Jerusalem and Bethleham
Trip Start
Nov 13, 2008
1
7
22
Trip End
Dec 15, 2008
Jerusalem,
Israel
Sunday, November 23, 2008
As Bob said in his blog the other day, Sat. night we met with a young Palestinian woman, 25 years old, who is a journalist and TV producer and very "political" as she said. It was fascinating to hear her side of the story. She was very passionate about the plight of the Palestinians and Betty, our guide, could not restrain herself and started to argue back with her until our group had to intervene and ask Betty to please stay quiet. Basically, this young lady said that there are 3 basic things that the Palestinians (P from now on) want - direct access to water (all water comes from and is controlled by Israel), a border with an Arab country (now, the west bank is completely surrounded by israel so anyone coming from the WB has to pass through several check points, then go through Israel to reach the nearest Arab border with Jordan, and their own economy (many Palestinians used to work in Israel and some still do but it is VERY difficult and time consuming to cross the borders). Another big controversy is the wall that israel is building around the WB as a security measure - apparently this is cutting through and isolating many arab villages, etc and causing a lot of trouble. We could certainly see how tempers can flare up between the muslims and the jews here.
Sunday we went to visit the tunnels under the Western walls. Only a small portion of the WW is above the ground as various civilizations over the centuries built up on the previous cities. This has only been excavated by the israelis for the last dozen years or so. Actually in the beginning, the Israelis were doing it secretly until the Muslims found out and there was a battle with many killed. Now, the Israelis are only allowed to excavate on the Israeli side not the Muslim. No archeological work is allowed on the Temple Mount, according to our guide, a very earnest Israeli. He said that the Muslims are bulldozing everything there to build something new and just throwing out all the old stuff. He said that the Israelis just wait for them at the local dump and collect all of the dirt, stones, etc they throw out to sift through them for artifacts. The Temple Mount or site of the original temple in the old city is under Muslim control so non-Muslims are only allowed to visit for a few hours a day and not on their holy days. We really wanted to go there but there was about a 3 hour wait to get in because it is only open to non-muslims for a few hours in the morning.
We visited the Yad Vashem or holocaust museum next. A beautiful setting high on a hill surrounded by olive groves. There are several buildings all very unique architecturally and many beautiful gardens surrounding them. The main building gives a history of the holocaust beginning with hitler's rise in germany and ending up with the liberation of the concentration camps. It has a very unique setting, you sort of wander in a serpentine manner through different exhibits - all with TV monitors with survivors telling their personal stories - very moving. We were supposed to meet with a holocaust survivor afterwards but she was ill so had to cancel this.
There was a very moving children's memorial built by a couple whose 2 year old son died in one of the camps. Inside, it is very dark with a few pictures of children lit up around you but mostly small lights like stars all around - very high ceilings, you have to hold onto a hand rail to get through it as you really cannot see anything. In the background, a voice is listing the names of the 1-1/2 million children killed in the H, name and age. Very moving.
For lunch, a lot of us simply could not take another middle eastern meal, many salads, some meat - so bob asked if we could go to a restaurant he found in frommers, and it was great. It was actually a small cafe in an old building that had been the home and artist studio of a doctor and his artist wife - it is now actually a small museum, art gallery and cafe. Fantastic food - i had a wild mushroom strudel that was delicious - they had all sorts of fresh fruit pies too - plum, peach, yummy! It was very quiet with beautiful gardens outside. I bought a menu because it had reproductions of the wife's paintings and drawings which I loved. Her work is in the Israel museum but at least this way I have a few things to frame - one beautiful pen and pink drawing of old jerusalem. Our guide, Betty, thought that was a great idea and bought one too.
Later in the afternoon, we went to Bethlehem (or Beth Lechem in Hebrew) which is in the WB. Israelis are not allowed to cross the border so Betty our guide stayed in J and we picked up a Palestinian guide once we crossed the border. Our driver was allowed to cross because he is an Christian Arab. B is a small hill top town, narrow cobblestone roads.
When you look out over the hills in J, B and the surrounding villages, all the buildings are made of the same sand colored stone. Betty said that was a law in J to keep the look consistent. There are not a lot of different architectural styles, mostly just large rectangular buildings built of the same colored stone. They really glow in the afternoon sunlight.
We went to the Church of the Nativity which is actually 2 churches, Greek Orthodox and Catholic. This is not the original church which was built around 300 AD (or CE - common era as they say here) as that was destroyed. This was built by the crusaders around the 12th century. When we got inside, there was a line of about 300 people to go down the narrow stairs to see the actual cave where Jesus was born and the manger area (very small area - only about 5 x 10 feet cave. Our guide asked if we wanted to wait and we did not know what to say - the line was not moving at all so we figured it would be many hours but everyone wanted to see the birth site. Finally, our guide said to wait a minute and he would talk to someone he knew there. He came back with another guide and they split us up into 2 groups of 5 people each and we all just walked through the exit and then down (2 at a time) through the exit small tunnel into the manger area, totally bypassing the entire line. Somehow, this sort of tweaked our consciences but not much - like what it wrong with this picture, bribing a guard to let us get to the head of the line to see the most holy site in Christianity - HELLO!! Well, we all figured we would just say a few extra prayers that night to make up for it.
We then went to the Shepard's Field which is the site where the angel appeared to the shepherds in the fields to announce the birth of Jesus. There is a small church there. Actually, this whole area was very small and rustic.
After crossing back into Israel, we were supposed to have dinner at a very nice restaurant in a monastery outside of J but when we got there, it was closed. The poor driver did not know what to do - he does not speak English so we all somehow got through to him to just take us back to the hotel. We had had such a big lunch that day that noone was really hungry. Bob and I ended up ordering grilled feta cheese, hummus and pita and had a picnic in our room - yummy!
All for now - off to the Dead Sea where, as Bob puts it, we will see "piles of old rocks."
Shalom.
Shalom Shirley
