Apr 21 2012

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

My youth hostel I stayed at has this amazing view from the roof, it has middle east charm in its main lounge, with the added bonus of a kitchen on the roof which you can just wander out onto and see all around both the sea and the odd mix of where Jaffa meets Tel Aviv.

You often tend to see a lot of graffiti in Israel, in English, Hebrew, Arabic and Russian, often meaningless, sometimes about the obvious political challenges, and a few not so well known ones.

Often there is a big sense of irony in some of these, and to be honest the only way to stop it is to make a wall a canvas for a legit idea before someone else does from a criminal point of view.

Some of these street art designs are pretty huge efforts!

Not always limited to public places, this tree outside someone’s house, and a torah scroll held up by some hands coming out of the wall, and a garage door with what’s behind it painted on is a neat touch.

This mural brightens up this Arab district of Jaffa very nicely.

This is the weirdest I think, an outdoor project by someone, this is another mock of the Last Supper next to the sea front, with a pile of broken TVs and a Land Rover.   The Hebrew pink writing I can read as Dod Morr (Uncle Morr)   Im sure some arty person will tell me its not bad taste but meant to be ironic or something… hmmmm

These Japanese style cartoon imagery gives this old factory a bit of an interesting twist.

Next: tributes to Jonah and strange levitating plants…

1. Jaffa – coastal city of oranges

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

3. Jaffa – Whales and hovering trees

 

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 31 2012

Beggars with pets

I often see a lot of beggars by the Shuk (The Mehane Yehuda fruit and vegetable market)  its sad to see people struggling, and poverty is at 23% here in Israel.

This time something is a little different about this man on thursday.

If you look carefully this man has a small box…

of a couple of baby rabbits eating cabbage!   Very small and fluffy they looked like a fancy type of breed!


Mar 24 2012

Small earthquake felt in Jerusalem

During friday whilst in bed before getting up, as my alarm is set to go off at 6.15am I felt something I thought might of been a small earthquake, in fact I think I heard some creaks from furniture in my house that moved slightly.

Just seen this today, from a volcanoes group page on Facebook I get alerts from as I got a little bit interested in Geology as a child and in 2005 I went to Iceland and saw the volcanoes there.

http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/growing-seismic-unrest-in-middle-east-earthquake-hits-dead-sea-region-felt-in-jerusalem/

Turns it was an earthquake that happened after all, actually in the Dead Sea area, but could be felt here in Jerusalem.   Doesn’t seem to be any damage anywhere but we are on a fault here.

 

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.