Night Tour of the Old City

I took this tour way back on August 8th which was Tisha B'av. I wrote about this holiday last year. If you want to refresh your memory you can read about it here. We visited a lot of the same places as the tour last year but I enjoyed having a different guide explain things.

We visited the Holy Sepulchre. Just before we got there the guide stopped us and pointed to a gate. The gate lead to the mosque of Omar. During a siege of Jerusalem in which Omar's army captured Jerusalem, Caliph Omar came to accept the surrender of the city. Omar was invited to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre but he refused. He did not want to endanger the Christian site because everywhere he prayed would be turned into a mosque. I found this story interesting because of the sensitivity it shows for other religions. One of the other students asked a very interesting question at this point. "If the Muslims respected other faith traditions, Why did they build the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount?" The answer is because at the time there was nothing but ruins on the Temple Mount it was being used as a garbage dump. So building the Dome of the Rock there was seen as honoring the holiness of the site.

Several pictures I took on this tour are almost the same as last years.  This is one of the alleyways of the Old City. I think it would be rather creepy to walk these streets alone at night.

Here we have the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall.

Here we have a replica of the menorah used in the Temple. It is not an exact replica because we don't have enough evidence to be certain. This menorah is made of a mixture of gold and zinc where as the Bible says the menorah must be made of pure gold. However pure gold won't hold its shape so we have no idea how they made them. They light this one during Hanukkah.

This is the door to one of the many Yeshivas in town. A Yeshiva is a place where Jewish men go to study the scriptures. You can read more about Yeshiva here. The picture is at a strange angle because there was a streetlight there if I took the picture lined up properly the door was a huge glare. I think this door is beautiful.














From the last post:
Uncle Joe- The cats do come in the buildings and sleep on the benches sometimes.  I am not sure if they do low budget horror films here. I have limited exposure to Israeli cinema. We have watched a few films in my modern Hebrew classes.
As for correcting wikipedia there is a Hebrew version of wiki so native Hebrew speakers might not look up Tel Aviv on the English site to see the mistake.

Return to the Old City

Yesterday afternoon Claire, Lauren and I went to the Old city. We rode the city bus it was my first time on one of the Egged buses. The bus was packed and more people kept getting on at each stop. We actually missed the stop by Damascus gate but it ended up working out okay. Instead we entered the city by the New Gate which hardly any tourists ever see. The area around the New Gate is a residential area I can't imagine what it would be like living inside the old city walls.

We returned to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre since Lauren had never seen it. This time some of my pictures from inside turned out. But first I'd like to tell you about another one of the arguments between the Christian sects that control parts of the Church. This one is equally baffling to me.
These stairs are another point of argument. The door to the church is just off the left side of the picture. You can see these stairs in my picture from last week. The plaza area in front of the church is controlled by the Greek Orthodox monks. Those stairs lead up to the Ethiopian monastery but the Armenian Orthodox church controls the stair case.






Here is a close up of the stairs look at where their feet are resting on the bottom row. Now ask yourself this question is that a stair or is it part of the plaza? Yes that is what the argument is about. Everyday when they are cleaning they meet at this spot and argue over who gets to clean it. The hostility is so bad between the Christian sects that the keys to the church are kept by a local Muslim family. The family comes twice a day to lock and unlock the church. I still can't believe the lack of cooperation in this church. Each sect has their own little chapel areas walking through yesterday I noticed some church pews stacked on top of each other they were chained together and then chained to a column. I guess whoever they belonged to was worried someone else was going to take them?





This is just inside the door of the church. Tradition says that this rock slab is were Jesus body was laid out to be prepared for burial. Well maybe there is a story circulating that about 300 years ago the rock got a huge crack in it and they replaced it. I don't know if its true or not. Unfortunately my pictures of the spot they believe the cross was placed did not turn out. Its just up a steep set of stairs to the right of this picture. The lighting up there is odd and there are a lot of gold covered objects that reflect strangely in the pictures and make them blurry. I'll try again the next time I'm there.


The site of the cross is upstairs from this spot. Above the table you see a window showing you a rock with a crack in it. Tradition says when Jesus was on the cross the ground split open and his blood ran down through the crack. The stone under the table is suppose to cover Adam's grave Jesus' blood soaked Adam's bones and cleansed him of sin.






Here is what I know you have been wanting to see this is the Sepulchre itself. Inside this structure is where Jesus was buried. This is the view from the side so you can get an idea of its size. You can also see the long line of tourists waiting to go in. The tomb itself is very small and only five people can go in at a time.













Here is the front of the Sepulchre above the arched doorway there are paintings of the apostles. I have no pictures of the inside of the tomb. It just didn't feel right to take pictures in there.















This is the dome ceiling about the Sepulchre. It looks like the rays of the sun. It allows sunlight to shine down on the top of the Sepulchre.













Here is the dome ceiling in one of the chapels I'm not sure who owns this particular chapel. However you might recognize this painting of Jesus its pretty famous.











This was a nice surprise outside of Jaffa gate there was a craft fair going on. They had the area blocked off so you had to have security check your bag before you could enter.











Nice music to listen to while you shop. As we were walking around we kept hearing a pitiful meows from cats but we couldn't find cats anywhere. It turned out that there wasn't a cat at all. One of the stands was selling cat whistles and all the kids had them and that's why we were hearing cats everywhere. I didn't even know cat whistles existed.








This was the best stand at the craft fair. Puppets and tiny finger puppets! Aren't they adorable?

First Trip into the Old City

After class today Claire(one of my roomies), Anna K. and I took a taxi down into the old city. This was my first time actually seeing the city in person and not on a movie or documentary. We entered the city through the Damascus Gate tourists usually enter through the Jaffa Gate. Pictured at the right is Damascus Gate. Once you enter the gate the streets are very crowded. Shopping stalls line both sides of the walkway. Claire has lived in Israel before so she knew her way around. I was totally lost. We headed for the Western Wall one of the sites everyone comes to see in Israel. Going to the wall was like going through airport security they scan your bag and you walk through a metal detector. Observing the Sabbath in Israel means not using electricity. But the metal detectors require electricity there is a sign that says the Rabbis have given special permission for the metal detectors to be used on the Sabbath day.
The Western Wall was originally built by King Herod to support the Second Temple. The wall is Judaism's holiest site. It is the largest section of the Temple area that remained standing after its destruction in 70 CE by the Romans. The larger stones near the bottom of the wall are the oldest ones. The smaller stones near the top were added by later rulers of the city to try to make repairs however they couldn't duplicate the large stones Herod's workers were able to produce.







Here we have the famous Dome of the Rock. The Dome of the Rock I believe is the third holiest site in Islam. The Dome was built by the Umayyad caliphs in 691. I believe it is real gold.











This is called the Broad Wall. Its part of the wall that once encircled the City of David, the Temple Mount and the Upper City. It was built by King Hezekiah in the seventh century BC! It was built at the same time as the tunnel. I will be visiting Hezekiah's tunnel some time but we didn't have time today.








To the right we have the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which is Golgotha also called Calvary the site of the crucifixion. The location was determined by Saint Helena the mother of Emperor Constantine during her pilgrimage somewhere in the 330's. Saint Helena was the first Christian Pilgrim. The church Constantine built was destroyed as were several other churches built on this site. I'm not sure when this version was built. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is unique in that six different Christian denominations own part of the church. Sadly it is not an easy going Christian partnership.







Here is an example of the uneasy relationship that exists between the different sects. See the ladder? You can see where it is on the picture above as well. This ladder is a point of argument. The ladder has been there since sometime during the 19th century. The Christian sects that own different parts of the church can not decide who has the authority to move this ladder so it remains and will probably be there until it falls apart. My pictures inside the church didn't turn out too good it's low light conditions inside. I'll try again another visit for pictures inside. There are certain chapel areas that are absolutely beautiful then you turn the corner and there is a run down area and you know its because they are arguing over who controls it. I think of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as a microcosm of the Christian faith. I find it very sad that in one of the holiest places in Christianity they can't work together to make this church truly magnificent. It is a beautiful church in some areas but seeing the run down corners makes me sad that they can't work together.

We had dinner at the falafel stand just inside Damascus gate. All the guidebooks agree its the best falafel stand in the city. I agree with the guidebooks its wonderful. I'm planning to do a post soon about food here so I will go into what falafel is then.

After dinner we went to see a shopkeeper that Claire met the last time she was in Israel. Shopkeepers here are different than in America. They want you to come in a chat for a while. They served us coffee and we talked for a while. Okay so Anna K. and Claire talked to practice their Hebrew and I tried to follow along as best as I could. We didn't buy anything this time but they don't mind because they want to develop a relationship with you so when you are looking to buy you will go to them. They have nice merchandise too. The store is called Ali Baba it's in the Christian Quarter the owner's name is Shaaban. We didn't meet Shaaban this time but we talked with Rida who was very nice.

We exited the city through the Jaffa gate because its the tourist gate and its easier to catch a taxi there. When we got back to the apartment, Claire made some Hibiscus tea out of the hibiscus she haggled for in the city. It's really good tea but you have to add sugar to it otherwise its too bitter. The taste is a mix between fruit juice and hot cider its so good.










Questions from the comments: The olive trees in Gethsemane. It may be a while before I get over there. My best guess for why there aren't 2000 year old olive trees is the number of times Jerusalem has been invaded since the time of Jesus. My other guess is the development of the area they may have cut them down.

My Hebrew homework. My Biblical Hebrew class does not have a textbook so my homework is on worksheets. The worksheets do not have any English explanations of what we are doing in each exercise so I'm not sure how exciting that would be to see. I'm also not sure how that would photograph but I guess I can experiment with that over the next few days.


I have now made it through my first week of classes. I'm looking forward to my weekend...I'll have more time to study and review everything I've learned so far.