"Entrance to the Ark is not Limited to Pairs"

Ok.. well it wasn’t really a biblical zoo. I don’t think red pandas were mentioned in the bible and there wasn’t a whale or a leviathan, so that was a big letdown.  They did have adorable monkeys that were having a blast showing off to the crowds and my favorite part was being able to feed the birds. I had two lorries on my arm, until I ran out of food and they got very upset with me. There is a biblical section, with an ark which was kinda cool and with the walkway observatory we got to get really close to them. We had had a guide, but when everyone was stuck at the bears for a while, we moved on ahead. Which was good, because I think was got to see most of the park that way, and we still weren’t able to see all of it. I got some good pictures of the animals! 

Bus Bombing

Well, this is rather old news at this point, but I felt that it was kinda important to blog about the bus bombing. Everything I know is pretty much secondhand, but I was obsessed with finding everything I could out about this. I had Ha’aretz, Al- Jazeera, the Jerusalem Post, the BBC, MSNBC, CNN and several other papers on different tabs and kept checking them all constantly. Fox News was the most interesting I think: Witnesses Say Bus Bombing in Jerusalem. This was several hours after everyone had already established that yes, there had been a bombing and were reporting on casualties. There wasn’t even a story, just the headline. I also find it rather shocking, that sites like MSNBC and CNN were more concerned with the fact that Elizabeth Taylor had died than that there were terrorist attacks in the world’s holiest city. Perhaps what also hit home was that the woman that died was a Rothberg Student. She had been in Ulpan with some of my friends, and while I had never spoken to her, when given a description, I remembered her immediately. She was a fantastic woman and she will be missed. 

"So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David"

For most Christians making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, there are a couple stops that one has to have to make. The Via Dolorosa for one, the church of the Holy Sepulcher for another and a host of other sites. Also up there on the list of places to go is the city of Bethlehem. As the birthplace of Christ, this city hosts millions of pilgrims every year, each one wanting to see the birthplace of Jesus.  Well…. One would expect a cave or something, not so.  The original Church of the Nativity was built over the site  by Constantine and his mother St. Helena in the fourth century, until it was destroyed by Justinian in the 6^th and rebuilt it into a much larger church.  The original mosaic floor Is still intact underneath the modern one and many of the crusader mosaics and paintings are still partially intact.  We entered the nave and stood in line with  all the others that were waiting to see the lower level and the silver star that makes the exact spot of Christ birth. I wasn’t able to get a good picture, but it was nothing like I expected. The star was set in a marble floor underneath something akin to an altar. We saw that and the milk grotto, where supposedly a drop of Mary’s milk fell and turned a black rock white… couldn’t actually find it, but I don’t doubt its there.            In a spur of the moment decision after exhausting Bethlehem, we found a taxi and decided to go to the ruins at Herodion.  While haggling for the cab, a man came up to us and offered to translate, which was pretty much a godsend. Then, he wanted to practice his English, so he stuck around and was our tour guide for the rest of the trip. We explored the ruins and the tunnels that were underneath Herodion… which seemed to go on forever! The ruins were kinda reminiscent of Masada, which makes sense since they were both built by Herod but it was still cool to go see. Then our new friend invited us to his house and we went and met his sister, his neighbors and their kids. It was really a lot of fun and probably the most spontaneous since getting here.

We're Going Caving!!!

Who wants to spend a morning slithering on your stomach through a bunch of tiny limestone caves? Me! On one of the school trips, we got the chance to go explore some of the Maccabeean  Cave that are right outside of Jerusalem. These limestone caves were originally quarries and places for refrigeration, before some were dug to be used in guerrilla tactics against the Romans in the first century BC. There initially there weren’t too many tiny holes that we had to squeeze through, but after going through the first couple rooms, we got to the first little tunnel that we really had to crawl on our hands and knees through this little windy tunnel. It wasn’t very long and after a few feet we were able to squeeze through another small hole that lead to an even bigger room. The limestone was so soft in places that it would literally crumble in your hand.  At that stop we went around in a circle and told a really bizarre ghost story in the dark that had us all laughing. Really that was the only cave that we actually had to crawl through, which was kinda depressing, since I expected more. We also went to a bell cave that was an old quarry and two burial caves, one Jewish one that still had the stones that would have been used to seal the bodies into the grottos for a year, before gathering the bones and interring them.  The other was a Christian one with Corinthian columns etched with small crosses. in contrast to the Jewish burial cave, the bodies were laid out along the wall rather than into the wall, and were not sealed in, interestingly enough.  From the limestone caves we went to an overlook of the valley of E’lah, which is where David fought Goliath. It was an absolutely fantastic view of the valley, and there were some beautiful trees at the overlook. And of course we had to stage the battle of David and Goliath between two of the students and read the story of the event. :P All in all it was  pretty fantastic trip.

Acre? Akko? Akka?

In a spur of the moment decision, my friends and I made hostel arrangements and hopped on the bus to go to the small city of Akko. While not impossible to get to, it’s not easy. After a two hour bus to Haifa and then an hour bus to Akko, we arrived in the tiny bus station and made our way to the hostel. Usually we might try to wander around the city, but when we got to the Old City, most everything was shut down by 7:30. The hostel was FREEZING! Granted the outside world was rainy and cold, but the stone building was even colder than outside. We thought that we had to pay for heat, so we didn’t say anything for a day until it was so cold that we really couldn’t take it anymore. Then we found out that they had just forgotten to give us the remote…. The actual Old City was gorgeous, but a lot of it was still under excavation. We first went to the Prisoners Museum, which was a British fortress and prison where Haganah and Etzel members were held prisoner and executed. We got to see the Prisoner’s cells, including the special treatment cells and the death row cells. We got to walk with the “prisoners” as they did their exercise in the yard and got to see the gallows where members of radical Jewish groups were executed. Moving on from the Underground Prisoners Museum we went to the Hospitaller’s fortress and entered the vaulted halls of the Middle Ages. The courtyard of the fortress is still being excavated and there but it was still fascinating how preserved that this was. It was all buried was buried and to form the foundations for several buildings that were built on top of it. My favorite part was wandering though the little tunnels underneath the city… which was actually the sewer system.  But it was still really cool! Especially since we came up out of the tunnels in a completely random part of the city, which actually happened a second time when we went to the Templar Tunnels. The tunnels were built after Saladin’s defeat and were intended to be a safe passage for pilgrims in case of another attack.  Luckily the old city does have fantastic signs and we were able to find our way back fairly quickly. Before heading to our next stop, we went to what is supposed to be the best hummus restaurant in Israel. It actually wasn’t bad, which is rather high praise, considering I don’t even really like hummus. It was really busy and I’ve never seen waiters balance and carry so much stuff at one time! From the restaurant we went to the old Turkish Bath with a rather cool multimedia presentation, but other than that it was a bit of a let down. :P I was a fascinating old city that was surrounded by so much history.

Yad Vashem

There’s so much to see in Jerusalem itself, so when there’s weekends that my travel buddies and I either have too much work, didn’t get around to making reservations in a hostel or just ran out of food so we have to spend the morning at the market getting groceries, there’s still a lot to do and see in the city limits. It’s a little restrictive since, so many things still close early on Friday. One of the things that is always on the Must See list is Yad Vashem. The Holocaust Museum is very much what you would expect: depressing. It takes the history of the Holocaust from a distinctly Jewish perspective that is designed to make the Museum a truly emotional visit. Yad Vashem itself is in a beautiful part of the mountains on the outskirts of Jerusalem and the view before you enter the museum is absolutely breathtaking. As you enter the museum one of the first exhibits is the remains of things that were burned by the Nazis when the Allies began liberating the camps. Photographs, letters, watches. All these things were remnants of the lives of people that seem so easy to destroy. The other exhibits examine the rise of Nazism and anti- Semitism from propaganda to anti Semitic board games and yellow stars. The museum winds itself through the different rooms so it’s impossible to miss something. It also makes it a pain with all the tour groups since they are impossible to get around them.  As the path takes you though the museum it descends into the history of the Holocaust from their isolation in the Ghettos to the beginnings of the mass murders during Operation Barbossa, made even more haunting by videos of survivors and the remnants left behind of those that has died.  Leaving the main gallery take you to the Hall of Names, which commemorates all the Jews that died in the Holocaust, with 600 photographs and short biographies of the victims. Perhaps the most moving and depressing part of the entire museum was the Children’s Memorial. To get to it, we had to walk though a stunning garden and into this tiny underground tunnel into a pitch black hall. It is so dark that it is impossible to see anything, even after your eyes adjust. As we reached the end, we could hear a female voice reading off names, locations and ages of all these children at time of death. Finally, after coming out of the pitch blackness there’s little pinpricks of light ahead and entering the main room, there’s hundreds of little lights surrounding the path in this pitch dark room while the woman kept reading. There’s one candle in the center of the exhibit and the light from it is reflected around the room by mirrors, creating this illusion of  these hundreds of stars symbolizing all these children.

Taybeh

I had an interesting predicament last weekend, of trying to find something to do. My usual compatriots had decided to go on a religious retreat in the Negev Desert. I had opted out due to have no desire to have a particularly religious weekend, and I had more than enough homework to keep me occupied. However, there is only so long that I can stand looking at the walls of my apartment, and before I went crazy and decided to clean the bathroom, I started looking into activities. I had been told about JStreet U at the beginning of the semester, however I was never able to attend an event. JStreet is an organization that works for an equal settlement of the Arab- Israeli conflict that has the approval of both sides. For more information about their goals, vision, and objectives go to: http://jstreet.org/jerusalem. The trip that I went on was billed as a trip to a Palestinian Brewery, but our first stop was to the Latin Church in Taybeh, which was amazing. Taybeh is the ancient city of Ephraim, which is mentioned in the Bible seven times and was the city that Jesus went to after raising Lazarus from the dead. Taybeh is the last completely Christian village in Palestine and is home to three Churches: the Greek Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic. We visited the Roman Catholic Church, and got a tour from Farther Raed Abusahlia of the Church and the Proverb House. The church has many fantastic paintings  depicting Jesus raising Lazarus, Jesus and the Samaritan, Saint George and Saint Michael. The mosaic behind the altar of the church depicts Jesus being welcomed by the citizens of Taybeh- Ephraim.  Perhaps the most unique part of the church is the icon of Notre- Dame of Ephraim, which depicts  the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus and a pomegranate. Besides just being an awesome fruit, in the Middle East the pomegranate is a symbol of fruitfulness and fecundity. According to the lore of Taybeh, Jesus told a parable using the pomegranate to explain that to reach the sweetness of his resurrection, he had to go through the bitterness of his passion. This small church is also trying to make a big impact in the world by selling Peace Lamps to put in every church around the world. “As our last resort, we address our prayer for peace in the Holy Land to the Lord with a simple and symbolic idea…Our goal is to place a Peace Lamp in every single church in the world and to unite as many Christians and people of faith in a common prayer for peace in the Holy Land”. I loved how Fr. Raed put it, that we will be prodding God over and over again until he gives us the possibility for peace. Also, attached to the church was what Fr. Raed called the Parable House. It was a three hundred year old Arabic House that was used to  explain parts of the New Testament. For example, the story of Jesus’s birth.  How it was explained was that it was unlikely that Arab hospitality would have allowed a family to turn away a pregnant woman. However she couldn’t stay with the other women and children since she was about to give birth. They could offer her the stable, which was in the house, below the main floor.  The stable would be warm and soft, and further proof was offered that the woman who had lived in the parable house had given birth to all her children in the stable. After leaving the church, we headed to the Taybeh Brewing Company, which is the first microbrewery in Palestine. It’s a small operation, hence the name, but they market everywhere though East Jerusalem and Palestine. We got a tour of the brewery and some samples as they explained their business and the intricacies of getting supplies in and product out through the checkpoints. It was a fascinating experience and I’m hoping to go back.