luxury and we moved on to Yad Vashem. As the Jewish people’s living memorial to the Holocaust, Yad Vashem safeguards the memory of the past and imparts its meaning for future generations. Established in 1953, as the world centre for documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust, Yad Vashem is today a dynamic and vital place of intergenerational and international encounter.

Holocaust Martyrs

 It is a place that is both uplifting and depressing.  The rooms which tell the story of the Holocaust often leave people in tears.  There is a shrine in which the names of the identified Holocaust victims are memorialised.  At the moment, more than 4,000,000 have been identified and Yad Vashem hopes to add another million before closing the project.

Hall of Names

We found the garden dedicated to the "Righteous among Nations," non-Jews who put their lives at risk to help rescue Jews during those terrible years, one of the most inspiring places there.

After a quiet and reflective lunch following such an emotional experience we headed to the West Bank and Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. Bethlehem's main "business" appears to be tourism.  If you are not involved in tourism, you might well be one of the thousands who every day cross over into Israel to work.  It is an interesting anomaly that Palestinians can cross into Israel, but Israelis cannot cross into the Palestinian Territory.  Our guide could not accompany us as the local government does not allow Israelis into this "delicate" territory.  This was emphasized today since Abbas was about to address the United Nations and Israel generally is on high alert.  In the words of our guide, Aharon, "these are interesting times."

We were not allowed to take pictures of the check-point where delays can be long and difficult.  Being Jewish, I have to say I found the whole process of entering the territories left me somewhat uneasy.  However, our guide had made arrangements for us to be met by a local guide, a devout Christian which, as far as we were concerned, was the better option! There is one word to describe Bethlehem, "tacky."  It is certainly not the image portrayed on your traditional Christmas Card.

Jerusalem Cross

Towering over the Church of the Nativity is the Jerusalem Cross.  The big cross is Jerusalem and the 4 small crosses represent Germany, Italy, Spain and England (this makes it the "Crusaders" cross).  Alternatively the large cross is Jesus and the smaller crosses represent the four gospels.

By the way, if you are searching for really tacky postcards, Virginia found one with a picture of the Nativity Grotto superimposed with a Santa and his reindeer.  Beat that, if you can.  Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity are beautiful but money seems to change hands in order to get down into the actual grotto of the Nativity.

Low entrance to the Church of the Nativity

 Of course the guide had his own agenda which was to take us to his souvenir shop, which he runs partly to help the Christian community.  Virginia was happy to spend a few shekels here since the restrooms were exceptionally clean and we were immediately given a bottle of iced water (very welcome with the temperature in the high 30s) and we were then offered soft drink, mint tea and or wine.  This is salesmanship in anyone's language.  And it worked!  Numerous purchases of local jewellery as well as souvenirs were made.

Back through the gate where we were delayed for about thirty minutes and I think we all heaved a sigh of relief once we were back in the minibus.

After returning to the hotel and having dinner,  a group of us went on a guided walk of the Old City of Jerusalem. 

The Walls of the Old City at Night

The high point was a visit to the Western Wall of the Temple known colloquially as the "Wailing Wall." Located at the foot of the western side of the Temple Mount, it is a remnant of the ancient wall that surrounded the Jewish Temple's courtyard, and is one of the most sacred sites in Judaism outside of the Temple Mount itself.

At the Temple Wall

Orthodox Jews praying at the Wall

This was a big day! And tomorrow promises to be even bigger.