Category Christianity

Apr 26 2012

Jaffa/Tel Aviv – 4. Independence day and a concrete stable

Whats this building?

Looks like something dull like a tax office or something, but actually this unassuming building in Tel Aviv is where Israel was declared a nation 64 years ago today!   I was here in February when it was cold and windy though.

 

Apart from closely looking at these plaques on the walls, you probably wouldn’t know.

The bible gives a prophecy about plans for the founding of the 1948 modern day state of Israel, about ~1,878 years after the Jewish people were spread to all corners of the world.

Isaiah 66: 8 Who has ever heard of such things? Who has ever seen things like this?
Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment?
Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children.
9 Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery?” says the LORD.
“Do I close up the womb when I bring to delivery?” says your God.
10 “Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her;
rejoice greatly with her, all you who mourn over her.

Its odd than this concrete looking place with tiny windows was a meeting place for the government of a fledgling nation, but then again our Lord Jesus was born in stable,  so from utilitarian places, great things can be developed.  I didn’t see what this building’s current purpose is now or if you can visit.

1. Jaffa/Tel Aviv – coastal city of oranges

2. Jaffa/Tel Aviv – Graffiti and wall art

3. Jaffa/Tel Aviv – Whales and hovering trees

4. Jaffa/Tel Aviv – Independence day and a concrete stable

5. Jaffa/Tel Aviv – Yitzhak Rabin

 

Apr 24 2012

3. Jaffa – Whales and hovering trees

One characteristic of the narrow streets in old Jaffa you don’t have in Jerusalem is these pretty blue plaques on the walls here.

They are quite different from the ceramic tiles often sold by the Armenian Christians who live in Jerusalem Old city quarter.

Is Jaffa mentioned in the bible?  Actually I tried to search and couldn’t find any reference to Jaffa or Yafo at all.

Actually, later I found it is, but it was called Joppa.

This statue of a Whale is a tribute to the biblical story of Jonah who got eaten by a big fish which is thought to be here on the Mediterranean.  It seems the ship was heading to Tarsius, where Paul was from in Asia Minor, what we now call modern day Turkey.

Later after having dinner at an Arab restaurant with my friend, I bid him goodbye and made my way back to my hostel.  I had some troubling things that caught up with me, and the dark and narrow passageways with few people around seemed like a good place to pray – oddly, from a distance I saw this strange looking tree that appeared to be hovering above the ground

Looking closer its a piece of art with the container the tree sits in being held in place by some steel wires adjusted very tightly so it doesn’t move at all.   I saw this strange sight as an answer to prayer that the Lord can make things happen through hard to fathom methods.  I can’t imagine to feel what it would be like to be swallowed by a big fish, heck, I can’t even swim.   I think like Jonah we can be tested especially we go against God’s specific orders.   I have seen how fierce the Mediterranean gets from being at Tel Aviv and Akko before.

In fact, this very week, I have just read more about the Talpiyot tomb near my house, a well decorated grave thought to be from the time of the bible could bear the name of Jonah: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/04/20/ancient-bone-box-called-oldest-christian-artifact/

1. Jaffa – coastal city of oranges

2. Jaffa – Tel Aviv & Jaffa graffiti and wall art

3. Jaffa – Whales and hovering trees

Apr 23 2012

Easter at the Garden Tomb 2012

This is me and my friend Jimmy, hes an older gent in his 70s from Florida who works in the Bridges for Peace food bank.

We got up very early to get to an Easter service at the Garden Tomb, there must be 1,000-1,500 people there, and the worship band was made of people mostly from my church but a few others as well.

Getting their early meant we got a seat close to the front, hence doesn’t look that packed….

Its a real privilege to be spending this special day in a place most likely to be thought where the world’s shortest required grave ever.

Not seen this before, but Jimmy pointed out to me a kiosk with an Arab gent that does very nice Arabic coffee for a bargain price of 5 Shekels (85p – half what you pay in usual places in town)   So this was a nice way to get prepared for the rest of the day as I ride 4 miles back across town to my flat.

The folks coming out of the alley way where the garden is didn’t seem to notice this place, I think he deserves more business.   I think he mostly sells coffee, orange juice and cigarettes to people getting on the Arab buses which are heading to Ramallah, Nabulus or the other Palestinian cities.

I wrote on easter here in Jerusalem when I went last year also.



Apr 20 2012

Google Street Map View comes to Israel!

Last year I heard Google wanted to map out by street parts of Israel, this was quite a surprise considering how careful you have to be with security, and I found out that one of my friends he was passed by a Google camera car that drove passed him when they did the pics in November 2011, at last, and now this week the footage goes live!

You can just drive around by finding a street or place to explore by going to maps.google.com and zooming in and dragging the little orange man over the map, after a few seconds it makes a block of the streets blue, let get over your mouse to wander around the streets by clicking on the arrows.

Warning: using Street Map view on Jerusalem if you have physically been here before may make you pine to come back again!

Click any of the screenshots I have done to open a new tab in your browser to enable to take a wander around the streets…

Mount of Olives look east towards the old city

Here is the outside of the Jaffa Gate on Jerusalem’s old city.  Oddly, I don’t see any vendors selling orange juice or cakes outside here.

How about Tel Aviv?

Here’s the beach! this bit has obviously been done on one of those special trikes Google has.   No sign of the Zohan it seems 🙂

Here is the Gilad Shalit protest tent, which has now gone – Gilad was released from a prison in Gaza after 5 years late last year, a different political group have a tent here instead now.

Note the “wall of ‘blur” which obfuscates the gate to government facilities.

Lets go over to Haifa:

ok, here is the Bahai gardens.

Really, only Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa feature on there with a few small extras, a kibbutz in Afula, Ben Gurion University campus in Beer Sheva and the Mini Israel museum near Beit Shemesh.   Im guessing these organisations were asked to be early adopters in being customers of Google’s expansion of services here.

I would like to see how this could affect tourism here and how bloggers interested in Middle East  goings on may use this.

As far as suggestions, maybe the increasingly popular paths used for walks by pilgrims seeing the routes Jesus took between Nazareth and Capernaum would be nice, some of the Kinneret (The Galilee – I am sure the Arab boat owners could do a great deal with Google!) and the Dead Sea and Eilat / Red Sea too.

The user interface on Streetmap is still a little awkward at time with my normal laptop touchpad, I think this would work better on a tablet computer by dragging or tapping on directions to go places.

Apr 18 2012

Jaffa – 1: coastal Arab city of Oranges

Whats the first thing you think of when you think of the word Jaffa?

Oranges of course!   Citrus fruit are often see on trees growing on streets all around Israel and leaning over peoples garden walls.  I found a piece of metal which came off a broken electrical fitting to see I can grab myself one.

Walking up a bit north towards Tel Aviv, there is an interesting petrol station by the sea front:

The loos and a small fast food place is inside some citrus fruit shaped buildings as you can see.

Wonder if you can buy these things as a simple cheap beach hut, where you could furnish the insides with a hammock and camping stove?  could be an interesting idea.

Its funny this city is so famous for the orange variety.  Jaffa or more often known as Yaffo, is an Arab town just south of Tel Aviv, although doesn’t feel that big.

After doing some work projects in Karmiel, I spent a weekend here to see my friend who is a Messianic Jew from south America who has just made aliyah (immigrated)   I am thinking this is quite a good place to base yourself to work in Tel Aviv.

Well I took the two oranges I picked and a lime back to the Youth hostel to see if I could make something out of them, I planned to take the lime back home to put on some fish at some point.   This youth hostel in the older part of the city has some perfect views here.

Actually these didn’t taste that good, when juiced, even heavily mixed with water and shoveling generous amounts of sugar, they were too sharp.   Was a fun experiment though as they didn’t cost anything.  Oddly I can’t find any references to any kinds of citrus fruit in the bible.

1. Jaffa – coastal city of oranges

2. Jaffa – Tel Aviv & Jaffa graffiti and wall art

3. Jaffa – Whales and hovering trees

 

Apr 11 2012

A cup of reeling

During some bible reading, I was studying this passage:

Zechariah 12:2 – “I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem.

What do you think about the word “reeling”?   seems an odd word not really used these days.

I think once or twice its used by sports commentators about a team losing at a football match maybe.  Look on Wikipedia and it only refers to fishing or the tape canisters used by the film industry.

When I was doing an IT site visit, this is the doors of the cupboard that hold our network kit in.   The smaller red one I have shown a closer look below as it has a warning about there are poisonous chemicals in here, which is not the case any more as it was left over from the previous business here.

The Hebrew symbols on the right corner is, pronounced Ral or Reel – so the word reeling I think is talking about poison!!

In fact looking at this passage here: http://bible.cc/zechariah/12-2.htm various bible translations uses words like staggering, trembling and surfeiting (another word I never see used)

In the news, I see plans for another march for people from Arab nations, and most probably helped out by misguided Christians in western countries, thinking they are helping out for ‘peace’ and not really understanding the seriousness of what they are getting into.

From the organiser’s web site, there is a statement from Israel that they would be considered trespassing.  http://gm2j.com/main/blog/2012/03/23/israel-warns-of-the-consequences-of-jerusalem-global-march/   Just like any other country, if you force your way through the borders of any other nation without going through the proper protocol of having a passport and required visa etc, they should be treated as a threat and prosecuted.

Apr 10 2012

Passover and Easter, crackerbread or chocolate?

This week, I got to go to several Pesach (Passover) meals which happens to be about the same time as Easter.

Many people think Easter has been distorted from its original story of Jesus’s death and resurrection into a nonsensical pagan feast of eggs and rabbits, but actually the original Passover feat as a lot more in common with Jesus’s ultimate sacrifice.

The way the set of items are used in a Jewish Passover tradition is quite long, so I will just touch on a few of them;

The lamb shank bone is an interesting one, Jesus is often represented a lamb who was slain.

The matzah bread, which is really a large cracker wheat, has a pattern of holes and patterns, pierced and striped, the same injuries Jesus took on the cross.

Also, the matzah bread is often served covered with a linen cloth, something that also could be considered part of Jesus’s burial as his body was cleaned and wrapped carefully.

This passage from the Tannak says it best:-

Isaiah 53
1 Who has believed our message  and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.  Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.  For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Don’t get me wrong, I like easter eggs, but only as I like chocolate in general, and the shiny packaging, and would be happy if this type of packaged confectionery was sold year round, this morning  I decided to shove some chocolate spread on this bit of matzvah 🙂

This is a special event is well worth experiencing.

Mar 23 2012

More IT work in Galilee

Here is my good friend and fellow Hebrew student Jimmy, these days hes helping Bridges for Peace up in this building now loading up pallets of food that will be transported around to Israel’s most needy families.

Some of the new equipment I received has European electrical plugs on it, rather than Israeli ones which often happens.  This will work, but without a grounding pin, there is safety issues and the equipment may not be protected by surges or storms although there is a UPS system here.  As I didn’t bring any more electrical cables with me, I cut off the the plug and wire on a Israeli fitting.

Added an extra network switch here to provide more room for expansion for this building, especially as putting an extra PC for a new member of staff.   I did have some rolls of velcro but I left them behind, so it wasn’t possible to make all the wiring look neat sadly, it needs some re-jigging to enable the glass door to shut also. 🙂

I needed to change some settings on the wireless networks, so took my work Sony laptop and found I got 4 out of 5 bars at the other end of the huge warehouse here.  I was quite impressed the wireless had such good coverage.   I would like to get an extra router running as a spare sometime a bit later.

This cupboard holds our communication equipment, these mysterious warning stickers are from the previous business that was here as there was chemicals that were stored here previously.   I made some interesting discovery based on some stuff in the bible I had been reading lately….

Mar 14 2012

Peace through robotics in Tel Aviv

Theres been a lot in the news lately about the Christ at the Checkpoint event, a collection of Christians that are critics of Israel, and worryingly some that also involved with extremist Islam, and invited some leaders from a few local congregations to make the event look ‘balanced’  – I have seen a brief bit of one the videos and I think there was some good things spoken by one of leaders of a congregation in Jerusalem I go to, but not really convinced there was a fair representation.

Is there way to bring Jesus to bring reconciliation to Jew and Arab, yes definitely!   but I will look forward to some other event I think.

Whilst this event was on, I spent three days out of town at the event in Tel Aviv, as this year I went to the FIRST Robotics event that was being held there in a sports stadium.

This event gets youth into competing in using their engineering and electronics know-how, as well as a whole host skills; team work, budgeting, piloting their machines as well as approaching hi-tech companies in Israel for sponsorship.

I didn’t manage to get many pictures this time, but can see more from my writings I did last year, here.

https://britinjerusalem.com/2011/03/16/tel-aviv-robotics-competition-part-1/

The teams included religious Jews, secular Jews, visiting American Christians, local Arabs, soldiers from the IDF and all girl teams too, (theres a lot of women in IT and engineering here compared to the UK)  it just so happened to have a great atmosphere and a mixture of different people groups here.  There was no mention at all of any politics whatsoever at this event.  and it felt that it wasn’t a contrived effort to make peace as anyone is invited to take part.

I was at this event as part of a project Bridges for Peace does to get involved with community work, I was just sitting up the balls on the pitch after each game session, I suppose a bit like the chap with white gloves who sets the balls up on snooker on the telly!  It was a fun event although it was a 12 hour day for us, as well as three days to set everything up before the games started.

Robotics are used a lot by the Israeli army for bomb disposal and drones to take pictures of a hostile area to relay back to a base, and the FIRST Robotics events have been happening for 20 years now in the US and Israel.

I think its very exciting that these events can take place to bolster the reputation of Israel as the ‘Silicon Wadi’ and provide a fertile environment for new talent in technology and engineering.