Tag Archives: Jerusalem

Apr 7 2011

Seperation barrier and threats to peace

One thing the critics of Israel like to point out is the concrete separation barrier in between the main part of Israel and the West Bank.

A tour leader I spoke to told us that the concrete wall only accounts for less than 5% of the fence in between.

Not so easy to see in this picture perhaps but there is just a chain link fence in between the Jewish orchards and Palestinian towns in the background, the silver things is some rows of fruit trees with plastic sheeting over them.

Here we are passing in a quite narrow strip of land in Israel parallel with Tel Aviv.

I have done some more experimenting with Google Maps.

Note – please press the [ – ] button to zoom out on each of these maps to get a better understanding of where you are looking at.

This line drawn across is only 8.8 miles this show how narrow this section of Israel would be in parallel to a possible Palestinian state, further down a bit is Tel Aviv Ben Gurion airport, this especially needs to be carefully guarded with the flights arriving and departing each day.

This map here shows the Israeli cities of Ashdod and Beer Sheva, both of these cities have been hit in recent months by GRAD missiles, these have a radius of 25 miles /40 kilometres. The diagrams show these cities are just in proximity of attacks from Gaza, now I don’t know where these are launched from in the Gaza strip exactly, so this is approximate but you should be able to get the idea, these cities are just about reachable by GRADs, and there is fear that other weapons could reach further in.

For those of you who think the middle east crisis can be fixed with a two state solution, I would advise you to check out this site, it shows how Israel’s borders are defended, and how a new Palestinian state is impractical as well as wrong I believe from a Christian biblical point of view.

http://shomroncentral.blogspot.com/

I personally want to see safety and security of all people here, but I think its important know exactly the threats and practicalities involved here.

Mar 27 2011

Purim antics around Jerusalem

I got to celebrate Purim three times this week!  At church, work and at a friend’s house.

Lots of dressing up!

What was funny, was the number of people dressed up Hispanic or Asian kind of themed things, and some of my friends, from Jewish and regular Christian backgrounds from Peru, Mexico, Japan, China, forgot to get a costume!   I didn’t have much, just a Hawaiian shirt and some flowers round my neck, but most people had some pretty awesome outfits!

I haven’t seen Arab chap with a Tina Turner wig before!

At work, this is a kind of a Jewish equivalent to a Christmas panto.

Got to watch a movie at church about the story of Esther, sadly the DVD seem to have a scratch on it, as it glitched and eventually froze before the end of the film 😦

Ironically as Purim celebrates Jewish people escaping death from the hands of a King of Persia, today the Jewish people face the same old story all over again, with the current leader of Persia (we call today Iran) and Ahmedinjad who has threatened to wipe Israel off the map, and is a top wholesale supplier of weapons to Hamas and Hezbullah.   Some things just don’t change.  Nowadays of course, Israel is threatened by hostile neighbours and the media rather condemns it for taking land that it had sovereign rights for it already, and recent events like rocket attacks, some with 40km radius reaching Ashdod and Beer Sheva, a family murdered in Judea, and a bomb in Jerusalem are only briefly mentioned. 😦

After church I went with some people out on the town as it was Purim and the streets are busy with people in costume.   We headed to this restaurant I have not seen before in Jaffa Street.  I forget the name now, its a soup kitchen with a mostly student and young adult clientele.   Its one of these places with odd pieces of bric-a-brac, ie: a Hebrew typewriter in the window, odd pieces of furniture that made it feel like an old school canteen.   All the cups used to serve coffee, tea or water are all different types seemingly acquired from a jumble sale.

Chandeleir made of spoons!  You can get Shushkar or soup with some nice crusty bread and a beer!

An interesting twist on “time at the bar please!” when the restaurant staff hinted that it was time (about 11pm) to shut, they just put away some of the chairs, and put on some loud techno music on and danced in the middle of the room!  I would like to find out how easy it is to write reviews for travel books as this place ought to be listed in Rough Guides or Lonely Planet books.

As a gentile Christian, I would like to say I like to join in with the Jewish festivals here, but at the same time I still celebrate Christmas and Easter, as maybe the timing may or may not be correct and they have been heavily exploited commercially, but all these events are good to spend time away from work, be with family, friends and personally seek the Lord and having a party and letting you hair down as well is always good.

Mar 26 2011

Jerusalem marathon and dealing with security threats

Whats the best way of getting over a terrorist attack?   Wearing cute rubber wrist bands, twee looking ribbons to put on your jacket, being a Twitter drama queen?   No, none of this nonsense!

As friday was Jerusalem Marathon day, it is a case of just get on with life, no need to cancel anything needlessly.   This meant it was a bit difficult to get to work as the bus services were going to be hugely different with roads blocked off.The day before I saw barriers being put up and large palette loads of bottles of water.

I went to my church for a worship event, the main hall is in the basement of Clal centre in between Agrippas Street and Jaffa Street, but the meeting is on the 14th floor right at the very top, known as the prayer tower, I could open this huge sliding window and get some air and see an amazing view that you can see a large portion of the city, including the new King David harp bridge.   Here I can see right over Jaffa Street in the distance where the bombing was.

Bad luck to anti-Zionist losers 🙂 the event was sponsored by Adidas and the boycotters of Israel who complained the sporting  brand didn’t succeed in ruining the event for anyone! 🙂

As per every event like this, there are police and security to keep the event safe, although it did rain a little (which is a good thing, its is still really needed!)  this was a nice day.   I was at work as normal but I got some things done in our food bank again.   Actually I thank the Lord I was in this place that day due a power cut due to a fault in our building, which I meant I had to manually shut some servers down, there was some equiment damaged by this but is all under control.

This race shows the determination and character of the Jewish people well I think.

Mar 25 2011

Jerusalem bus station terrorist attack

Lunch time two days ago I learned with horror about a terrorist attack in Jerusalem, which has left one dead and 39 injured.

Here, in Jerusalem, a lot Christians and Messianic Jews I know here all know each other, partly down to Facebook I guess, but also as I know numerous different Christian organisations here, and today I hear stories from people who were nearby just a short time before it happened.

Jerusalem’s large central bus station has been targeted before by deadly attacks but not in a long time.  When I have visited it requires turning out your pockets of metal things before going through a metal detector, as well as having your bag put through an X-ray, but not only that, when I have waited to meet a friend outside there, if you are stood still directly outside, then a security guard will challenge you are ask you what you are doing loitering,  I attempted to lock my bike on some railings about 10 metres away from the bus station only to be shouted at that this wasn’t allowed.

Whilst working in IT before I came here I had the chance to see IT solutions, processes and other things that Israel has invented and sold to police, military and government agencies around the world to help other nations fight against terrorist threats.

For me and many of the people I work with, we still haven’t got over the huge tragedy in Japan especially as I have worked several Japanese people, their families were not harmed, but seeing their home countries under danger from a worryingly unstable nuclear power plant and images of massive destruction has to be heartbreaking.  I enjoying working with the Japanese staff, I suppose you don’t see that many Japanese people come to the UK to visit, but I admire that they are so hardworking, resilient, and pleasant to be with.

For me that day, I was at the other end of Jerusalem, in Talpiyot at Bridges for Peace’s Outreach centre, a warehouse building that supplies food to the needy, either directly to people or put on palettes that go out to third party organisations that distribute it, so I didn’t know anything about this until a colleague got a phone call.  Our main building is about 2 miles from where the bomb happened.

I have lived in Portsmouth’s Somerstown district which has a high crime rate, often walked past Guildhall walk, a strip of bars and clubs in the same city so popular for fights and trouble, and ambulance team hovers over this area most weekend nights ready.   I have also been to ghetto parts of Los Angeles (just after 9/11) and Las Vegas which really made me uncomfortable, especially LA’s bus station, especially when you feel like you are being followed.   These things are all relative.   My cousin lives in Christchurch, New Zealand and he has had to deal with the devastating earthquake there, that has happened twice now.

Some people that visit Israel are surprised at how much security is here when you go through the airport and how metal detector doorways are in shopping malls and restaurants, its not a big inconvenience when go out and about town.

I do feel normally very safe here.   I would urge anyone who is thinking of visiting the holyland not to be deterred by current events as long as you are sensible and stick to known areas.

Mar 15 2011

mystery head of state visits Yad Vashem

Just before this shot, I saw some large limousines and police cars outside with flashing lights, it dawned on me people from the government had come to visit the museum.  There was a moment of hesitation if it would be frowned upon to take pictures, but I got a pic of these men heading towards the entrance.  It seems the man in the middle with the hat who had a the smart very senior looking green uniform with a lot of badges and tassels appears to be a head of state of a visiting nation.

I have been told that if a senior member of a foreign government comes to Israel, there is a policy that they have to come to Yad Yashem at least once, to gain understanding of what many of the grim events the Jewish people have faced before they got a nation of their own again.

These flags were hung out on a street close to the King David hotel.   I have seen other countries hung out here when there is visiting dignitaries coming, another time recently was the flag of Cyprus.

Not sure what nation this is, maybe a small Caribbean island I think?

Mar 14 2011

Yad Vashem visit

A month ago, I went with some friends from work to see Yad Vashem museum.

This concrete bridge over car park has a a scripture from Ezekiel 37 : 14 “I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.”

The triangular building on the left is where the exhibits are, in the middle is a ticket hall, although entrance is free, but brochures can be bought and radio headsets can be rented for languages other than English and Hebrew and a cafe and toilets are in the basement.

The museum doesn’t allow the public to take pictures, but I did get one of this tall domed roof hosts photos and documents of children.   I touched on recently how members of the public with families who perished have been invited to submitted to Google recently in conjunction with Yad Vashem.

There are many things that I feel shamed reading about, how Christians accused Jews of being ‘Christ killers’ and how the British denied boat loads of Jews desperate for a safe place to call home from docking with (The British Mandate of) Palestine.  This was many things that were shocking in addition to the  precise way the Nazis committed large scale genocide.

You would think that lessons would be learned from a murder on a mass scale like this.

There are number of things today that deeply trouble me.   One is that are worryingly parallels between Nazi fascism and today’s rhetoric from Arab nations, and bits of this are echoed in the western media.  Some of these things was the Nazi’s call to boycott Jews, as some vintage propaganda posters were shown in a cabinet.   Other similarities are the Nazis burning books, and countries today turning off their internet to try and keep the public in ignorance.

Its crazy today that some people try to change history and pretend this awful event never happened.   There is also a secondary type of hatred, and that is from people who consider the previously mentioned people to be a credible authority of information.

It was only a few years after this terrible part of history before the birth of the modern state of Israel in 1948.   A nation born in a day.  Isaiah 66 : 8 says “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.”

This photo I took at the end of the museum, is this amazing view of the north of Jerusalem onto a forest.   This beautiful and dramatic view is a nice and concludes a visitor’s trip by showing the land that the Jewish people waited so long for.

www.yadvashem.org.il

My mention on Google’s holocaust records project.

Next, a head of state spotted…

Mar 9 2011

Jerusalem roof top exploring

I have always wondered if its possible to go on the roofs of the apartments here.  Most of the time the hatch on the top floor is locked.

Whilst I was watching some films at a friends house, they told me theirs wasn’t.

Curiosity meant I had to check it out and get some pictures…

Yes those are solar panels, almost every block in Israel has them as they run the white cylinder things which run your hot water.  There’s some garden rubbish up here, which is odd seeing its got to be tricky to carry things up the ladder.  I guess it might of been from someone who trimmed a tall tree.

I would like to be Jason Bourne and run along roof tops, that scene from that film set in Morocco has some houses that quite similar to here.

Years ago, some extra footnotes in a bible I had mentioned that people during the time of Jesus dried flax on their roofs or used it for guests to sleep on.  Not sure if there is stuff in the scriptures to prove it, or if there is evidence in archaeology.  Where I live in this area in East Talpiyot part of Jerusalem the flats were built between the 80s and the 90s.

View from here over a school and a small allotment where some residents have some vegetables.

You see a lot from up here!  my house is about 1.5Km away in about the middle in the distance….

Feb 11 2011

Jerusalem Assembly

The weekend before last I went to a different church with a friend, this time to Jerusalem Assembly congregation in Talpiyot.

I ended up not going to my normal church (King of Kings) due to needing to stay in the house as my room mate was coming back and he would not have any keys to get in.

This service was great as Jerusalem Assembly, the service has two speakers, one in Hebrew and repeated in English.  Like some Hebrew only services in other churches you can rent these small radio receiver units, to get a translation, but at this church translations are offered in French, German, Spanish, Arabic and Russian!!

I thought this was quite amazing given the amount of work involved to do this, after the service there was soup and pastries and cake offered and a good chance to meet and chat with different people.   I got see some Israeli believers I work with, as well as other Jewish, Arab and foreign Christians working or volunteering in the land from different congregations.  The word and the worship was really good here.

www.jerusalemassembly.com

Feb 1 2011

Weather in the desert

This is out of my bedroom of my flat yesterday morning (31st January)  We have rain, and plenty of it!!

Someone did tell me of storms this week that were due.   Not only is the rain a blessing and desperately needed, its probably a good thing for the Egyptians if they get some, as I doubt if troublemakers will want to be protesting and looting out in the wet!   Last night there was a brief bit of thunder and lightning, and I think some more light rain.