Shalom Jerusalem

Tonight ends a beautiful first visit to Israel, but the journey continues.
We spent our last day in the Old City, visiting the Wall, seeing Netanhayu at the Wall after his swearing in as the new Prime Minister. Abby and I shopped and talked and bared our souls. We met Rabbi Moshe for lunch and more conversations. And as we left the City for our last walk to our apartment in Barkai House, we met the co-commander of the ship Exodus, and another holocaust survivor who served in the military and helped Jews after the war. Ah, another day in Jerusalem where everyone mingles, and everyone has a story. You only need to stop and listen.

And to those considering a trip, we never once felt unsafe, or unwanted, or as outsiders. Where else could we share 5000 years of history and soul. This has been an amazing journey for us educationally, spiritually, and joyfully.

Signing off, Stu and Adrienne, The Kirschners in Israel

People Watching

Yemin Moshe--Jerusalem

Yemin Moshe is another Jerusalem neighborhood, close to the King David Hotel, overlooking the Old City and the West Bank (the West Bank is so close we can see it from the hilltop).
In the 1950's British philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore built this residential quarter, the first outside the walls of the Old City, in an effort to bring "indigent Jews from the Old City into a more healthful environment." In addition to the housing, the project included a windmill and flour mill. Today this is a very gentrified small neighborhood whose residents take great pride in their homes, the history, and the magnificient views from their balconies. During our wanderings Stu stopped to take a picture of an interesting door which features a Mogen David imbedded in a cross. No sooner had he snapped the photo than the owner, Scandinavian born, writer and artist Birgittta Yavari-Ilan, opened the door and invited us in to see her home. This is a fully restored house over 140 years old, renovated and upgraded with the original rough hewn stone floors, wood beams, and iron work. Her art hangs throughout, as does her collection of Judaica. Birgitta is a spiritual student-seeker who has been in Israel for over 30 years. We had a delightful 90 minute visit which we cut short so we could be on our way, although it was tempting to stay and enjoy the tea she offered. We took her book along as a momento of our visit. PS. She sometimes rents her upstairs guest rooms, only by word-of-mouth. Sounds like a wonderful place to stay on our next visit.
After our final visit to the suq, where we went seeking macaroons and rugallah, we returned to our neighborhood. This evening we settled for dinner out at the Vegetarian Garden. The people sitting at a table near us, asked about the book we were browsing. Seems that they are friends of Brigitta, had lived in her house for a short time, and see her regularly. Jerusalem is a small town.
Everywhere we go we meet people, a journalist on the bus, writers, artists, religious seekers, and tourist guides. There are so many American Israelis here, we are as likely to hear English as Hebrew everywhere we go.

More Jerusalem Sites

The next to the last day of our trip and we're trying to load up on sites and people. We spent most of the day people watching and wandering about.
Our first stop was the Artist Walk outside the Old City. We visited the artist, Moitke Blum--a holocaust survivor, whose art work we purchased a week earlier. He has the most unusual shop in the Walk, note the sculpture over the door.
We continued uphill--Stu swears that every street in Jerusalem is uphill--in order to meet with Devorah at the AIPAC office. We had an opportunity over lunch to discuss politics, who is coming on AIPAC missions, how to reach out to both Jews and non-Jews, and what might be in the impact of Israel's new government. We were extremely impressed by how much the Jerusalem office does with their small staff of 8. Among other things they arrange for approximately 40 missions to Israel a year--senators, scientists, journalists, students, community activists, Evangelicals, Jewish donors, and more. We're glad they are there.
Across the street from Aipac's offices is Liberty Bell Park with its replica of the Liberty Bell. Inscribed on our Bell is a quote from Isiah, the same one that Ben Gurion used during the declaration of Independence on May 14, 1948.
Everyone in the city, in the country, are beautiful, gnarly olive trees. We could do a photographic study of olive trees that would fill a large album.

Sunday in Jerusalem

Our trip to Jerusalem and Israel is quickly drawing to a close. We spent Sunday morning at the Supreme Court, where we listened to a case against the state, and at the Knesset, which was not in session but was preparing for the new government which will be sworn in on Wednesday.
And then we wandered about town stopping at other important sites--a Gelato in the German colony, Max Brenner chocolate (a chain of eateries), and a bagel shop.
Abby joined us for the afternoon and evening and gave us a tour of her home turf--German colony. This is a very upscale neighborhood, with straight streets--the first we've seen in Jerusalem. Restaurants are upscale, the neighborhood is home to the young and up and coming. We checked some realty listings, a home in the area can cost $3.6 million for about 3000 square feet.
There are so many individual neighborhoods, sometimes one only has to go around the corner to be in a distinctly different neighborhood. We haven't seen them all and are continually surprised when we take a turn we hadn't tried before. We thought we had pretty much seen Jerusalem, now we know we have not.

Sderot, Ashkelon, & the Gaza Strip

Monday we spent the day with our tour guide, Ron Perry. After a guided tour of the Herzl Museum he suggested a trip across Israel to the Gaza Strip, Sderot, and Ashkelon. We were game.
The drive from Jerusalem west sent us through beautifully, green, lush hilly countryside--thanks to the Jewish National Fund. Before we realized we had nearly crossed the width of the country we were at Sderot, a small city outside the Gaza Strip and the recipient of Hamas' rocket fire. Although the town looked very peaceful and normal at first glance, every street has one or more bomb shelters, every house has, or is in the process of building a bomb shelter. The rockets are not massive, but if they fall on your home, they destroy it, on you and . . . It is the constant threat of rockets which make Sderot unsafe, frightening for the residents, and unstable. No where else in the world would a citizenry accept enemy fire for 8 years without firing back. Even during this latest conflict, Israel stopped all bombing and attack for 3 hours each day in order to provide food and supplies for the Palestinian people even though Hamas continued to fight.
The smoke stacks in the far right picture are a power plant which supplies electricity to the Gaza Strip and elsewhere. The balloon is one of the surveillance balloons used by Israel to "see" what is happening in the Gaza strip. And the military vehicle is patrolling the fence area between Israel and the Gaza strip. Our guide, Ron, said he tried to arrange for an aerial attack during our visit, so we could get the real sense of Sderot, but it didn't work out--to our great delight.
Gaza strip is approximately 45 miles long, almost all coast line, of a beauty to rival the Greek Costa S'Emerelda. If the Palestinians could get their act together, and stop focusing on killing all Israelis, they could develop into the premier tourist destination for Arabs throughout the globe.
From Sderot we drove north to a beautiful, modern sea side resort city. We had lunch at the marina. From the scenery we could easily have been at Redondo Beach or Malibu. It is no wonder residents of Tel Aviv flock to this resort city every weekend and holiday.
In spite of being under constant threat, Israel is thriving, its people are flourishing, and its land and industry is developing.

Christian Jerusalem Sites in Old City

On this very cold Shabbos afternoon we joined Abby and her friend Isabelle, a tour guide, for a visit to the Christian Quarter in the Old City. We learned a great deal about the Christian Communities in Old Jerusalem, and about the correlation to our Jewish traditions. Follow the photos from upper left corner around for the narrative.
(Upper left corner). We were inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher which we learned is divided among the six oldest Christian sects: Roman Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Greek orthodox, Egyptian Coptic, Ethiopian, and Syrian Orthodox. Each with its own priesthood and each with their own religious garb--not unlike the ultra orthodox Jewish dress, long, black, with interesting and varied hats. In this photo we see pilgrims to the church kissing the stone on which Jesus was prepared for burial. We remember that Jesus was Jewish. He was taken down from the crucifixion on Friday afternoon and immediately prepared according to Jewish ritual practice, for burial before Shabbos. This is the stone on which he lay while his body was washed and dressed in a white shroud. This same tradition continues today.
(center photo) Replicas of crosses for sale in the Arab/Christian Suq. There is a six foot cross in the courtyard of the Holy Sepulcher Church which pilgrims use when they follow the stations of the cross.
(Upper right photo). During the Muslim occupation of Jerusalem the Shiek needed to pray. He was invited to pray inside the church, but declined. He said that if he prayed in the church that in years to come the Muslims who feel the need to build a mosque at the site at which he prayed and would remove the church to do so. That is in fact what happened at the Temple of the Rock where the Muslims built their mosque on the site of the Jewish Temple.
(Middle Right side photo) Exterior shot of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This remodeling begun many years ago and has not progressed because the six Christian sects cannot agree on how to complete the remodel. Even within the great church, each sect has claimed a piece of the action, with slight deviations. Each claims ownership as the true church. Sounds like 2 Jews 3 opinions, or 6 Christian sects, 7 opinions.
(Large left corner photo) This is a photo of a cave from Jesus' time, a cave next to where Jesus was buried. The original cave was removed piece by piece by pilgrims, and thus no longer exists. The Jewish custom was to be buried in the family cave. A year after burial the family returned, picked up the bones after all of the flesh dissolved, and put the bones using the femur (longest) and hip bones (widest) to determine the size of the coffin. In this way all the family's bones were together in the same coffin when the mesiach arrived. Later the custom changed to have each person in his own coffin so that the person was whole and ready to greet the mesiah. Note that above the cave opening which is housed in the Church, pilgrims put prayers on slips of paper and push them into crevices in the cave wall--much as the Jews do at the Western Wall.
We learned more about the early church, the setting of dogma in the 4th century, the origin of the immaculate conception and angel Gabrielle's revelations to St. Anne (Mary's mother). Much of it very interesting, but varies from the commonly told narrative.
We completed this Christian tour with a visit to King David's tomb, a cave enclosed in a synagogue still in use today.
Although we had not planned to visit the Christian quarter during our limited stay, we were very glad we did.
Due to daylight savings time, Shabbos didn't end until 7:30, too late for us to wait for a Kosher restaurant to open and prepare some food. We took off on our own and had Mandarin Chinese dinner along with two buses filled with Chinese tourists!
Another great day in Jerusalem.