Israel

Two Days in Israel

 

Following our afternoon in Limassol, we arrived at dawn at the Haifa harbor.  This is the farthest east one can go in the Mediterranean Sea yet we were moving westward when I looked out the cabin window.  That is because the entrance to Haifa's harbor faces north and we turned right after entering the breakwater. 

 

Haifa is primarily a commercial port.  We were one of two passenger ships in the port that day.  The other ship, the Royal Iris, was even smaller than ours was.  It was apparently loading passengers and luggage to begin a voyage from Haifa.  Haifa has some tourist attractions but is not a major tourist destination.  The Silver Wind stopped here mostly to run tours into northern Israel and an expensive two-day overnight to Jerusalem.

 

I had signed up for an 8.5 hour all day trip to Jerusalem the following day, Monday, from Ashdod while Michael originally signed up for an all day trip from Ashdod to Masada.  Michael's trip had been cancelled and he had chosen a half-day trip to Tel Aviv as a replacement. We were both anticipating an all day 10+ hour trip to the pyramids in Egypt on Tuesday.  As a result, we passed on an all day tour to the Golan Heights with lunch at a Kibbutz on our Sunday in Haifa.  We opted instead to take the Silverseas provided shuttle bus to the top of Mt. Carmel, enjoy the view and visit a local neighborhood.  After lunch on the ship, we walked out of the port and explored the "German Colony" district on our own.

 

I am glad I visited a "normal" non-touristy area and got to see real Israelis going about their ordinary daily business.  It seemed all very familiar except for two things: every hotel and large business had an armed security guard at the entrance and all the signs were in Hebrew.   Some signs were in both Hebrew and Arabic but few were in English.  At least the security guards appeared bored and did not look as if they expected any trouble.

 

The German Colony was a street of nineteenth century buildings erected by a group of German Christians who established a colony in the "holy land" in the 1860's.  They were all expelled during and after WWII.  Most were relocated to Australia.  Today the buildings have historic designations and have been repurposed as restaurants, boutique hotels and small businesses.

 

I enjoyed a relatively relaxing day in Haifa.  Sunday was just another workday.  The Jewish Sabbath is Saturday so the weekend in Jewish neighborhoods is Friday and Saturday.  In the Arab Christian neighborhoods, on the other hand, businesses were mostly closed Sunday.

 

Please see Michael's blog: http://cbu-med1106.blogspot.com    for a description of his trip to Tel Aviv and his comments on the places we have both seen.

 

How do I describe Jerusalem?  Early Christians thought it was the center of the world. It is a place sacred to three major religions.  I'm not sure what I expected to see, yet everything about it was a surprise. 

 

The first thing I noticed as the bus drove through the Judean hills was terraces everywhere.  The hills rose in steps.  Some terraces were natural stone outcrops, others were made of stone or brick blocks.  Olive trees grew on some terraces; others seemed unused for agriculture at this time although they must have been farmed once.  I realized people have lived here for thousands of years, shaping and reshaping the landscape.

 

All the towns away from the coastal areas occupied hilltops. Our guide said this was historically both for defense and to preserve the lower slopes for agriculture.

 

Modern Jerusalem spreads over a number of hills.  Our tour guide took us through the park like areas of the major public buildings, through residential streets, past monuments and the train station to a lookout point on the south edge of the city.  We saw the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, the domes and spires of the Dome of the Rock and other structures on the Temple Mount. The surrounding hills and steep valleys steeped in history looked almost surreal.  Off to the east in the distance we could see the wall now separating the Israeli controlled area from the Palestinian villages.  We could also see the new apartment buildings of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory.

 

We drove a few blocks further west to a hill overlooking Bethlehem in the Occupied Territory.  It looked far less prosperous than the Israeli areas.  I had never given it much thought but I was continually surprised by how close together all these famous places are.

 

We stopped at an "approved" gift shop for a rest stop and shopping opportunity.  Everything was priced in American dollars.  Most merchandise seemed expensive, even with the tour guide's twenty percent discount.  I did by a commemorative tee shirt that was not too expensive.

 

Next, the bus took us on a route that completely circled the walls of the old city.  We learned that Suleiman the Magnificent constructed the walls in the fifteenth century.  

 

According to our tour guide, the population of Jerusalem did not expand beyond the walls until the early twentieth century.  Nowadays 400,000 people live in Jewish Jerusalem and about 200,000 live in the Arab part of the city.  The city has no industry and not much business activity.  Government offices, religious activities and tourism employ most residents.  Others commute to Tel Aviv for work.  I kept hearing repeatedly how it is impossible to find a parking place in Tel Aviv as over 1 million people commute to work there.

 

The bus passed and the guide pointed out scenic views of famous landmarks; the Mount of Olives, Gethsemane, the Jewish cemeteries, King David's City outside the walls where current archaeological excavations are taking place and important buildings in the distance.  We stopped at Mt. Zion to tour the Domition Church, where Mary is alleged to have been assumed into Heaven (the church was closed as a service was taking g place) and to enter the room supposed to be the site of the Last Supper.  Below that, we saw the tomb, not believed to be real, of King David.

 

One of the tour participants, a woman in her late sixties, was indignant that there was no table in the Last Supper room.  She also had a hard time accepting that Jesus was Jewish and the Last Supper was a Seder.

 

All of these sites, once relatively simple places, have had generations of temples, churches and mosques built over them.  It is impossible to imagine how they may have looked in biblical times. In addition, many hundreds of years passed from the supposed time of biblical events before the places became identified as THE place where this or that happened.  Nevertheless, they are holy for millions of people.

 

Our tour group stopped for a magnificent lunch at the Leonardo Hotel (formerly the Sheraton.)

Our guide had saved the walking tour of the Jerusalem Old City culminating with a visit to the Western Wall for the afternoon.  He told us that Mondays and Thursdays the Western Wall thronged with bar mitzvahs, usually for American boys.  By waiting until afternoon, the crowds at the wall would be less.  We had seen festive families arriving by the busload at Mt Zion earlier.  The ceremony completed, they bore party supplies to celebrate the occasion in an historic spot.

 

The walking tour of Jerusalem Old City took us downhill (thankfully) from the Jaffa Gate through interesting alleyways and narrow streets filled with tiny shops and tents.  All kinds of souvenirs were offered for sale.  Our first stop was at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher built in the Christian Quarter supposedly on the spot where Jesus was nailed to the cross, crucified, laid on the ground, prepared for interment and buried.  At least that is what the four Christian denominations who maintain the site claim and millions believe.  We had an extensive tour of this site with the exception of entering the Holy Sepulcher itself, as the line to pass through it is always very long.  We climbed a steep stairway to see the final Stations of the Cross.

Photos without flash were allowed so I have some good pictures.  We climbed down another steep stair to see the tomb and all the chapels occupying nearby niches.  The icons, the metalwork and the lamps were wonderful. The church has a magnificent panoply of Christian holy artifacts well worth seeing. 

 

As I mentioned before, I'm skeptical of the historical reality.  Most of these places, I've read, were identified by the Roman Emperor Constantine's mother Helena.  After her conversion to Christianity, she pilgrimaged throughout the eastern Mediterranean to find and identify biblical sites with the aid of her holy visions.  There is little physical proof of anything as the Middle East in general and Palestine in particular were conquered, destroyed and rebuilt many times over the past two to three thousand years.

 

The Western Wall of the Temple Mount where Herod built the second temple has archaeological provenance.  In the Jewish Quarter I saw recently unearthed wall remains that the Israelis have identified as from the era and probably part of the foundation of the first, or Solomon's temple.  There are also archaeological digs outside the walls that date from the age of King David's Jerusalem.

 

The Christian quarter of the Old City is dotted with churches built over the past 1500 years by one important personage or another.  The buildings reflect many eras and styles. As we entered the Jewish Quarter, the architecture changed dramatically.  The Israelis did not have control over the Old City until after the Six Day War in 1967.  Since that time, they have torn down many old buildings and built new apartment buildings in the area.  The new buildings are of the same tan sandstone as the older buildings.  It was while digging foundations for a new apartment building the remains of the first temple were discovered.  We came upon an open area, fenced in with placards explaining the significance of the traces of wall within.  I found it very exciting to see such ancient history.

 

The route from our first entry through the Jaffa Gate to the Western Wall of the temple mount was about a mile long, essentially all downhill.  The Western Wall is at the lowest point in the old walled city. The area in front of the wall had been cleared of buildings to accommodate the crowds of believers and tourists that come daily to visit this most important site of Judaism.  We had to go through a security checkpoint before we could enter the open area.  Men and women are required to approach the actual wall in separate areas.  I was very moved as I approached in the women's section.  There were several older women in very conservative dress praying from Hebrew prayer books.  Other women in more modern dress were praying silently or contemplating as they stood near or touched the wall.  Many put little pieces of paper containing prayers into the cracks between the stones of the wall.  I saw booksellers a few yards away selling pages from prayer books to people to put in the wall.  Our guide had told us that the papers are swept up daily, bagged and saved.  Once a year they are reverently buried outside the wall.

 

Thirty-five tired but exhilarated travelers reboarded our bus for the hour and a half drive back to the Silver Wind at Ashdod.  The trip to Jerusalem had been amazing.