Filed under: Visiting Israel
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Our family photos going up to Jerusalem, December 18 – 20, 2006:
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Link to mood music for this page on Jerusalem
http://www.internationalwallofprayer.org/Index-001-Jerusalem-of-Gold.html
We left Willimantic on a Peter Pan bus that met us in the Temple Bnai Israel parking lot at 1 pm on Monday, December 18, 2006. It was the third day of Chanukah, 27 Kislev 5767. After a great deal of packing anxiety and a delay due to the August second war in Lebanon, some study, and leaving our two UCONN guys at home for the 10 days that we would be away, the remaining four in our family prepared for the trip, argued about packing too much, worried about losing our credit cards and passports, and joined the others in our group of 23 on the bus.
The 3 hour ride to Kennedy airport was pleasant. At the terminal, we searched for Israir, were amused by the questions the young Israir asked us – what my middle initial stands for – L for lion, whether Fay was our daughter. We had some time to enjoy the donut holes at the ticket counter and the Chabadniks giving out Chanukah information and sufganiot – too fried donuts. We left our liquid containers at security and went through the lines for more waiting for our flight at 8 pm. We boarded without much problems but were on the plane for 90 minutes before take-off – some mechanical problems.
Israir Airlines, which seems to rent their planes from Icelandic Airlines, crowded many into the plane. There was a high school class from a day school near Baltimore, several hasidic families with hat boxes, business people, and tourists. Israir provided slippers and pillows, four movies, several meals, and a screen that showed where the plane was over the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Some sleep, mostly watching the screen, reading about getting a spiritual experience while visiting Israel, the airline magazine that included information on airplane exercising, eating dinner and then breakfast, and arriving at Tel Aviv at about 3 pm.
We slowly got off the plane and found ourselves down wide corridors to the security. After about 30 minutes waiting in line, the four of us presented our passports, told the security woman that we were visiting, and exits to find Momo, the Oranim representative who we had first met in September 2005, waiting for our group. Finding our luggage was not too much of a problem, the airport offers free carts, and we joined our group gathering for instructions. I tried using my ATM card for funds but couldn’t figure it out. It would take some time to convert the letters in our PIN into numbers, but when I got the process, it was too easy to withdraw shekelim at the hotel or at a gas station. Fortunately, our checking account offers no-fee ATM use world-wide.
Some luggage was lost but most arrived safely. When we were about ready, we left the building and met Rafi, our guide, Judah, our bus driver, and Seva, our security guard. It was a cool twillight as we took a group photo at the airport and then boarded the bus to go up to Jerusalem.
In the darkness of the early evening, we climbed away from Tel Aviv and up the Judean hills to Jerusalem. I was reminded of the American southwest – San Diego or Phoenix – lights on the top of hills in the distance. Rafi spoke of the Jerusalem limestone, Chanukah in Jerusalem, and pointed out the growth of the city in the past few decades. When we entered Jerusalem, we went via west Jerusalem, passing the Knesset, to the street above the Dung Gate. We entered the Wall area via the Dung Gate. I asked about putting a message in the wall and Rafi said we would have time.
After learning how to say “a-fo ha-sha-ru-tim”, where are the bathrooms?, we prepared to enter the tunnels under the Western Wall. The tour is described at
http://www.aish.com/seminars/tunneltours/overview.asp
We went on a fascinating tour under the present day Muslim quarter on the streets of the past. Rafi showed us a model with moving parts of the development of the temple mount, these tunnels, over 3000 years. There were chanukiot at a doorway that some think leads to where the Holy of Holies on the Temple Mount. In some places, the pathway was wide enough for only two thin people. We walked to a cistern in the northern part of the city. I was very impressed while looking down on a plexiglass bridge to the bedrock 40 feet below – this wall is ancient, mysterious, and seems rooted, as legend says, in the navel of the world.
We went as far as a underground reservoir and then returned along the same path, not taking another route that goes under the Muslim Quarter for Rafi felt it was unsafe in the evening. When we exited the tunnels, we had a chance to see again the Western Wall and the large chanukiah with 5 candles glowing, powered by olive oil. We headed to the bus and the trip to the hotel.
The hotels for our trip are posted at
http://www.jewishadventures.com/tbi/hotels.asp
with
December 18-24, 2006
Grand Court Hotel
15 Saint George Street, Jerusalem, Isreal
Tel: +972-2-5917777
Fax: +972-2-5917778
December 24-26, 2006
Ha’on Holliday Village
Beside the Sea of Galilee
Tel: +972-4-6656555
Fax: +972-4-6656557
December 26-27, 2006
Renaissance Tel Aviv Hotel
121 Hyarkon St. Tel-Aviv
Tel: +972-3-5215555, +972-50-5701155
Fax: +972-3-5215588
We arrived at the Grand Court Hotel. Rafi and I later discussed that it was built right on the 1967 border between west Jerusalem – part of Meah Shearim is on the hills to the west of the hotel - and the the red roof buildings of the American Colony. The Grand Court Hotel was less than 2 years old at the time. Its neighborhood, the Novotel Hotel, was just a few years older.
The bus was unpacked and room were assigned; my son and I, my wife and my daughter to rooms next to each other. Our luggage was taken to our rooms after we labelled them. We lit the 5th candle in the lobby, already aglow with other chanukiot. Then we went downstairs to a plentiful buffet dinner that featured salads, fish, homus, barbecued chicken legs, brisket, grape leaves, “cheese” cake, fruit pies, tea … We did not lack for food on this trip.
We unpacked after dinner and TV surfed, channels in Hebrew, Russian, Spanish, English – with US sitcoms. Rafi had bet that we would not be up before 7 am and that we would be leaving the hotel for touring in Jerusalem by 9 am.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
I had trouble sleeping, as I do in hotels. Eventually fell asleep watching TV on mute so as not to wake our son. Watched a black & white comedy about young Israeli recruits and their training – sort of like a fraternity film with exaggerated characters, called something like “A Small Romance”, translated from the Hebrew. We work at 6:30 for another plentiful meal – salads, smoked fish, fruits, cheeses, … The group gathered to start our tour.
Rafi directed bus driving Judah up Mount Scopus, passing Hebrew University, the soon to be reopened Student Village, to the Mount of Olives. We looked down across the wadi filled with headstones to the Temple Mount and Rafi provided a history lesson on the dynamic past and future of Jerusalem. There was evidence that the Mount of Olives was being contested – a group of teen-age men hanging out on the roofs of buildings that turned out to be a yeshivah establishing its presence in this predominantly Arab neighborhood. We stopped at the summit below the Seven Arches Hotel; there were vendors and a camel for the other tourists that came along, and some local teen-agers who made comments about our group. The tombstones below were often family plots and collections of bones in ossuaries.
Rafi pointed out the City of David where we would have an afternoon tour and the American Colony, near our hotel. While he spoke, we heard gunfire. Seva called and found out that a suspected packages was exploded in the old city. We took group shots that would be posted on the Oranim website and shared later.
On the way down from the Mount of Olives, we saw a view of the wall, defense fence, dividing parts of the neighborhood. One might consider the walls to be like the walls dividing a neighborhood from a highway in some cities. Rafi explained that they are designed to keep bombers from having easy access to the old city and other parts of Israel.
We stopped by the Jaffa Gate and walked to the Citadel of David museum. The museum provided a history of the development of Jerusalem and featured a scale model of the city in the late 19th century. The gardens featured glass sculptures created by Dale Chihuly. Rafi gave us a history lesson on the changing boundaries of Jerusalem and Israel and then we walked on the wall of Jerusalem from the Jaffa Gate across Mount Zion and the Armenian Quarter, passed the Dormition Abbey . I mentioned that the grave of Schlinder (of the list) is on Mount Zion. We arrived at the Jewish Quarter for lunch of falafel and some shopping. Then we descended into the Western Wall area and I had some time to put messages into the wall that I had gathered from friends. The women’s section was far more crowded than the men’s area – in the past few weeks, the women’s section has been allocated more room. The group gathered for a visit to the City of David at about 2:30.
At the City of David, we saw a film on why this spot was developed – in a valley with some underground streams that might be tapped by tunnels from the walled city above. We then descended into the tunnels based what some think was David’s palace to the stream level. Across from the City of David is the Silwan neighborhood – a community built on the sloping hills of the Mount of Olives. As dusk approached, we boarded the bus and across through the lower level of Silwan towards west Jerusalem.
I had told Rafi about the question an Arab merchant had asked me in 1974 – would I want a blue peace or a green peace? I said that I wanted a blue peace and he laughed. I had interpreted the question as being on the survival of Israel – blue for the ocean, green for being buried. Debbie and I had walked up a hill for a view after we had exited the spring tunnel and Rafi had asked if I was looking for peace.
We drove to Ben Yehudah Street for some touristic shopping. I bought a watch with a design that looked like a jet dropping bombs on a radar station that I showed everyone; my sports watch seemed to have lost its battery. Fay and I looked for tallit. The group convened in an hour and we returned to the Grand Court for lighting the Hanukiah and another very filling dinner and rest. We called the boys at home and figured out how to get shekelim from the ATM machine in the hotel lobby.
Restless night watching movies and some sleep. Watched an Israeli black and white movie on 3 recruits joining the Israeli army, a comedy called “A Small Romance” that was a bit like the fraternity films in the US. The girls’ camp was adjacent to the boys’ camp, foppish drill sargeant. Noticed that suicide bombers are called jihadists on Star News – an English language news service for Asia.
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