Strand Hotel Jerusalem

... of full equality and the full legalization (or as they've cleverly relabeled it, "repeal of prohibition") respectively.

I get why Sullivan's ****** at Obama for stalling on action (although I can equally see why Obama wants to deal with one piece of legislation at a time), but what I don't is his lambasting Clinton for passing DADT in the first place. Not that DADT was flawless - aside ...

... crowd only filled about half the field there was plenty of room for the boys to run races against each other, as well as against the clock. In between races we played the Israeli card game “Taki” – and bided our time for the later performances. Part way through the evening, we walked over to the home in Nachla’ot of Vera Slyomovics granddaughter Osnat for tea and chocolate cake in her succah – which was a nice break from Rockami and allowed us ...

... br>To the Muslims, it is a sacred place standing at the heart of Al-Haram al-Sharif (The Noble Sanctuary) whose entire area, comprising over 35 acres, is regarded as a mosque. At the southernmost end of Al-Haram al-Sharif rises the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which according to Muslim belief is the place from where Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven at the end of his Night Journey. The Dome of the Rock, the most religious Islamic sight in Jerusalem, third ...

... one of our treks to the EinGedi spa dips in the Dead sea and mud and sulfur spring baths (included in our room was access to spa). We were advised previously not to shave a day or so before swimming in the Dead Sea and that it was impossible to get sunburned. The first was true the second was not. I had not shaved but Addison and i both discovered that if in the Dead Sea too long one’s private parts and arm pits ...

... began to gather and the fire department was called. This fire was a large rosemary bush next to a huge hillside of rosemary bushes. The fire smelled wonderful (rosemary) and continued on for about 5 minutes. Sarah tried to put it out with her water bottle and was claiming that the fire not spread. A group of American young people came and watched like they were at a party. Finally after 10 minutes the fire department arrived and put out ...

I've never been to Shabat dinner.

This is not, in itself, all that extraordinary. Even though I have grown up in heavily Jewish areas, and been to a dizzying number of Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, I am not Jewish myself. This is a puzzling thing to many of the Israelis I meet. Why, they ask, am I here, if I am not Jewish? Am I particularly devoutly Christian? No, I explain, not really that, either. Don’t get me wrong, I am interested to see the ...

... neighboring Jewish town; an armed young man came out: "St. George?" and directed us to a road that we had just seen that said "no entry." Turned around again. (Each time, we passed a cluster of three very dilapidated, makeshift, prefab buildings looking might shabby and surrounded by junk. But one flew an Israeli flag, so I am surmising that this, in fact, was one of those illegal outposts that loom so large in the news and form a thorn in the peace ...

... that there *must* be a human side to them. I was thus able to pick up on all my commander's tendencies, from the way she drank her water bottle to the way she answered her phone.

As for my imitation of the Argentinian kid, the other 25 or so Argentinians in the youth group went wild. Many of them were already among my better friends in the platoon, but afterwards, they started calling me "capo", which I think means "genius." Since most in their group were 19 or 20 years ...

... Church is right in the old city, right inside the Jaffa gate. It's in the heart of everything. What would it have been like for the people of the Galilee to make this pilgrimage to the big city. Jesus' family did it many times, but even so, it must have either been exciting or exhausting, or both...depending on whether or not one was a "city" person. So much converges here, and for every story of Jesus, there's a church or a shrine. I get ...

... left on the walkway along the wall. There are chairs to sit on and when you leave you walk out facing the wall. We then went to Via Dolorosa, the Stations of the Cross. We begin at station 3 and follow them all the way to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, on the rocky hill of Clavary. We don't go into the church, but the guide explains what is inside, the church's history both inside and out. We were surprised how close everything is, I had always thought ...