Old City of Jerusalem

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  Jerusalem, Israel
Friday, November 21, 2008

Well, today is my turn to do the blog. There is free internet at this small hotel but only two computers so very busy in the evenings and bob gave up. We will be staying for 4 nights in jerusalem - wonderful to not have to move. This morning, we first went to the mount of olives for an overview of the old city of jerusalem (walled part dating back over 4000 years). It had rained overnight so it was a little chilly but very fresh with clearing skies. We walked down the mt. of olives to the garden of gethsemene where jesus went to pray with his disciples on the night before he died. There are usually several churches on the religious sites, some catholic. Apparently, olive trees can live to be over 1000 years old and there is still a small garden there with a small church. All of the streets are cobblestone and very narrow. Cars do drive down them so you have to really watch and listen and then hug the nearest wall.

After that, we got off the bus and walked into the old walled city - it is almost all pedestrian, very narrow cobblestone streets and stone houses. A few cars are let inside for residents and deliveries but everyone else walks. Old Jersualem has 4 different sections, christian, jewish, arab and armenian and we talked through them all. We walked the Via Delorosa which is the way of the cross for catholics (stations of the cross) - starting with the trial of jesus by pontius pilate and ending up with his burial. There were many, many groups of pilgrams from all over the world, many singing and chanting, kneeling, praying, etc.

It was really amazing to be actually standing on the sites where jesus walked and died. He spent 80% of his life around the sea of galilee and only came to jerusalem 2 times.

We are staying in east jerusalem, the arab section, in an arab hotel - there is an informational booklet in our room titled "Palestine" with various articles and statistics about the Palestinian Territories as they are called now. The one good thing was that last night when we finally got back to the hotel, a bunch of us ordered cheeseburgers in the lounge area which would have not been possible in a jewish hotel which all serve kosher so meat and dairy cannot be served together.

We stopped for lunch at a bazaar that was really crowded because it is friday, and chabat (jewish sabbath) starts at dusk so everyone has to be home and prepare the chabat meal friday evening. We ate at a lebanese hole in the wall cafe in the bazaar - every day, they fix 6 huge caldrons of some kind of food and you just look inside and point to what you want - bob and i had delicious chicken and a rice and lentil mix - yummy. we had time to walk around - wall to wall people buying food for chabat because the orthodox cannot prepare food from fri, evening to sat. evening so have to fix food ahead of time. Many, many hassidic (black clothes with long coats, side curls and hats). I bought a variety of halveh which is a delicious sesame based sweet candy - a very nice young man had a large stand and could speak english so he gave me samples of a different kinds and i bought 4 different types to share on the bus during the coming days - chocolate coated tricolor halveh, rose water halveh, and 2 other types.

After a 2 hour rest back at the hotel, we left at 5 pm to go to the wailing wall. Absolutely amazing - all of us were surprised about how noisy it was. It is supposedly part of the original temple wall from solomon's day which has been rebuilt many times. it is called the wailing wall because of the original destruction of the first jewish temple. Jews come from all over the world to pray there. Men and women have separate sections. and it is a very loud place - not the usual quiet solemness of our churches - people were dancing, singing, and jumping up and down all at once. Our guide who is jewish said that is the way jews pray - it is a mitzva (spelling?) which means good thing to be happy and sing and dance when you pray - sounds good to me! It was amazing to us to see how many different kinds of dress (for men especially) there were for the different more orthodox sects. All wore only black and white but some men had round circular fur hats on, some tucked their trousers into their black socks like pantaloons. Our guide said that the difference in dress shows what rabbi the man goes to.  It was fun to see large groups of young people singing and dancing in circles and all around, having a lot of fun while praying - so different from our churches. It is apparently a big social thing to come to the wailing wall on friday and then go home for chabat dinner.

They had arranged to have a chabat dinner at our hotel which we thought was strange since we are staying in an arab hotel. First, you are served a sweet wine. Everyone is given just a small amount except for the person who does the blessing (Herb from our group is jewish and did the blessing) - he is the only one who gets a totally full glass (he got a lot of kidding about that).  He got up and gave the blessing in both hebrew and english. The rest of the dinner was just a buffet with the usual salads, chicken, etc. Herb said that usually there is a braided loaf of bread that is always eaten - it has a special name which i cannot remember. We did not have that.

More later. Love to all.

Jerusalem Shirley

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