Israel (& Palestine)

September 16-28, 2019

 

I thought my travel days were over but when Frank VanderZwan announced to his Sunday School class that he would be hosting a trip to Israel I decided to go, it was a country I have wanted to visit. It was a good decision. So, on 9/16, Monday afternoon, four of us were picked up by Super Shuttle and driven to the San Francisco airport. A neighbor, Marilyn and her daughter Audrey, along with Yolande, who was my roommate and I got to the airport about 4:00 PM, checked in, departed around 7:45 PM and arrived in Tel Aviv some 14 hours later around 8:00 PM on Tuesday 9/17/19. We were driven to our hotel, checked in and went to bed! Our hotel was Dan Panorama, Tel Aviv.

 

Wednesday 9/18  We awoke in our very luxurious room and went down to breakfast for the first of many buffet meals. I can’t remember the details of the buffet as most of our dining was buffet style. It is the most efficient way to feed a large group like ours, we were a group of about 45 people.  But I do remember the food was always good, lots of variety with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables along with several choices of main menus.  After breakfast we loaded up in our comfortable bus. It was big enough for about 60 people and our driver did an amazing job of driving our bus in many different conditions. We headed north along the Mediterranean Sea,  along the coast of Sharon. We drove through some of Tel Aviv and Jaffa (Joppa) and up to Caesarea’s National Park. Peter was in Joppa for some time and it was in Caesarea that Cornelius was told to send for Simon Peter in Joppa (Acts 9 and 10). Amazing to be in places mentioned in the Bible. Caesarea Maritima, also known as Caesarea Palestinae was an ancient city built under Herod the great during 22 BC. It was an important early center of Christianity but destroyed in 640AD. Today it is a very impressive Roman era archaeological site where new discoveries are still being made. They found a stone in 1961 with an inscription mentioning Pontius Pilate. We spent the day walking around this area and around Jaffa (Joppa) and although I have lots of photos, I cannot name the details of each. But reading this along with my photos will give some idea of what we saw. There is a lot of Biblical history in this area. For example, outside of a restaurant where we ate lunch in Joppa was a statue of a whale, Jonah set sail from Joppa. Our guide Heidi gave us a lot of information but I just can’t remember all the details. Just a mention about Heidi – she is from Michigan and is an extremely well-educated woman. She converted to be a Jew and is currently an Israeli citizen and lives in the Golan Heights area with her husband and four children. She guided us for two weeks and gave us a very thorough background of the current and past history of Israel. I will probably mention some of her information as I write this. My notes from today mention that she pointed out to us that Joppa is a mix of Jews and Arabs and there are some problems. Israel in general is not a “melting pot”. It is important for them to keep their individual identities, even including the many sub groups which makes difficulty with the government since most rules and laws are based on religion. This trip certainly showed me the difficulties of the whole Israel “situation”. 

 

Thursday 9/19 Today we left at 8:15AM after our buffet breakfast driving north on highway 6 along the Palestine Border. They refer to the Palestine area as the “Palestinian Built-up-area” or the area under Palestinian control. It was most interesting to experience this border separation, something we experience several times during this trip. Sometimes the border was just lined with simple bobbed wire fences, other times it was a very high concrete cement border wall. Sometimes we just slowed down to drive through the gates, sometimes we were stopped. Once the armed guards boarded our bus and walked through to make sure we were not smuggling any Arabs into to the Israeli area. The whole arrangement of areas A, B, and C defining who is in control and how, is very complicated and to me confusing. It is strictly followed in some places and challenged in other places. There are some places with large red signs that warn Israeli citizens that it is illegal to enter that area. There are places where it is illegal to sell a home to a Jew or illegal to sell to a Muslim.  I certainly cannot see any easy or early solution to all the political problems in Israel. It reminded me somewhat of visiting East Germany in 1988 before that wall came down – different situation but a poignant reminder of walls separating neighbors and all the problems those walls can bring. Driving along the wall we sometimes saw the city just on the other side.

 

We continued driving north to Megiddo, an important site in the ancient world since it was on the trade route  linking Egypt with Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. The area has been occupied since 7000 BC and has been excavated several times, and is still being excavated. We walked up to the top of the tel and saw the valley including the area of Nazareth. (A tel is an artificial mound formed from the refuse of generations of people living on the same site for hundreds of years. Israel has a lot of them.)We also walked down to see the amazing water tunnel that supported this area. This massive system was built in the 9th century BC with a 30-meter-deep shaft and a 70-meter-long tunnel. The tunnel was hewn from both ends at the same time and was only one foot off when meeting in the middle. We walked down (and then back up) to see the spring and tunnel. Megiddo is the New Testament Armageddon mentioned in Revelations 16.  There are several mentions of Megiddo in the Old Testament. I King 9 – Solomon builds up Megiddo, Judges 5 – Israel defeats the Canaanites by the waters of Megiddo. We had lunch at a local Druze restaurant. This area has a significant population of Druze people. They are primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan and mostly try to blend in with the people they live with. The Druze are neither Muslim, Jew, nor Christian. They are an 11th century offshoot of Ismailism and their secret beliefs are known only to select elders. You cannot become a Druze, you must be born a Druze. The food at the restaurant was much the same as at the Israeli and Palestine restaurants. Here I had my introduction to Israel Falafel and also hummus. I do not like hummus or chickpeas at home so my family will not believe how much of falafel and hummus I ate in Israel. My neighbor said it is different than we have in the states and one thing they do is to peel the chickpeas of the outer skin. Anyway I enjoyed Falafel and hummus for lunches on several different days and in several different ways in both Palestine areas and in Israel areas. 

 

After lunch we drove to the summit of Mt. Carmel where Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal. (I Kings 18). We visited the Sanctuary and Monastery of the Discalced Carmelite Order, Muhraqa where we had a wonderful view of the Jezreel valley, the mounts of west Galilee, the northern slopes of the Samaria ridge and the Haifa bay. Then we drove to Nazareth and visited “Mary’s Well, reputed to be the site where the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her she would bear the Son of God. It was special to be in Nazareth where Mary lived and where Jesus spent his childhood. We also visited the Church of the Annunciation, a Roman Catholic church built in 1969 over the site of an earlier Byzantine-era church. Inside the church the lower level contains the Grotto believed to be the remains of the original childhood home of Mary. We also went below street level to see the ancient ruins that have been found but are not currently being excavated. After this we continued on to the Sea of Galilee where we stayed at the Ramot Nofesh Resort Hotel, on the east side of the Sea of Galilee in the Golan Heights region.  This was a very lovely resort and we enjoyed our three night stay here.

 

Friday 9/20 Enjoyed an early morning walk through the gardens on our way to breakfast. Then we left for a drive around the Sea of Galilee first ascending the Aphek Plateau for a view of the Sea of Galilee and the area where Jesus walked, including Kursi where he cast the demons into the swine and Bethsaida, the home of Peter, Philip and Andrew. We continued on to the Mt. of Beatitudes, believed to be the setting for Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. There is a Catholic Church there and we stood in a patio area while Frank read part of the sermon to us from Matthew 5-7. From this area we had a view of the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee and the cliffs of the Golan Heights on the other side. We could also see the town of Capernaum where Jesus made his home. The Mount of Beatitudes is also understood to be the place where Jesus met his apostles after his Resurrection (Matthew 28: 16-20). Whether or not we were on the “exact” spot, we were certainly in the area of Jesus’ ministry, which was a very special feeling. We drove down to the town of Tabgha, a sea side village where many Biblical events involving Jesus occurred. Next, we visited the town of Capernaum which is mentioned in all the gospels as a place where Jesus lived, as well as the hometown of the tax collector Matthew. It is near Bethsaida, the hometown of some apostles. Nearby we visited the Migdal Synagogue, part of the archaeology site of ancient Magdala, the traditional birthplace of Mary Magdalene. It is one of the oldest synagogues in Israel (50 BCE – 100 CE) and was only discovered in 2009 during a salvage dig at the location of a new hotel. They found a carved stone representing the menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum that was located in the First Temple (c.1000-586 BCE) (I King 9) making it the oldest such representation in a Jewish context. Since it was carved during the days of the Second Temple it is assumed that the artist saw the menorah with his own eyes in the First Temple in Jerusalem.  Considering how recent and amazing this new discovery has been it makes one wonder what new discoveries remain. 

 

We drove up to Ginosar, a small town along the coast where we boarded a small boat to sail on the Sea of Galilee. In 1986 the level of the lake dropped to reveal the frame of a fishing boat that was carbon dated to 100 BCE to 70 CE so the boat was known as the Sea of Galilee Boat or the Jesus Boat. The boat we sailed on was a double-scale replica of this boat. I believe we sailed to Tiberias and then drove back to our resort in Ramot. Tiberias was mentioned as where some boats had come from in John 6 after Jesus’ feeding of a large number of people.

 

Saturday 9/21 In the morning the air was clear enough to see Tiberias across the sea. We left driving north along highway 90. We stopped at Qiryat Shemona to stop at a bank’s ATM machine since several of us need more cash. Since it was the Sabbath all stores were closed and not many people were out and about. We had trouble figuring out the machine until some bicyclists drove by and stopped to help us. Heidi told us they were Druze which is why they were out. Anyway it was good they helped us. Then we continued up to Tel Dan and the Nature Preserve. This is the location of the Biblical city of Dan, the northernmost city of the Kingdom of Israel and belonged to the tribe of Dan. It has several impressive archeological findings. It is also the place of the largest of the Jordan River’s three sources and the only one which has been located within Israeli borders since 1948. It is very close to the Lebanon and Syria borders so it was part of the action during the Six Day War in 1967. The spring water is fed by the rain and snow that fall on Mt. Hermon. We walked through the forest along the Jordan River to the remnants of great walls and gates of Biblical Dan. Some people continued up and around the reserve for views and other digs. I chose to sit quietly by the gates and enjoyed thinking about the people from Old Testament times who sat on the same bench that I sat on. (Joshua 19). Some of this area is referred to as the Gates of Abraham mainly because it was probably built during Abraham’s time.

 

We continued driving north to Banias, at the foot of Mount Hermon along the Syria border. The Hermon springs is the source of the Banias River which is one of the main tributaries of the Jordan River. This spring was once associated with the Greek god Pan and there are the remains of an ancient city founded sometime after 350 BC and inhabited until 1967. This area was known by the name of Caesarea or Caesarea Philippi during Jesus’ time. (Matthew 16 and Mark 8) This was the place Jesus went with his disciples to ask them who men thought he was and then who they thought he was.  There is a lot of symbolism in this place where Peter acknowledged Jesus as Christ, the Son of the Living God. After 1948 the Banias spring remained in Syrian territory while the river flowed through the DMZ into Israel. There is a lot of recent history over this area involving water rights and so forth. I’m not sure about the situation now except it was a safe place for us to visit at this time. We continued driving stopping along the road to look at and photograph Nimrod Crusader Castle, built on the southern slopes of Mt. Hermon around 1229. It overlooks the Golan Heights and was built to guard a major access route to Damascus against armies coming from the West. It is under Israeli occupation and administration since 1967 together with the adjacent Golan Heights, but the international community sees the area as Syrian territory. It is so interesting to travel in an area that is often in the newspaper. I found the political situation very confusing and I can certainly see the difficultly in Israel because of country boundaries. We drove to a Druze (Droze) town where we stopped for lunch at a Druze restaurant in Masada, more of a local style place where we enjoyed the hummus and Falafel. This has been an easy place for vegetarians, I found most of the best food to be the vegetarian choices. We continued on the road via Quneitra and were able to view the Syrian Border with Damascus in the distance. If you look up Quneitra on the Web you will find it is listed as a city in Syria which was almost completely destroyed before the Israeli withdrawal in 1974. Both countries have been criticized for not rebuilding it. So I’m not sure if we were in the area or just near it. Since our guide was a converted Jew, who became an Israeli citizen, who now lives in Golan Heights, I think we had a somewhat biased presentation on some of her many lectures. Anyway we had some great views of the area and walked around the bunkers that have been left there from the war.

 

Sunday 9/22 We left early and headed for the Jordan River Baptismal site at Kinneret. This is a very commercial site where people can be baptized safely in the Jordan river.  The site that was long claimed to be the site of Jesus’ baptism is nearer Jericho in the West Bank and currently under Palestinian authority. (When I was in Jordan we drove past this site on the Eastern side of the Jordan River.) Several members of our group were baptized by Frank, it was a special moment for all. Then in the classic “exit through the gift shop” we loaded up our bus and headed toward Jericho stopping first at Bet She’An (Beth-Shean) National Park. In the Old Testament account of the battle of the Israelites against the Philistines the bodies of King Saul and three of his sons were hung on the walls of Beit Shean (I Samuel 31). We wandered around the Ancient Roman ruins and some people climbed up to the top of the Tel. It was about 95 degrees and I couldn’t take it anymore so I sat in the shade for a while in front of a fan that the park service had installed and then after a while I went up to the café and joined the others also resting and drinking fruit juice. The heat of this trip really made walking around a challenge. We left here and went for lunch to the same place we had eaten the day before in Palestinian territory and then we continued south to our hotel on the Dead Sea. We drove through Jericho but I don’t think we stopped for any views. Jericho is the lowest city in the world and thought to be one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world. It is currently under Palestinian Authority.  We crossed the border several times sometimes being stopped and sometimes not. We arrived at our Dead sea hotel around 5:00 PM, one of the few times we had a free hour or two before dinner. We were at the Southern part of the Dead Sea at the Daniel Dead Sea Hotel. It seemed to be an area that was just built up for the tourist trade, there were lots of hotels and most of the infrastructure seemed to support them. The area was Brechot Iduy – Yam Hamelach and the beach we were by is Ein Bokek beach. Yam Hamelach is the Hebrew name for Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth, 1,412 feet below sea level. Neither Yolande nor I wanted to “float” in the water but we walked down to the Sea and watched other people in the water. I waded up to my knees just to say I did, but I didn’t want to go all the way in. The water is very sticky and hard to wash off. I looked across the Sea and could see Jordan, some place over there I had stood in 2010 and looked at Israel.  Had our usual good buffet dinner and went to bed.

 

Monday 9/23 We left early for Masada in order to avoid the heat and the crowds. We avoided neither. It was about 10 miles from our hotel at the Dead Sea to Masada. It is a natural fortress built on top of a barren, mountainous desert plateau thousands of feet above the Dead Sea. Herod, King of Judea originally built Masada as a castle complex in the last century BC. When Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD the remaining Jewish rebels fled to Masada. The Romans took over Masada in 73 AD and all or most of the Judeans were killed. There is some discussion whether they took their own lives or killed each other by lots rather than live as Roman slaves. Josephus included the siege in his writings and there are several archeological findings to support various interpretations. The area was uninhabited for nearly 13 centuries, until 1828 when scholars rediscovered Masada and in 1953 it was excavated and new ruins continue to be discovered. We took the cable car up to the top and spent some time walking around seeing all the architectural remains. It is amazing to think of all the people who lived up here and the storage of food and water that had been planned. It is in the middle of the desert so nothing is nearby and it is a long narrow path (called the snake path) to get from the desert floor to the top. Then we drove from here to the David River at Ein Gedi – the Spring of Goats. When David hid from King Saul he hid in the caves here. (I Samuel 23 and 24) Psalm 63 has been associated with David’s time in the desert of En-gedi. We walked from the parking lot to the waterfall, a welcome sight in the middle of the desert. Then we headed again towards Jerusalem driving through Jericho, which is under Palestinian authority. We continued driving in the desert towards Jerusalem stopping for a view of the cliff-hanging St. George’s Monastery. It was a long way down from where we were standing on a small hill in the desert. It was started in the fourth century by a few monks, destroyed by the Persians and rebuilt by the Crusaders before falling derelict. In 1878 a Greek monk came to live here and finished his renovations in 1901. There are still a few Greek Orthodox monks who live here. As isolated as our stop was, we were greeted by some Bedouins who were selling bracelets and head scarves and so forth. It really bothers me to see small children being trained to be such aggressive sellers, and I have heard that they are not treated well if they don’t sell enough merchandise. We continued driving up and over the Mt. of Olives to Jerusalem. We were on a route that Jesus would have traveled on and this area was on the border of Jordan until the 1967 war. We stopped at the top of Mount Scopus for a first view of the Old City. It has been the base to attack the city since antiquity It is on the same ridge of Mount of Olives. The Crusaders used it as a base in 1099, in recent times it was within Jordanian-administered territory, today Mt. Scopus lies with the boundaries of the city of Jerusalem. The name means look out and during Roman times when Jews were not able to enter the City they would come up here to look over their former capital. The peak currently named Mt. Scopus may not be the same Mt. Scopus named in ancient sources. The Hebrew University is built on this peak. There was a lot of activity here during 1948 and following – but then that is true in many areas of Israel. Israel is such a small piece of land but has so much history, Old Testament, New Testament, with wars from then continuing into today. We arrived at our hotel where we would stay for 4 nights, unpacked and went down for dinner. Inbal Hotel Jerusalem.

 

Tuesday 9/24 Jerusalem is a very interesting city. It is considered one of the oldest cities in the world, first mentioned in the Bible in Genesis 14, during Abraham’s time. So it has a history for Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Christians are only 2% of Israel’s population. It has been destroyed and rebuilt many times so much of the history is underground which is why there are many places to visit that are under the top layer of the city. We spent three days walking around several areas of Old Jerusalem inside the walls and outside so many places are mixed up in my memories. We walked through several of the different gates of the city often going from one territory to the other. There are 9 gates in the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, 8 are passable. The Eastern or Golden Gate beneath the Temple Mount is kept walled in with stone due to Jewish claims that the Messiah will one day use that gate to access the Temple. Biblical references do attest to the fact that this is the gate Jesus walked through and Ezekiel 44 refers to keeping this gate fast shut. The walls standing today are from 1541 during the Ottoman when Suleiman had the walls rebuilt. The Old City is divided into four quarters, the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters so the gates lead to different quarters and some have more security to pass through than others.

 

First we drove to the top of the Mount of Olives for an overview of Jerusalem and the old city. We had our group photo taken here and then descended the mount to walk the traditional Palm Sunday route past the Dominus Flevit Church to the Garden of Gethsemane. The small teardrop shaped Church recalls the tears Jesus wept over the future fate of Jerusalem. Forty years after His prophesy of the destruction of Jerusalem the Romans burned the Temple and levelled the city. It was hard for me to feel the emotions of the history of the Garden of Gethsemane with so many people in the area. The garden itself was fenced in but I walked around to the back side and enjoyed a few minutes alone next to the garden and feeling close to Jesus as He spent His night before being arrested there praying for God’s will.(Luke 44, Mark 14, Matthew 37). I will always remember that moment especially in the days before Easter. The garden is currently on the property of the Church of All Nations, a Roman Catholic church built in the 1920s near and on the foundations of two earlier ones from the 4th century and the 12th century. We visited this church too.

 

Then we went to the City of David (2 Samuel 5) to explore the archaeological site know as area G. One section is believed to be David’s Palace. Several old testament descriptions seem to explain much of what we saw as we walked underground around the site(Nehemiah 12). The area is still being excavated with new discoveries all the time. Since Jerusalem has been rebuilt several times and mostly on top of old ruins there is a lot to figure out. We next walked down further underground to Gihon Spring, the source of the water for ancient Jerusalem, mentioned several times in the Old Testament. Since the spring is just outside the walls of old Jerusalem tunnels which were built to bring the water into the city. Hezekiah’s tunnel is 1,777 feet long. Also in 1867 they found a 40-foot rock-cut shaft that was used to put water in a nearby pool and in 1891 a surface canal was found that conveyed water from the Gihon Spring to the old pool of Siloam, which was where Jesus healed the blind man (John 9). We all walked through a tunnel, some walked through Hezekiah’s tunnel which had water 3-4 feet deep, I walked through the shorter and dry tunnel and we all ended up at the pool of Siloam. This whole area is somewhat controversial as to how to interpret the ruins. Also, the excavations are spread down the slope and into properties of the Arab village of Silwan, which is causing more problems.

 

From here we walked past an archaeological digging at the site of Beth Shemesh and viewed the remains of a 1500-year-old monastery and church. It has some beautiful mosaic floor decorated with birds, leaves, and pomegranates, all in excellent condition. These discoveries were unearthed in 2014 during salvage excavations ahead of new construction just west of Jerusalem. Continuing on to Shepherd’s Field in Bethlehem in the West Bank in Palestine we visited the Catholic chapel where , according to Catholic tradition angles first announced the birth of Christ. Nearby is a small cave for small group worship administered by the Franciscans. There are other possible places that archaeologists have identified as possible locations. The Field of Boaz (or Field of Ruth) is also nearby(Book of Ruth). Then we drove close to Manger Square and the bus parked and we walked up to the Church of the Nativity. The entrance to the church that marks the site of Christ’s birth is just 1.2 meters high which means we have to stoop low (or bow down) to enter the church. The manger square and the walk up to the church was very crowded and then the line inside the church to go downstairs to see the grotto representing the birthplace was extremely crowded, but for some reason we agreed to stand in line for an hour to see this spot. It was a hard walk down some steep and narrow stone steps – I needed lots of help. I was glad I went but I was sorry I didn’t feel the spiritual feelings I was hoping for. But now that I am home looking at my photos and writing my journal I do have a special feeling to know that I was in the area where Jesus was born. It so humbles me to realize that the reason Jesus was born is me… and you and you and everyone. He was born to save all of us and that is such an amazing gift that some 2000 years later we travel thousands of miles, endure crowds of people, stand for hours in line just to touch the spot where Jesus was born (or close to it.). So, yes it was all worth the discomfort.

 

We went back to our hotel and since we were coming from Palestine to Israel we had to go through a pretty strong security gate, two guards even came on our bus and walked through to make sure we weren’t smuggling anyone. Note that Israelis never refer to the area as “Palestine”, they call it “the area under Palestinian authority” or something like that.

 

Wednesday 9/25 Today we walked to the Temple Mount. This is one of the most contested religious sites in the world and the “rules” keep changing and I’m somewhat confused about the whole situation as it is currently. This site is a hill located in Old Jerusalem and has been a holy site for thousands of years in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Today the site is a flat plaza surrounded by retaining walls, including the part of the Western Wall. There are three monumental structures on the plaza including the Dome of the Rock – the dome that is covered in gold and dominates the overviews of Jerusalem. There are eleven gates to enter, ten reserved for Muslims. All have guard posts of Israeli police. I assume the gate we were allowed to use is a part of the retaining wall that includes the Western Wall because my photos show me that is where we went first. We were instructed to wear no religious items, do not bring a Bible, no shorts, and women had to have long sleeves. Men and Women were not allowed to hold hands nor stand close to each other. While there, I did see police separating two girls and a boy who were trying to take selfies. We stood around for a while listening to Heidi talk and then some of us wandered around looking into windows. Non-Muslims were not allowed inside any buildings nor were we allowed to discuss Christianity or to pray. A group of Jews came in while we were there and they were surrounded by armed police. The current political history of this small space is very fluid and constantly in the news. A term that we heard a lot is “status quo” which is a ruling in effect that no law shall be made prohibiting or interfering with the free exercise of religion and the Mohammedan Holy Places shall be under Mohammedan control. Status quo is somewhat open to interpretation and has led to some series fighting on this small square. I am glad we had the opportunity to visit – both for the religious history of the place and the current history.

 

We left and walked to St. Anne’s Crusader Church. The street was crowded and the entrance was crowded but we found a spot as a group to gather for our usual lecture. This church is near the Lions’ Gate and at the start of the Via Dolorosa (the path Jesus is believed to have walked to the crucifixion). It is in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City and currently belongs to France. It was built between 1131 and 1128. Downstairs is a grotto believed by the Crusaders to be Mary’s birthplace. This church replaced a Byzantine church which had been built on a series of piers over two water basins known as the Pools of Bethesda. One of the piers still stands today. The church possesses amazing acoustics, they have a sign: “no talking - singing ok”. A few of us were walking around the church when one of our fellow travelers, Tiffany, who was standing up by the altar alone, reached up to the heavens and sang “Amazing Grace”. It was one of the highlights of the trip for me, I really felt the spiritual feeling that I’d been hoping to find while traveling in Israel. We continued walking along the Via Dolorosa, lots of people, lots of souvenir shops, processions of groups determinedly walking the route often while singing. Eventually we stopped at a fruit stand where a young boy made several of us a delicious fresh squeezed cup of pomegranate juice. It certainly was the best pomegranate juice I ever had. We continued thru a tunnel leading to the part of the Western Wall where Jews come to pray. This part of the wall is considered holy because of the Temple Mount behind it. The Wall is the holiest place where Jews are permitted to pray though the holiest site in the Jewish faith lies behind it on the Temple Mount where King Solomon’s Temple was supposed to have been built.  (The holy of holies is the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle where God’s presence appeared. The place where the Ark of the Covenant was supposed to be kept.) There are two separate areas to go into in order to access the Wall, one for men and one for women. Some people went in and some wrote prayers to put in the cracks of the wall. I did not. We left and drove up Mt. Scopus for lunch. I remember the lunch as being good and also this was the place I found a small olive wood nativity that I bought for myself. We then drove to Yad Vashem to visit the Holocaust Memorial. I chose not to go in but walked around outside in the “Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations”, a very moving place. Then I went to the café and got a coke and visited with the rest of the group who were also waiting. Then back to our hotel where we ate dinner in the “meat” restaurant. We have breakfast in the “milk” restaurant – no meat is served at the buffet for breakfast. I remember the food in this hotel as being very good – lots of choices.

 

Thursday 9/26 Today we walked along the old streets of Jerusalem from the Jaffa Gate to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Part of the walk was along the Via Dolorosa. The street was crowded in some places, and was commercial in some and residential in others. Pictures show the scene best. We arrived at the church and sat outside for a while in order to get our usual lecture. The church is considered by some as the most holy place for Christians, recognized as the site of Jesus’ crucifixion since the early Byzantine period. It is taken care of by six different religions and status quo plays an important part of the administration, lines are strictly drawn. Also a Muslim has the rather large key that locks the church, he is a member of a family that has had the key for some 200 years. We walked inside and visited various parts of the church. It was interesting, but as one article I read when I was home “the church can seem more like a circus than a church at certain times, when the crush of pilgrims and tourists is at its worst.” There are five stations of the cross inside the church so some people followed the lines to touch and see those spots. I chose to sit in a corner and try to think about what this church stood for, thinking that it would mean more to me if I was out on a hillside with three crosses standing alone when suddenly I felt transported to that very spot and could really feel the gift of Christ’s dying on that cross for my sins. I felt right there at the foot of His cross and now writing about it I feel it again. When asked what I was looking towards in going to Israel I said I was hoping to rekindle the spiritual joys of being a Christian that sometimes are not as strong as they once were. I was very thankful for this moment and continue to be thankful. After a while we left this church and continued walking through Jerusalem. We were under street level in the old city filled with lots of shops. It was most interesting but we marched rather quickly and did not have time to stop or talk much to the shop keepers.

 

From here we walked to The Herodian Quarter stopping along the way to look at the reenactment of the Golden Menorah that was used during the time of the second Temple. It sits in front of the Hurva Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter and is covered by a bullet proof glass cover as the menorah is covered in gold. A lot of research went into making this menorah – the original was taken in 70 AD when the Romans destroyed the Temple and no one knows what happened to it. This golden menorah is ready for the third Temple which is yet to come.

 

We continued to The Herodian Quarter and the archaeological excavations of a residential quarter in the time of the Herodian Dynasty (37 BCE -70 CE). There were the remains of six houses of what seems to be wealthy families. This area is beneath the current houses of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem and was discovered in 1967 after the six-day war. We left here and walked to The Quarter Cafe for lunch. We climbed up a set of stairs from the street level shopping area so we had a nice view. They even have a website so you can see what the menu looks like, very typical of most of our lunches.  After lunch we walked through the Zion Gate to The Sephardic Synagogue which is next to David’s Tomb. David’s Tomb is part of a two-story structure, with the tomb chamber on the bottom story and the upper story is the room Christians have identified as the room were Jesus had His Last Supper. There has been a lot of hostility between different groups of people over this particular site. For example each floor has a separate entrance and is administered by different groups, the downstairs is administered by the Ministry of Religions as a religious site, the Upper Room is administered by the Ministry of the interior, and prayer is forbidden there. Most of the spaces around the tomb are maintained by the Diaspora Yeshiva. Adjacent to the compound is an ancient Muslim cemetery, the previously mentioned Synagogue, the Dormition Abbey, and the Benedictine Monastery. You can read more about this site here. It really is an example of why it is so hard to find the “best” solution for Israel, or even is there is such a solution. It was special to be able to go in the Upper Room. We continued on to the excavations of the Ophel Ridge where there are the remains of the temple wall and the temple steps, and we know without any doubt that Jesus Himself climbed these steps many times(Luke 19-21). I did walk up the steps and thought about that.

 

Our last stop for the day was at The Garden Tomb, just outside the Old City walls. Much about this spot suggests it is the place where Jesus was buried, and it has been treated as such a place since the 19th century. The area has been an agricultural garden for a long time, it has a tomb in the garden that has always been empty, it is near a main city gate, and near a place that may have been used for executions. There are some caves on the rocky escarpment next to the garden that look very much like a skull (Golgotha). (John 19) There are six places in Jerusalem that claim to be the place of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial and resurrection and this is one of two places that historians find the most to support the site. After hearing a lecture on the history of this garden we quietly walked around and then joined together to have communion. A nice ending to our time in Jerusalem. 

 

Friday 9/27 On our last morning in Jerusalem we slept in a bit. This has been a very comfortable hotel to stay in for four nights in the city of Jerusalem. It has been interesting to see how the hotel has recognized its Jewish requirements and yet very comfortably served American tourists. Having different restaurants was one example and there was no lack of food for breakfast in the milk restaurant – meat wasn’t missed at all. This was the time of year for a week-long Jewish festival of Sukkot which started right after we left. During that time Jews build a sukkah which is a temporary three-sided hut constructed of branches, bamboo, and other temporary material from the earth. They eat and sometimes sleep under this hut to symbolize the time God provided for the Israelites in the wilderness time after they were freed from slavery in Egypt. We saw huts being built all over Jerusalem, on balconies, parking lots, roof tops and here at the hotel. The hotel surrounds an open-air patio and the sukkah was built in this courtyard. When we left the bamboo roof was on and we saw a few people already eating there.  The other tradition we saw was match making. Many Jews – especially the orthodox Jews – still practice match making, either by the parents or official match makers. The first date is in some public place where they order a glass of water or maybe a soda. This hotel had a lounge area off of the lobby and we enjoyed seeing a young dressed up couple obviously getting to know each other. He was dressed in the traditional black suit and hat and she was in a long conservative pretty dress. They were so cute. Anyway it was a nice hotel to stay in plus interesting to observe some other cultural activities. Since we didn’t have to leave right after breakfast Yolande and I walked to and through the park next to the hotel. Liberty Bell Park contains a replica of the American Liberty Bell. The park was founded in 1976 to celebrate the USA’s bicentennial and covers 9 acres. The playground has Jerry the Dragon, a concrete play sculpture by Ulrik Plesner, the Danish-born Israeli architect who designed the park.

 

Since we had a night flight we had the rest of the day for more sightseeing so we loaded up the bus and drove to Herodium, the desert site where some historians believe Herod is buried. He built a palace fortress there between 23 and 15 BCE. Some excavation has been done there but the Palestinian authorities say Israel has no right to undertake digs there so I’m not sure what is currently happening there. There was some digging in 1968-1969 at a section of Herod’s burial tomb and palace and hundreds of artifacts were found. Recently a copper alloy ring from that dig was cleaned and examined and found to be engraved with Greek letters spelling out “of Pilates” which some believe could mean the ring belonged to “Pontius Pilate”. Then on to the Israel Museum where they had a model of the city in the Second Temple Period (516 BCE to 70 CE) that was rather interesting to see. They had a separate building “Shrine of the Book” that houses the Dead Sea Scrolls. The building is designed to resemble a pot in which the scrolls were found. The scrolls are displayed on a system of rotation, each for 3-6 months, one at a time.

 

From there we went to lunch at something like a monastery that had been converted to a restaurant and also stopped at the Valley of Elah which is possibly the general area of the battle site of David and Goliath. (I Samuel17)

 

After this we drove back towards Jerusalem for our farewell dinner at the Ambassador Hotel. We had a private room and service – nice to skip the buffet. Our host and owner of the restaurant was a Palestinian Christian and he talked to us a while about some of his experiences. His family has lived on the same property for over 150 years but he is not considered an Israeli citizen so he has difficulties doing business. He stressed that the Christians, Jews, and Muslims get along well individually – it is just the government rules that makes life difficult. It certainly has been an interesting trip to see first hand someplace that has been so very much in the news. I did a lot of reading in order to write this journal so that I could better understand some of the issues. I’m not sure what I understand except how difficult the whole situation is and I can’t begin to see a solution. For one thing it certainly emphasizes how difficult a country is to run when you don’t have separation of church and state. I do understand why freedom of religion as stated in the First Amendment is so important to our country.

 

After dinner we drove to Tel Aviv and some 14 hours later we arrived in San Francisco at six in the morning. In summary it was a good trip with a nice group of people, all willing to help out each other. At times I would not have made it without an extra hand, I will say that this was the most physically challenging trip I have every been on and I have been to 47 different countries. It was hard partly because of my age and partly because of the heat spell, 95-105 degrees every day, but I’ve had several other younger friends also say Israel was a hard trip when they went. The days were long and the walking was hard, mostly on stone steps and rough streets. If this is my last major trip it was a good one to end on.

 

After I came home I read a delightful book. “Finding Jesus in Israel: through the Holy Land on the road Less Traveled” by Buck Storm. I highly recommend that book to anyone who has been to Israel or who intends to go.

 

I took some 1200 photos and only narrowed them down to 900. I posted 300 photos on google – I’ll have to narrow those down to make a scrap book but in the meantime here is a link to my photos:

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Pjob1cmsMTUPnLtW8

 

I did not label each photo but if you click on the photo or the “i” symbol in the upper right corner and look at the date – you can refer to my journal on that date and figure out where the photo was taken. Here is the link to my journal:

 

Index to Israel: http://penelopebowen.com/travel/Israel.html

 

Index to my web site:  http://penelopebowen.com

 

Index to travel pages:  http://penelopebowen.com/travel/

 

Edited: 12/15/19