Tag Archives: Israel

Oct 13 2010

King David Museum, Hezekiah’s tunnels and Silwan troubles

At the weekend I went around the outer parts of Jerusalem’s old city walls.   Outside of the dung gate, is the south east corner, you head around the corner to see Absalom’s tomb and the Mount of Olives.

Here there is a junction which contains a volatile mix of neighbours.   On the corner is an archaeological dig, containing artifacts that date from King David’s time.   On the same street this is the entrance to the Arab town of Silwan.   This is a much troubled district, and the name Silwan often comes up when there is news of conflicts in this city.

On the news this week you may have seen a picture of a car with a boy in the air upside down in the air having being hit by a car in Silwan after stoning this particular motorist, it seems the Subaru driver sped up or swerved to avoid being hit by the youths.   Seems strange there happened to be someone with a camera who did such a perfect shot of this moment.  http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=190682

A few houses from the corner is this Arab shop with political message outside.

About 3 or 4 more houses across is The City of David museum which has a cinema with a 3D film of biblical history of this place and a guided tour of the buildings and a chance to go under Hezekiah’s tunnels.  I went here last year its well worth a visit.   The tunnels are a mile long of walking – in complete darkness; and, upto your knees in water. 🙂   I didn’t get a picture of the exact front part of this as there armed guards in front.   But looking through the windows you can see the nice decorations outside.

Looking behind back to the old city walls and there are about 40-50 soldiers in uniform getting off a bus.  (not visible, but just around the corner)  Glancing back to the museum front, there is a lone security guard, armed, but unusually (that I have never seen someone holding a handgun out of a holster) he has a pistol in his hand.   Again, I glance down the street to see a group of Arab kids gather outside a shop.  There is nervousness on both sides and the police and army are on alert from recent troubles.

Below you can see the green flag which has a logo representing Israel’s national parks and historical places.  Heading down this street as a foreigner to see the museums is safe but because extra security measures in place, but just a short distance down here, not past the museum where this barrier is.   Beyond this there are rowdy children throwing rocks at the fence where the historical digging is, there is rubbish everywhere and some of the cars look vandalised.

But here in the unpredictable middle east, throwing rocks can be a prelude to starting a war where each side retaliates.  This is one of the many contested bits of property here, ironic given the historic sites and archeological digs that showed who lived here long ago.

I can’t emphasise enough “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” and I do feel sorry for the Arab people that live here and are given different messages by different authorities, I hope and pray that Arab people will find their way out of darkness of the regime that governs them (Hamas and Hezbollah)  into the loving arms of the Father.

Oct 8 2010

Worship event on the Haas Promenade

The Haas Promenade, close (1.5km uphill from my house) also known as the peace park had a special event on the sunday before last.

A worship event was on with several churches and Christian organisations jointly together.   There was a speech by the Mayor of Jerusalem, and one of the city’s chief Rabbis, and this was filmed on God TV.  There was speakers from different Christian charities here and also a few Arab believers too.

This was a really good event, although I had to leave part way through, as it overlapped with the normal service at my regular church at 6pm.

Oct 6 2010

In Sepia: Holyland pictures collection part 3

Part 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7

Cafe with hand operated orange squeezer with plenty of stocks of citrus fruits.

Tourist shops in the old city.

Street path in Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerualem.

Greek graffiti in the Church of the holy Sepulchre

Part 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7

Oct 4 2010

St Peter’s fish

This is a Tilapia, also known as St Peter’s fish.  Commonly found in the Sea of Galilee, there are several restaurants in Tiberias (the largest city in this area) and places around Galilee.

Known as St Peter’s fish as its largely thought to be the creature that had the coin in its mouth in the bible.  Matthew 17 : 24

I went down the market and bought one of these for dinner for friday.   The fishmonger gutted it for me and rinsed with a shower head thing that was hanging on shelf.   The market is a good place to get fresh fish, even if the man had a cigarette in his mouth whilst working.

This one is about 6-7 inches long and has dark grey scales and white flesh once cooked, it also has a row of tiny sharp teeth.

After Jesus’ resurrection, after his followers were in disbelief he had come back to see them, he asked Peter for a piece of the fish they were sharing, as way to prove a point he was not a ghost.  Luke 24 : 40 I would take a bet it was some of this type of fish.

25 minutes under the grill at 150 and its looking good.   I need a bit more skill at getting the bones in one go though.   Also meant I found a use for some limes sitting in the back of the fridge. 🙂

I should of taken a photo before I cut the head off. 🙂

Sep 29 2010

Jerusalem Parade

Jaffa Street is looking like a race track, there are loads of police and security, mainly trying to make sure people don’t walk across the road.

This parade is a big event that happens each year and is lots of fun.   Its not political although there are soldiers there, and the police, various Christian organisations.

Vintage buses and trucks, some are very old, probably date around 1948.

Left. Gasp!  The new electric lightrail train is here!  Apparently its not supposed to be running yet, just a brief glimpse of it was operating today only.   The electric overhead wires were powered on a couple of weeks ago, but some of the infrastructure is not finished, there are some computer screens on the bus stops are not installed yet. Right. Police dog handlers.  The canines seem to be an unusual indeterminate breed, they are shorter and stockier than typical German Shepherds normally use for police and military uses.

El-Al, Israel’s national airline, had their pilots and stewards out doing their own dance.

The International Chrisitan Embassy Jerusalem. (ICEJ)

Some Christians from the Philipines…

and Norway, Hong Kong, China…

Below from the Daily Planet…

Disabled Israelis also here.   There were loads more people attending, but I had to get back to work. 🙂

Sep 28 2010

Sukkot tents

At work we had a birthday lunch outside with a Sukkah tent.   These temporary structures are popular all over Israel as a place for Jews to eat and sleep in them for this festival.   Sometimes they are tents and some are shed like buildings, they are decorated with palm trees, plastic or real fruit and Christmas-style decorations, kind of all the fun of camping but just outside your house.

Just off the side of Jaffa Street, there is a huge Sukkah put on by Jerusalem Municipality.   There is local artwork being shown inside, and behind was a stage with a big free concert is on, there was some Ethiopian girls singing in their native Amharic language.   Of course there wasn’t any English commentary to this show, so I don’t know if this was a charity event.

Sep 26 2010

Caves in park in Yemin Moshe behind King David hotel

Behind King David Hotel is some more archeology.

Just realised this tomb has a circular stone rolled next to it.  Look hard and you can see this tomb has an iron door too, which is locked.

This one is nearby, different to the one shown in the above three pics.  Doesn’t have an obvious entrance.

Not sure who these tombs belonged to, or how old they are.   Suggestions please?

Sep 23 2010

Wasteland in the Armenian quarter inside Jerusalem’s old city walls

Before Yom Kippur I went walking on some walls with John on the old city again.  You get to peek into the yards of Christian, Jewish and Arab people’s houses.  For obvious reasons its not possible to go completely 360 degrees around because of the Al Asqa mosque is at the back and this part of the wall is not open there.

Still I got to see a few more things I had not previously seen.

Peaking over this side, this is the back of police station, there is a few horses with stable and exercise yard.

This is interesting.   This is a panaromic shot, so these two walls actually join at a right angle where I am standing.   This is the Armenian quarter of the old city.  Ahead is the Armenian church and a car park, but lots of scruffy looking ground just going to waste.   I thought this is odd as surely land within the old city must be very expensive and sort after, must be worth a million dollars maybe.  I guess even a small square of land big enough to put an ice cream kiosk would be expensive to rent.  Its blacked by fire as it appears someone has burnt all the weeds that are growing here.    A hotel or some nice flats could maybe be built here.   Some people who were with me on the tour think that its inevitable if you dug up this ground there would be plenty of archeology here.  For some reason the Armenians would rather let the ground go to waste than sell it, or have it landscaped or develop something on it.

Sep 13 2010

This week Rosh HaShana, happy 5771!

Rosh HaShana is a festival celebrating Jewish New Year and gives us 2 1/2 days off work, hooray!

I went to a Messianic congregation (a synagogue with Jews that believe in Jesus)  with some friends.  The service is in Hebrew, so I didn’t understand much as I know about 15-20 words but its nice to see the Shofar being blown and join in with the worship (well hum along at least 🙂 )  and chat to some of regular people there.

The next day, on the way out to town, I decided to do some fruit picking.  Grabbing some Pomegranates.  There is some in a row of trees between the two lanes of traffic in a main road near my house.   These ones in a outskirts of a car park near the Zion Hotel.

The fruits I got were nothing special, they were quite small and not that sweet.  There were some bigger, more red pomegranates on the other bushes but most of them were rotten.

I think all the pomegranates I see in the UK for sale in say, Tesco are all imported from from Israel and cost about 1.50 each.

Near the abandoned railway station there is a path that goes between roads, its marked up Bible Hill.

At the top of the hill looking back onto the abandoned station, there are some ruins of a house there.   There is a couple of houses, one of them as lots of junk outside including this wrecked car which looks like an early 1980s Alfa Romeo.  Strange place to find it, as I don’t think a working car could easily get up this steep hill.

I went to the Kotel with my friend Donald from Scotland as its his last day before he goes home.   We took a shortcut through the Damascus gate, as it then around 8pm, its incredibly quiet around the old city as it is both Jewish New Year and also the end of Muslim festival of Ramadan.  From the picture you can see the strings of lights here for Ramadan, not many places are open and its quiet.

The Kotel (Western Wall) is fairly busy as well there.

Lastly, this poster seen in the Arab quarter was quite interesting on the way home.   Issa is Arabic for Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew)  I think its quite common and doesn’t have much significance to most Arabs though.

Sep 9 2010

The Hurva Synagogue

Last week I was in the old city and I went past the famous Hurva Synagogue.

This building was rebuilt and finished in March 2010.   I wanted to go inside, but its only open to the public in the mornings with a groups with a guide.

Following the destruction of this building in the 1948, initial plans for this current synagogue were drawn up in 2000 but the building was not finished until this year in March, about the same week I arrived to do my second season of volunteer work here.   Looking at pictures of the previous synagogue (its been destroyed and rebuilt quite a few times now)  it looks a pretty close copy of the original.

There was a lot worry from possible attacks from Arabs thinking that this a starting point towards building the third temple.   Frequent amounts of history revisionism tries to hide a lot of what has been in this country from the past.  You can click on this photo of a plaque to see this closer.   I think this is a nice icon of the determination of the Jewish people to protect their capital.