Here’s a photo of my daughter trying to walk backwards at the Kotel, the Western Wall. It is considered respectful not to put your back to the Kotel. The wall that one can see at the Kotel plaza is actually a mere fragment of the walls of the Second Temple renovated by Herod Around 19 BCE.
We took an underground tour that showed us the full extent of the wall on the west. On this tour we passed by Warren’s Gate, an ancient entrance to the Temple. I was surprised to see women davening (praying) as we tourists tramped on through them. The men had less interuption in a balcony above. This is considered the closest one can get to the Kodesh HaKedoshim, the Holy of Holies. The gate is named after the explorer Charles Warren, whom our tour guide told us to Google to find out more about this fascinating man. According to our guide, at some point in his tunnel explorations Warren seemed to have accidentally come upon the bathroom of some nuns, but I couldn’t find any evidence of this anecdote online. He was also known to have failed to find Jack the Ripper when he returned to England.
I am working on a post of Ir David, the most fascinating of the tours we took, because every few months they discover something new. And this is by far the most ancient section of Jerusalem (it is right outside the Dung Gate, outside of what is called the Old City). Charles Warren shows up again in Ir David.
A photo of a flower I took at Latrun, site of an important 1948 battle and now home to a memorial museum and many tanks on display. Many Israeli flowers are different than the ones here in New Jersey. Maybe some day I will learn the names. (update: bougainvillea or paper flower, I think)
While we were in Jerusalem this week, there was a terrorist attack on Jaffa Road. We only found out because an Israeli-American friend called to find out if we were OK (we were having a great time). To find out more, you can read these Israeli bloggers. I know as much as anyone who watched the news! Life went on as usual for us, for Jerusalem Israelis, and for the abundant number of tourists in the city. There were so, so many tourist groups of teenagers (Birthright, USY, NCSY) and young visitors. Older visitors, too. What a pleasure to see! I’ll be happy to be the one to report the good news.
Finally, I added a hint to my mystery photo post.
Can you identify what is in this photo?
Hint from Parshat Korach (Numbers 18:30) —
Therefore thou shalt say unto them: When ye set apart the best thereof from it, then it shall be counted unto the Levites as the increase of the threshing-floor, and as the increase of the wine-press.
Ilana-Davita (5.) was the closest thus far. I’ll post the answer with more photos and explanation next week.
Can you imagine if every time you needed spices you had to work this hard? And in the heat, too, because there was no air-conditioning 1000 years ago. This photo was taken at Neot Kedumim in Israel.
Tsefat in the Galil in Northern Israel suffered an earthquake in 1837
or, this could also be titled:
How do you talk to someone who expresses a lot of fears?
I was thinking of subtitling this: ‘How to talk to an elderly person.’ But the truth is, it could be a child who is very anxiety-prone. And for some elderly adults who have seen so much over their lifetimes, anxiety over an earthquake is not a big issue.
When I visited with my aunt who is in her eighties, she told me she is glad she no longer lives in Jerusalem, because the people who live there are going to be in trouble. At first, I thought she meant they were in danger for spiritual reasons. No, she meant for physical reasons. She had seen a television show that stated an earthquake is due to come to Israel, and Jerusalem is going to be one of the harder hit places. She said the Arabs (generally speaking) tend to build their homes on rock, and the Jews (generally speaking) built homes on sand. So the Jewish homes are more at risk in an earthquake. How structures are built can determine who lives and who dies in an earthquake. For example, in the recent China earthquake, sadly, some children died at school while their parents at home survived.
In responding to my aunt, I mostly listened, trying to echo what she said (what I would call “active listening”). I asked my cousin what he thought of his mother’s earthquake anxiety. She does have a point, he responded. However, he figures the earthquake isn’t due for another ten years. So for the next nine years, he tells her, don’t worry about it!
Do earthquakes cause you anxiety? Or maybe you get concerned over global warming? When I was a kid, the thought of nuclear war used to scare me.
My breakfast at Kfar Blum (my son makes fun of how much salad I eat)
Westbank Mama hosts Kosher Cooking Carnival.
And
Phyllis at ImaBima hosts Haveil Havalim: The Packing for Camp Edition. Thank you, Phyllis, for including some Pirkei Avot links and a link to my Galil post. We need to pack for camp (Camp Stone, for Middle Son) when we are finished unpacking from our Israel trip.
Gardening in Israel is different this year. This is the year of shmitta, the seventh year of a cycle, in which the land of Israel is supposed to lie fallow.
When I arrived at my cousin’s house in the Galil, I noticed that some of the plants were similar to those in my own garden: snapdragons, dianthus and white alyssum. The tops of the plants, however, were browned. In my own garden, I just reach down and pluck off the top browns of the plants. This is called deadheading, and it helps to rejuvenate the plant so new flowers will grow. In the shmitta year, however, religious Jews in Israel do not do deadheading. There are few tasks that they are allowed to perform in their gardens; mostly just watering the plants is allowed. They are not even allowed to apply mulch to the sides of the plants; this must be done in the year before shmitta.
I wondered aloud to my cousin if gardeners suddenly do a lot of gardening the week after Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, when shmitta is over and the new year begins. She reminded me that only religious Jews in Israel keep shmitta, so many of the gardens are kept up, despite the laws. She then told me about a friend who lived in a mixed neighborhood in Jerusalem whose neighbors got irritated with him because he was not tending his garden. He then put up a sign saying: “Shmitta Observed Here”, so it would be obvious that his garden was not in that state due to lazy neglect.
I have many, many pictures of our travels in Israel. And a few early morning drawings, too. However, I cannot seem to upload to my website, either through WordPress or through Dreamweaver. So I may need to wait until I return to the U.S. to start to post photos. Update: I just got a free ftp program to upload a picture for me (FileZilla). So a few pics will be posted soon.
We spent a whole week in the Galil, a few days in the lower Galil on my cousin’s yishuv (a settlement in which almost everyone goes outside of yishuv to work, and families own their own homes, as opposed to a kibbutz, which is jointly owned) and a few days in Kfar Blum, a lovely kibbutz hotel. Breakfast at the hotel was splendid: fruits, salads, cheeses, a variety of breads and spreads, scrambled eggs, sunny side up eggs, omelets made on the spot, fluffy pancakes, croissants, orange and grapefruit juice, tea with fresh mint and lemon on the side, and good coffee, too. But my laptop didn’t talk to the hotel’s wireless.
We hiked Tel Dan and Banias (in the Golan). Tel Dan worked out better than Banias, because it had a combination of cool shade and a bit of archeological digs that were in sunnier spots. There was a great wading pool at Tel Dan. At Banias, my husband had memories of swimming there in 1975. Unfortunately, we didn’t read the brochure, which clearly said “NO SWIMMING”. So my kids thought they were going on a short hike with a swim at the end, and we went on a long hike with a lovely waterfall at the conclusion, but no swimming allowed. So unfortunately my kids will have frustrating memories of Banias.
Before leaving the Galil, we went to Rosh Hanikra. I have great photos from that lovely spot up in the farthest north-western spot of Israel. The British built a railroad here that was supposed to provide transportation to Turkey and then further up to Europe, and it brought military aid in the fight against the Nazis. Some survivors from Nazi Germany were able to make it through the tunnel and into Palestine. During the war, however, the tunnel was blown up. It is a shorter distance to Beirut from Rosh Hanikra than to Jerusalem.
We also visited Tsfat, one of my favorite spots in Israel, Tiberias, and Luna Gal, a waterpark near the Kinneret. On Friday we went to Neot Kedumim, an archeological and nature park with many signs of phrases from Tanakh (Bible) and from the Talmud. This is being posted from Hashmonaim, a town about one-third the size of Highland Park. Quite a few ex-Highland Parkers have made this town their home.
We will be spending the last few days of trip in Jerusalem.
On the road to the Kinneret. The Kinneret is a beautiful, large lake with windsurfers, sailboats, an “ancient” Galilee boat (probably just fifty years old, not really from Roman times) and swimmers. It is in the lower Galil (or Galilee in English); on the banks of the Kinneret is the city of Tiberias, which, like the city of Tsfat a bit to the north, was destroyed in the earthquake of 1837 and rebuilt. What is there to see in the Galil? Caves and graves, is what I was told by my cousin! We saw some graves on the side of the road, but we didn’t stop to visit any.
We spend a wonderful week in the Galil (and visited Banias in the Golan). Unfortunately, internet woes (my adapter doesn’t seem to talk to Israeli routers, will investigate after it’s no longer an issue) prevented me from posting up until now.
