Novotel Jerusalem

... by way of Falafel Teymani, I (alone) was disappointed to find that the restaurant was closed early for Shabbat/Simchat Torah. Which was, for me, a further sign our time in Israel was up. And perhaps a message “Min HaShamaim” - from Heaven - that this was but one more thing to wet my appetite for an early return.

With no specific plan for the evening, we opted to walk the streets towards the synagou-in-a-bomb-shelter “Kol Rina” in the Nachla’ot neighour ...

... pictures. The only place we were not allowed to go was directly up to the southern wall over the mosque in soloman's stables. However we did see several amazing ancient olive trees in this Southeastern section of the Mount. Lot's of movement of earth, piles of stones, concrete, and wood littered the eastern side of the mount. It was interesting to peer at the back of the eastern gate and see each with a large green door. We left the ...

... and she seems to find the soming and going, never-know-whos-here-or-when nature of the farm pretty difficult. Megume arrived the same day as me and is a fascinating character - a Japanese woman who has lived in Israel working ona kibbutz for 4 years and wanted to see the other side. Thomas is the German who works for a development NGO and is here to install the much awaited solar panels before heading back to his main project in Rwanda. Sharon is an Israeli man who has come to build ...

Getting through the border was a bit of a hastle. I beeped when I went through the machiene - all 3 times in a row so they took me into a room put on some rubber gloves - told me to strip....... not really!

They took my flip flop away for 20 mins as I guess they thought it might blow up. They bought it back and all was well - my camera was also still waiting for me next to the machine - thank god!

I had all the usual ...

... is not). On the nearby huge Church of the Dormition hung an enormous yellow-and-white Vatican banner, one of many signs of the Pope's visit just a few weeks ago.


Back into the Old City and the Armenian Quarter, where we were allowed to enter the Church of St. James' courtyard and see the wooden board and hammer used to announce prayer (from a time when church bells were forbidden). By the nearby Jaffa Gate, we happened to be in the spot where the Syrian Orthodox ...

... I understood that it made sense to close out in this way. After all, apart from the many soldiers already planning to do aliyah (many from Argentina), many others were considering it. From the Israeli perspective, this week could give them that last push. As it would turn out, I was tired for much of this week's touring anyway, sleeping about four hours every night due to my late-night secret preparations for the end-of-course presentation I mentioned in the previous entry. I will ...

... In a palce liek Jerusalem I would've rather done nothing yet still wandered the streets but I felt I couldn't say that so instead I chatted to Shimon on gmail while the time came to go out. Later that evening, when the time came, we met up with a coupelfo hsi boys, smoked and went to the pub. I personally go so high that I didnt even enjoy it - all I wanted to do was sleep, so at 1am we left and headed to bed. In the morning we woke up and went to Yad Vashem. it is ...

... to go to the Dome of the Rock area. We cannot entry into the mosque, it has been closed to the public since 2000. So we look around the mosque and the grounds and then leave. We did meet up with the 3 as we were leaving. We then go to the tourist centre to find out where the Dead Sea scrolls are, we find out this area of the museum is closed for renovations. We go back to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and look ...

Meeting a famous scientist

On Moriah's Israel Study Tour, Brendan's group had a session with scientist Dr. Gerald Schroeder, a religious man, who has written a bestselling book "Genesis and the Big Bang" that claims the origins of the universe, according to science, are compatible with the Torah. Bren organised for the two of us, along with Ricki and Lauren Bornstein, to have a discussion with Dr. Schroeder in Jerusalem. Ricki brought along his tape ...

... sun go down over the Jerusalem horizon. Of course, the 5 of us Brown grads took a picture up there. Including me, that's now been a total of 6 alums together in Israel since our graduation 7 months ago.



For Shabbat, my great-aunt and I went to the place of the son's family. Before that, I walked the 45 minutes back to her place. Everything seemed completely quiet. There were few cars, some people walking, but for the most part, the ...