Category personal

Feb 4 2012

Jerusalem in fog

Clouds again.  Having this low that makes part of the city invisible was a strange sight to see on the way to work over a week ago on a monday morning.

from Matthew 24 : 30 

And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory. 31 And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His [t]elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.

Clouds seems like a perfect way for our Lord Jesus to make a stage entrance back to this city, ok it wasn’t the right time last week, but its still quite a bizarre sight and it did mean we had plenty of rain in the last week of January.


Jan 28 2012

The town of Interlaken and the Balmer’s Herberge

Getting back to the magnificent Basel railway station, I was looking forward to this train which was taking me to Interlaken, a small town of just 5’000 ** in the middle of the country.  Having high homes that this ride would meet up to the high standards that Switzerland is famous for, I was a bit shocked that train was made of 45% standard carriages and 45% first class, this meant there was hardly any people traveling in the highest class seats, and not enough seats for regular passengers, this left a lot of people standing up and lot of large cases and ski equipment in the corridors.   In someways I wished I left earlier as it would of been nice to get see some scenery out of the train windows.

<<** the Swiss like to use slightly different grammatical symbols than the rest of Europe!>>

The remaining section in the middle of the train was the dining car and kitchen, so I snagged one of the last seats there and got a tea from the counter there.

After a couple of hours, I arrived in Interlaken, it was dark by then, and really difficult to figure out the terrain, just some ghostly black shapes in the sky which I found out the next day were mountains.

This hostel is great!  It takes its name from Eric Balmer who is something of a local maverick and entrepreneur in getting Interlaken one of the most famous hostels in the country and an adventure capital, this attractive traditional wood style building has everything needed to be a base point for a big adventure in the Alps.   Mr Balmer’s face appears on lots of pictures around the hostel showing him meeting famous people.   The hostel is made of 3 separate buildings with the main hotel and a (presumably purchased later)  annex with more rooms and big dinning area, there’s also a basement bar and dancehall under where I am standing, but it seems nice and quiet in the rooms which is good.

Interlaken is quite an apt name, as its between two different lakes.   As a small quiet town its nice when you go walking, everyone you meet will say “Gruezi!” (a Swiss type of greeting I am not sure of meaning but not used by Germans I think)

The town looks efficient, neat and orderly like everything Swiss, but make no mistake, this is not a boring place!   As well being a gateway to the mountains for skiing and snowboarding, there is also loads of other outdoor sports, a rental shop for ski hire is just a couple of doors away from the hostel, and these little cars can be hired from another place across the road.  If you take a close look, the yellow ferrari ‘prancing horse’ is actually a Swiss cow standing on its back legs!

As well as these logs stacked by the side of the ride, and the unmistakable charming style Swiss wooden houses, everyone seems to have a shed to store plenty of firewood for the harsh winters here.

I was pleasantly surprised that the local churches make the effort to advertise themselves to foreigners visiting Interlaken, but I wasn’t around to visit this place.

This wooden house (I think its a school) has a biblical message painted onto the timbers.  Its nice that Christianity seems part of the fabric of the community for a long time and still today.

Of course, Interlaken is completely surrounded by mountains.   These snow dusted mammoths are all around.   Not only that, but the ones in immediate view have ones behind exponentially larger, requires some specialised transport to get there.   As well, the whiter peaks blend in with the sky and clouds in an incredible way.

I found the vast beauty of the mountains show God’s work as something thats hard to comprehend from the ground, let alone see it from a web site, post card or brochure.   This is a place thats impacted my spiritual life like Israel has.

Next, train to the highest peak in Europe...

Jan 22 2012

New Year 2012 in Basel and cheese

 

Outside the very modern and comfortable YMCA in Basel.   I hooked up with two other chaps from here, one is from Argentina and one is Chinese.

Just about 11pm, New Year’s Eve, this church had people on a balcony doing playing brass instruments for a while, then there was a church service at 11.30, instead, we headed down to the river.   The city was treated to a pretty nice fireworks display which lasted about 20 minutes, some of the pyrotechnics were coming from a different direction from some distance away, maybe from France or Germany which are only less than a mile away from here.

Had a bit of a sleep in, although didn’t actually drink the night before, took a wander down for breakfast, my new friends were not there, as they were heading to Italy.

This was part of breakfast in the canteen type area 🙂  Actually only 2 small pieces of cheese were laid out at a time on the table, as if people might of been pinching it and putting in a bag for lunch later.

Later I got to head to my good friend Matthew’s house for lunch, he introduced me to Raclette for lunch…

Raclette is cheese put in a small purpose designed table-top grill in small metal shovel type things, once melted your scrape it off onto your plate and serve with potatoes and other vegetables.   I was warned that non-Swiss people tend to not able to eat that much, he was right, I had 3 and half pieces, I was full, I guess eating cheese with the Swiss is like trying to playing drinking games with Russian people!

I got on a tram back to the centre of Basel and walked to the Youth Hostel to pack my things and get a train to Interlaken, a small town surrounded by the Swiss Alps.

More soon…

Jan 15 2012

Switzerland – the old city of Basel

A little bit later I will finish writing about the lively church in Nazareth I got to visit.

Meanwhile I took sometime out after flying to see family at Christmas, I wanted to do something different for New Year, the 1st of January is a non-event in Israel, and I am bored with the drinking culture in UK, as Basel is reachable by Easyjet from Luton, UK and I can get back to Tel Aviv via Geneva, I thought it would be a good opportunity to see my good friend Matthew who is a Swiss Christian who was studying Hebrew and going to the same church in Jerusalem, last year.

Railways in Switzerland are probably the best anywhere, this one is a palace in itself with attractive paintings on the walls, escalators and nice shops, and generally an accurate representation of Switzerland’s precise and efficient approach to everything.

There are lots of museums in this country, this one is meant to be the smallest in the world, I am not sure if its just a window of stuff or if you can go in.   I didn’t get time to visit any of the other ones which was a shame.

Basel is a truly beautiful place.  This was my first visit to Switzerland, so I was really looking forward to it, its quite different from Germany even before I got near any mountains, its like they have a German attitude to efficiency and engineering and use the French and Italian influence for design flair. 🙂

I like the mix of oldy worldy shops and modern retail places too.   Watches are a big thing of course, as top brands in fashion too.  Funny thing is, I didn’t see any places boarded up, so the recession hasn’t affected Basel, or the Swiss are good at quickly dressing up defunkt businesses with different signage, unlike UK and the US!

This shoe place is a worth a mention for its amusing name 😀

It is kind of horribly expensive, I went to Starbucks and paid CHF7 for the cheapest coffee, (1 Swiss Franc is almost the same as a US Dollar at $0.96)

I got to see my friend speak at a very old (400+ year) church and also another congregation who meet in a plain looking office type building too.

In town I came across a large and big Synagogue, which its own 24 hour security guard.   Normally you can go in there to visit, but it was shut over Christmas (!) as the security office wasn’t manned during the holidays.

My friend drove us to the outskirts of the city to see overhead from a hill.  There is an odd layer of fog over the city which is not that visible from the photo, Basel I think is just above sea level unlike the mountanous parts of Switzerland I visited later.

This was a tall old folly or castle which was about equvilant of a 4 story building, Matthew kind of gets a bit crazy standing up here!  I think contrary to Swiss being supposedly boring running banks and financial institutions, they treated the rugged parts of their country as a playground for skiing, snowboarding and lots of other outdoor sports they like the live dangerously!   and yes, they eat a lot of cheese and chocolate. 🙂

Although this might not seem in regular theme of my blog visiting bible places, this country gave me some interesting perspectives on my spiritual life, which I will explain soon…

Dec 10 2011

Return to Nazareth – 2. The uglier sides of Nazareth

Nestled in the middle of Nazareth’s high street I walked past the Mary’s well monument, this picture was taken from my first journey.  Now some of the grafitti has gone and some more has appeared, along with an official sign telling people not to drink the water, reason being is at the back of the monument there is a discarded big wooden drum for keeping electric cable, and lots of rubbish, and an odour hinting its been used as a toilet.  Sad that Nazareth’s iconic centre piece in the middle of the city isn’t respected by some people.

Back to old city streets:-

I went to the Synagogue church again, this is the place Jesus made his debut as a Rabbi, a teacher of the Torah as part of his youth.   Today there was a different door open with a talk being given I wanted to take a closer look but didn’t want to interrupt the teaching here.

I was kind of disappointed by the Vatican flag hanging up here.   I don’t really care for the oddball palace in Rome as it has little to do with the teachings of Jesus and doesn’t really fit in here.

In the market place there is everything from fruit, vegetables, home made olive oil, cakes, clothing, cleaning supplies and books on sales outdoors,

 

I was a bit perturbed by some of these, as you can see the middle ones look like they have more than a hint of antisemitism to them.   There was also people casually selling Keffeyahs, like I saw in Jericho, neck scalves made famous by Yasser Arafat, these tend to have a very political edge to them.

The youth hostel I mentioned earlier I stayed in is run by a Christin Arab family, its a beautiful place, there aremaps and guides available to plan what to see.  I didn’t see anything in the way of obvious Christian literature, ie: pictures of Jesus on the walls there, unlike Jerusalem its kind of interesting to hear Arab people speak a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic, but I was a bit annoyed that the local man on the desk seemed to use the Lord’s name in vain quite a bit.  Ok, they probably aren’t religious, there is a youth hostel in Eilat owned by Messianic Jews that does have bibles and Christian books there.   I am guessing if you go to a youth hostel in Memphis, Tennessee you would see photos of Elvis there I reckon!! 🙂

Some people may think I am being overly romantic about Jesus’s home town, Nazareth has an entirely Arab population and around 30% of these are Christians, but I was hoping to see more Christians, particularly people who could pray and intercede for people here, especially when you seen provocative posters put up like this.   Someone has tried to deface this quite recently it seems!

I would like this know what these posters say, I suspect they are just as poisonous as the previous above.   By the way, these are Christians from an African nation on a tour with nice tartan matching jackets.

Along with not seeing any of the visitors of Christian background at the hostel, many of the experiences of this day left me feeling kind of depressed.   Of course Nazareth is reliant on tourism and aspects of businesses here tend to be geared towards this, but this should be a special place, but churches seem like relics of history without any modern day meaning, Nazareth is important to our Lord Jesus and his Jewish upbringing, a lot of the things seem to be anything but.  Of course, there are minarets nearby, the tall very vocal prayer towers that Islam feels obliged to share with anyone else around.

Trying to sleep was an awkward experience, mainly because the beautiful old house that was a hostel had these big wooden shutters on the windows, and the heavy wind outside was causing them to bang loudly, getting up half a sleep to try and wedge them shut seemed impossible as the latches were broken.   Part of this I think was the Lord was prompting me to pray for my fellow travelers who had come from different backgrounds, a few with some mixed up views about their spirituality.

The Saturday evening meant I got to meet three chaps from New Zealand that were Christian, I was glad to see more believers here.

Am I trying to put Christians from visiting and show Arabic culture as being negative in a Christian light, no – some unexpected surprises happened as I will explain later….

1. The Fauzi Azar – 2. The uglier sides of Nazareth – 3. Welcoming the king with palm leaves? – 4. Looking for the Jesus village – 5. The replica village of Jesus – 6. Today’s Nazarenes

Dec 9 2011

Learning Hebrew without a dummy

I got this book before I came over here:

Actually its a terrible book, its really לא טוב / Lo Tov (no good) for learning Hebrew.   Why?   There’s no Hebrew symbols on it apart from on the front!! The tuition is based around purely only phonetically using Hebrew using Roman letters.  Makes me wonder how much the Dummies franchise check things out before putting their name to their titles.

This is a bit like people I have seen learning to drive a car that’s an automatic, and they can’t get to grips with a manual, it requires drastically re-tooling your brain a second time to learn the native method of doing it.

The symbols in Hebrew are quite different, there is no upper or lower case like there is in European language, or Greek for that matter.   As well as being right to left, there isn’t an upper and lower case set of characters, but there are ‘sofits’ a longer leg on some (N, P, F, etc) characters, you can see this trend also with Arabic which has curvy bits also at the end, as bother languages are derived from Aramaic, an ancient language spoken by Jesus as used in the Passion of the Christ movie, almost extinct but still practiced by a small number of people in small towns in Syria.

What can make it harder is only a small number of things you see in Hebrew include the vowels (dots above and below symbols)  making looking at some words involves a bit of guess work!!

I am learning in a small class of 6 with a friend, most people tend to opt for doing Ulpan, a professional type class, if you want to immigrate to Israel, use the language just for religious or biblical study or if you are just curious.

I only learned French at school which I wasn’t interested in, nor can I really remember any of it.  Its made me think though how hugely challenging it is for a teacher to demonstrate a language, and build the confidence of all the students at the same time and motivate them to practice speaking/listening, reading and writing, and if anyone in the group struggles, helping them out without making them embarrassed.   I think with any type of adult education, you inevitably get people dropping out, not want to persist when it gets difficult.   This happened to us with two pupils thinking that were not making enough progress and worried about letting down the rest of the class.

I know several Japanese people learning Hebrew from a Japanese teacher, which surprised me is that Japanese Christians read their bibles up to down! apparently they used to read all old style books like this but all other modern books contains the kanji symbols left to right.

This book on the right is what our teacher recommended us, it has a mix of conversational bits and individual words too.  Notice this book is ‘proper’ as looking at the front it has the spine on the right hand side!

My personal recommendations would be:-

  • Make sure books and training materials are of good quality, check on Amazon or review sites to see if they can offer learning all the aspects of Hebrew at the right time.
  • Be persistent.   I meet up with some of my class in an Aroma coffee shop in between my monday night lessons, I am not motivated to do practice on my own, so being with other people is good.
  • If you are not yet in Israel but planning to, do some searching for flash cards and learn the symbols and the numbers, print them off and go through them at least 3 or 4 times a week.
  • If you are Israel already, try practice whilst out shopping, when buying things in the big outdoor Shuk (market)  I found I could pick up the names of numbers well this way.
  • Encourage those in your class that aren’t making so good progress and be sensitive not to embarrass them.
  • Asking friends who already know Hebrew to help you practice!

I am a long way from having anything that useful, but I look forward to being able to gain some understanding of what was spoken in the bible and get more detailed examination of the harder to understand parts of the old testament.

This week our teacher showed us Cursive (hand written) Hebrew letters, which really throws me as they look radically different from the regular right-angled looking ones!

For a new immigrant to this land, it is critical to persist and get to grips with Hebrew if you want to get employment, make friends and fit in here, its not easy, but possible when you put your mind to it.

Its quite embarrassing as like most other British person I have been not conversant in any other language, friends from Europe seem to speak 3 including English, and my various Israeli friends immigrant and sabra also know a third language which maybe Arabic, Russian, Ukrainian, French, Spanish, Amharic or Armenian!

During my time I went to Karmiel and Nazareth again, its a pleasant surprise to know I can read the boarding gates now in Jerusalem bus station without having to ask someone! 🙂

Dec 7 2011

fees for flight payments are daft

I bought three plane tickets recently, to come back to Britain to see family for Christmas, on the way back here I am stopping for a short break in Basel, Switzerland to spend New Year with my friend Matthias who lives there, I am going to do some travelling and fly out of Geneva back to Tel Aviv.

I really don’t like airlines for their dishonest practices with upselling you things that used to be included.  This booking I did here was an extra £13 to use a credit card or £8 using a debit card!

I am already doing this on the cheap by not taking any luggage, just everything as carry on.    I don’t have a Electron card to circumvent payment fees, as I thought they were pointless as they are not accepted in a lot of places, but with three flights, I think should exploit getting one just save of these stupid fees I think…

I bet you if you bought a chocolate bar with a credit card in Tescos they couldn’t care less!

I’d like to know if anyone has ideas on getting a suitable Electron card just for buying flights…

Dec 6 2011

Return to Nazareth – 1. The Fauzi Azar

This youth hostel is literally a palace!!

It looks stunning with its high painted ceilings and huge windows, the owner of the place who is the grand-daughter of Mr Fauzi Azar himself seems proud of this place and the fact its been voted the best youth hotel in the country.   Its little wonder that earlier this year on my first trip to Nazareth that it was fully booked up and I wasn’t able to stay before.  Interesting enough I was in the lobby reading a book when one of the staff of Lonely Planet was there to speak to the manager.

I got chatting to other travelers, which as well as of course finding out the countries we were from, where else we had visited and exchanging stories and inevitably our own personal religious feelings and our perceptions of Nazareth and Israel.

The two girls from Canada and Switzerland who I first spoke to were atheists, there was another girl who was a Christian from the US and was studying Arabic and seemed really fascinated with Arab and Islamic culture and wanted to one day visit Saudi Arabia.   I know of British people get well paid tax-free jobs in Saudi, I really do wonder though, if they realise the roles of men and women in the Gulf states are not the same as they are in the west, and some appalling human rights violations, particularly if anyone wishes to exit out of Islam for whatever reason.   There was another older British couple, which one of them had a large Pagan looking symbol on a necklace, also a young American guy who was working doing web design for the Fauzi.

There was a couple from Ohio in the US who said they were ministers from something called a Universal Unitarian church, and as I wasn’t familiar with this denomination, as a group of us were in the kitchen just chatting I asked them a few things, and found that they were originally atheists, and I was more and more concerned when they said they didn’t really read the bible very often, and didn’t believe in heaven or hell or even the trinity!   Seems that the Universal Unitarianism “church” or something like that, was actually a strange of cult, trying to be a ‘one-size-fits-all’ faith combining elements of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and other religions by ‘people-pleasing’, leaving God (the one of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) completely out of the picture.

I think this only causes confusion (no not Confucianism – haha!)  amongst the other guests who didn’t believe in God giving a very mixed up picture.

I didn’t want any theological debate, but I did let it slip amongst conversation of 5 or 6 of us in the kitchen there that I thought it was worth a mention that the previous week I got back ache from lifting boxes whilst helping out at the food bank which , and was completely healed two days later which I in no doubt give credit to Jesus.  Was kind of sad that there wasn’t more Christians visiting with a curiosity for famous home city of Christ though.

view out of a bathroom window, seeing the maze of streets of Old Nazareth

The family that own that house were Arab Christians, but I didn’t spot any kind of pictures on the wall or bibles or anything.   I did spot a strange “special offer” poster in the reception which gave travelers a free extra night if they had stamps in their passport from Iran, Iraq, Syria or Lebanon!!! I really can’t get my head around why they would want to do that?!?   Normal circumstances means you can’t enter Israel after visiting one of those nations, so I am a bit baffled.   Seems more of a case of thinking it is ‘clever’ to be rebellious over Israel’s strict but sensible policies on visas and entries I think??


I noticed actually only 3/4s of the Fauzi’s beautiful house is restored, there is one corner of a wing of the house that has no roof at all and you can see the sky through the missing window.   I think maintaining old buildings like this must be quite a challenge and monumentally
expensive.

Later on in the afternoon, I met three chaps from New Zealand, an older gent in his 70s and his two sons, they were doing some travelling around Israel, so I got a chance to hook up with them and head out on the town in the evening.   This was great I could finally meet real believers who had a curiosity for the streets of Jesus’s upbringing also.   I got to learn the father was a cancer survivor and had always wanted to visit Israel and his two sons had helped him achieve visiting here, so I was really pleased for them to come to the holyland for the first time, it was nice to sit in a nearby Falafel place and have a natter.

I spent a bit of time in the mornings out in the pleasant court yard taking advantage of the unlimited coffee and tea (especially with jars of mint and anise you can add to you drinks) and doing some reading of this book called ‘Jesus in the Hebrew Scriptures which is written by a leader of a Messianic Jewish congregation and had some eye opening account into how Christ was not only predicted in Isaiah but also glimpses of him are seen in the Old testament too.  This book isn’t available from Amazon or from common distribution channels so I can’t really tell you where you can get it apart from doing a Google search.   I only got part way through it but have enjoyed what I have seen so far.

Anyway I can’t recommend the Fauzi high enough as a place to stay when visiting Nazareth, for its grand appearance with breakfast included and a free tour around Nazareth’s old city in the morning.

Did I find some spirit filled Arab believers in Jesus in Nazareth?   yes!! – I will explain soon!!

http://www.fauziazarinn.com/

1. The Fauzi Azar – 2. The uglier sides of Nazareth – 3. Welcoming the king with palm leaves? – 4. Looking for the Jesus village – 5. The replica village of Jesus – 6. Today’s Nazarenes

Nov 29 2011

Michael Greilsammer plays in Yellow Submarine in Jerusalem

Me and my friend Teddy went to the Yellow Submarine, a music venue that is a sort of converted factory unit in Talpiyot, the southern industrial part of Jerusalem.  I went to this place last year to see Lazer Lloyd, an American Orthodox Jew who plays blues guitar, usually stuff by Clapton or Hendrix.   This is the third time I have been to see a gig of local band here.

I have been wanting to see Michael Greilsammer’s band play in Jerusalem for sometime now, he is a reggae artist who plays violin, with his wife Shimrit on guitar, the bass player is also well known from another Jerusalem based (although Indie rock) band.

I have got to listen to a few local Israeli bands on Youtube which I listen in the background whilst I am at work.

Michael has a new album out very soon, and despite waiting about 3 or 4 weeks for his first CD to be ordered, the local book shop chain Stiemetskis eventually told me they were not able to order it in, despite that Michael is a Jerusalemite musician!

Michael’s music doesn’t really fit any a simple genre, it is reggae but there is quite a bit of Irish folk in it too.   There is a familiar heavy bass and carribean beat to it, and the lyrics in the songs are Hebrew or French.   All his tracks seem to have a feel-good nice vibe and are very dancable too.

You maybe thinking that culture from Jamaica and the Caribbean seems as far away from Jewish life as possible, but  Jewish Klezmer music uses a lot of brass instruments and has a fast temp to it, familiar to reggae and ska which started to become popular in Europe and America in the 1970s.

I think Michael writes all his own songs, but there was a good cover of Lion Zion by Bob Marley and the Wailers.    All the other tracks were Hebrew or in French, there was a really nice atmosphere to this gig and would like to see them again.

Its well worth listening to some of his stuff on Youtube or on his below web site.

http://www.michaelgreilsammer.com/

http://www.yellowsubmarine.org.il/default.asp?lang=eng

Nov 27 2011

Cheap flights to Israel from Belgium

Found out today there is another budget airline from Europe to Israel, Jetairfly (which I guess are owned by Thomson, given their logo looks the same)

http://www.jetairfly.com/en/

They only go from Liege, in Belgium.  Given you could get there from UK or France via high speed down the Eurostar tunnel in less than 2 hours from £39, this might be a good deal if Easyjet doesn’t appeal, or indeed for travellers from continental Europe.

The other nice thing about this, some Belgian Christians told me there are lot of Jews that live in Antwerp but they don’t seem to be interested in Aliyah (immigration to Israel)  maybe this is good to give them a taste of what living here is like.

Flights to Israel from Belgium start at 79 Euros each way but there is a 15 Euro admin fee and usual annoying credit card fees too.

Heres a map I made:-

You can see the annotations I made closer.

I assume its simple to get a bus or train from Brussels to Liege, but not been to Belgium in a long time.