Garden Tomb in Jerusalem (among other things)

My co-workers were right. The rocket fire from Gaza has settled down, and things seem to be back to “normal” here in Israel.

President Obama received some attention this week for his meant-to-be-private exchange with French President Sarkozy (here for details) regarding Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu. When I asked my talkative cube-mate what his thoughts were, he replied, “He’s right – Netanyahu is a liar”.

Other notable headlines included this one announcing Israel’s plan to equip airliners with anti-missile systems, as Libyan anti-aircraft weaponry has apparently been smuggled into Gaza of late. I’m curious as to how soon it will be before Orbitz.com lets users filter their flight searches by this new criteria. If you plan on visiting, be sure to pick a well-equipped flight!

I also came across this story which theorizes that the “Mossad” (Israel’s version of the CIA) is responsible for the recent explosion at an Iranian missile base. With this, and talk amongst Presidential candidates of “covert action” at this week’s Republican debate (details here), Nicki commented that maybe the Bourne Identity series isn’t fiction after all.

On a less-scary note, Israelis were disappointed to find out that the Dead Sea lost its bid for inclusion into the new seven natural wonders of the world. This is in spite of a comprehensive PR plan to encourage Israeli’s to cast their vote. You can read about the PR campaign here, which included the establishment of a “Dad Sea Song”, a fashion show, and placement of a large clock on one of Tel-Aviv’s skyscrapers (which I drive by daily) counting down until the voting deadline.

And in our little circle of life, newsworthy events included Sammy eating his first solid food, haggling over a parking spot at the Carmel Market, and a stolen bike.

But first, I must catch up on a half-day trip to Jerusalem sometime in the last month. We slept in on a Friday and then watched a World Series game on delay. Finally, at 11:30, we were off to Jerusalem.

Then nice thing about Jerusalem is that it is so close, so we can do a ½ day trip without feeling like we’re not making the most of a day. It was Friday, and we had planned to start with the “Ramparts Walk”—a walking route up on the old walls from which you can peer into the Old City.  We quickly realized that we were victims of our own lack of planning. The north section of the Ramparts Walk is closed on Friday’s due to Muslim prayers (it’s their holy day), and it closes altogether after 2pm. The City of David was closed. The Temple Mount was closed. So, we decided to wander over to the Garden Tomb and then potentially sneak in the Mount of Olives if we had time (we didn’t).

The Garden Tomb, just outside the Damascus Gate of the Old City walls of Jerusalem, was definitely worth the visit.

Here is the Damascus Gate—not only does it serve as an entrance to the Muslim Quarter, it also seems to be being used as a market.



At the Garden Tomb, we were greeted by friendly British volunteers who told us that Sammy was their youngest visitor of the day--though we later met another 5 month old. We were quickly ushered into a tour led by another Brit (they had tours for a variety of languages) who gave us some insight into why this might well be the location where Jesus was crucified, buried, and where He rose again.  

Here’s a picture of the hill thought to be the “place of the skull”—Golgotha (Aramaic), or Calvary (Latin) as mentioned in Mark 15:22. Today, it’s a parking lot for buses.

Our guide mentioned that the hill used to better-resemble a skull, and showed us this picture from 100 years ago. Apparently there has been some erosion since then. Who knows what it looked like 2000 years ago.

The guide pointed out that this location was indeed outside of the original city walls of Jerusalem, which fits the Biblical description. He also corrected a common misconception—telling us that the three crosses (those of Jesus and the two criminals who were crucified on either side of Him) were likely not perched atop of Golgotha, but rather at the base of the hill. Check your Bible—references to the crosses being on top of the hill are not there. Apparently the Romans would typically place crosses near roads, so that passersby could see those being crucified. This brings up another point – the road to Damascus was nearby, so it was a “good” (visible) location for the crosses.

An unfinished (and empty) family tomb was also found nearby. Here it is. The round stone was added for effect—such a stone was not found at the site.

Our guide began to choke up a bit as he recounted the story of Jesus. It was neat to listen to someone who was so sincere, and to think about what may have happened here—quite a contrast to the atmosphere we’d seen on an earlier trip while visiting Via Dolorosa. Actually, another aspect of the Garden Tomb we found appealing was that our guide did not try to “sell” us on the fact that the events happened here. His focus was on the fact that Jesus’ death and resurrection DID happen—and the associated implications.

Our guide simply offered the Garden Tomb as a hypothetical location for the events, not as fact. On a side note, I may have also gotten a bit emotional if it weren’t for Sammy having a little accident on my lap right in the middle of the story.

Speaking of Sammy…here he is eating some carrots…his first ever bite!

And here is his name written in Hebrew (the word on the left, but read from right to left), and Arabic for that matter. Samuel is pronounced “Shmu-el”. We spotted this street sign while in Jerusalem.

And then there was the parking lot negotiation. Nicki and I went to check out the Carmel Market here in Tel Aviv. We found a parking lot and pulled in. The attendant approached and handed me an official looking slip of paper with 30 shekels printed on it. Thinking that $10 USD was a bit expensive for an hour or so of parking, I walked back towards him to question the price. He didn’t speak English, but got the hint and offered a price of 20 shekels. I then asked a woman who had just received her official slip of paper what he was charging her, and she replied “He wants 30 from you”, and then discreetly flashed her ticket, on which was printed 15 shekels. After some additional bargaining, we got a 15 shekel ticket and were on our way.

Walking by the parking attendant’s shelter, I noticed several stacks of “receipts”—he essentially had a stack for every multiple of 5 shekels…presumably hand-selected based on visual & audible inspection (having “Hertz” on the side of our car and speaking English likely didn’t help us). We wondered how this would go down in the States—were we discriminated against? Were our rights violated? Could we win a settlement? Should we protest?

Here is a random Israeili Hummus shop at the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv.

And the bike...Nicki needed the car in order to take Sammy to the clinic, so I decided to try riding my bike to the train station where I catch the shuttle to work. When I say “my” bike, I actually mean a bike that an Israeli friend had given me. He had picked it up during his assignment in Portland for $60 and recommended for me to take it to Israel as a commuter since bike theft is a problem here. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the route was fairly bike-friendly (a rarity here), and it only took me about 15 minutes. Thinking “I can get used to this”, I was already plotting more bike commutes—thinking that 2-3x per week would be about right.

After being dropped off back at the train station, I quickly found the spot where I thought I had locked up the bike, but didn’t see it. Soon I found not only my cut lock, but another one nearby. They stole my little commuter the very first time I used it! My co-workers have since filled me in on the golden rule for bikes in Tel Aviv—you need a bike that is worth LESS than your lock. A good lock and a junky bike…that is the ticket. I’ve got my eyes open, but have yet to find any used bikes for sale that are junky enough.

And finally, “winter” appears to be setting in. Who knew that skies could be something other than sunny here? Here’s a shot of a gray sky here in Tel Aviv. It poured rain for about 5 hours shortly thereafter--and there has been much rain since. Oh, and I wore long sleeves to work yesterday for the first time while in Israel. Bummer.

I also included some additional pictures below from our 1/2 day in Jerusalem, if you're interested.

We couldn't help but visiting the Western (aka Wailing) Wall again. Many Jews were lining up as Shabbat was about to set in on this Friday afternoon.

Just another Shabbat at the Wailing Wall - many faces...

Some type of rally was happening in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City as we walked through...the only word we understood chanted in Arabic was "Allah".

Rocket Day at School, Trip to Galilee

It was an eventful week. Surely Israel stole more than its share of headlines in news media around the world. There were many kids at work on Sunday—school having been cancelled due to the barrage of rockets (>40) being hurled into Southern Israel from Gaza. School was closed for three days in some areas, in fact, until the ceasefire settled in.

Many of my co-workers who live within rocket range of Gaza slept in their bomb shelters—reinforced rooms in their homes complete with ultra-thick windows and ventilation shafts--as they listened throughout the night to nearby explosions. Supposedly out of Grad rocket range (though Hamas claims to have alternate not-yet-used weapons that can reach our area), our apartment in Tel Aviv doesn’t include a reinforced room. We did some exploring though, and came to find a large reinforced-looking door in the basement of the complex, which is presumably our community bomb-shelter. If only we knew who has the key.

My talkative cube-mate said that his kid woke up in the middle of the night, and when he was informed that he’d be staying home from school the next day due to the rocket attacks, he celebrated—just like we used to back in Iowa when school was cancelled because of a snow storm. My cube-mate looked at me and said: “Do you understand? It shouldn’t be this way”. I agreed.

He also said “maybe they were right”…referring to those who long ago had supported a proposal to provide the Jews a state in Uganda instead of Palestine. Back in the early 1900’s, I’ve learned, the British had offered to give a portion of British East Africa to the Jewish people as a homeland. After much debate, the offer was declined.

I searched the web to see what the rest of the world was hearing. I noticed a CNN article highlighting the Israeli strike against terrorist group members, but neglected to point out that the conflict started after a rocket was fired into Israel from Gaza last week. Without this critical piece of info, a reader could come to the conclusion that the rocket fire was brought on solely by Israeli aggression. I’m not making a statement against CNN—and who knows the what the circumstances were that led to this information being excluded…but I did realize that when I’m forming opinions based on what I read (especially from a blog? J), I need to realize that I may not have the whole story.

Another story I came across was this one. Apparently spawned by the recent release of Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1027 Palestinian soldiers, a Saudi royal utilized Facebook to offer a $900,000 bounty on Israeli soldiers—a ploy with which he plans to leverage the release of more Arabs detained in Israeli prisons (in one of which my cube-mate was a medic during his stint in the military, by the way).

With the rocket fire dying down, the headlines now tout a potential preemptive strike against Iran in an effort to thwart their nuclear capability. This too, is nothing new, although a conflict seems inevitable at some point. As the Iranian military leader stated, Iran has been hearing threats of a strike for 8 years. We’re hoping that the primary reason for the recent headlines is an effort to draw worldwide attention to the issue, and that Israel is attempting gauge which nations are behind its cause to ensure that Iran isn’t able to build nukes.

Shifting gears, we recently utilized the last holiday weekend until April (Passover) to take a quick day trip to Galilee. I had an extra day off of work for Simchat Torah, which marks the end of the annual reading of the Torah.

Our first stop was Tiberias, a town situated on the Western shore of the Sea of Galilee (also known as the Sea of Tiberias and the Kinneret, in Hebrew) and just over 90 minutes drive from Tel-Aviv. After soaking in some views of the lake, uh, I mean sea, we looked for a place to eat lunch. Having forgotten that Tel-Aviv is a secular outlier amongst Israeli cities, we quickly realized that most of the town was shut down for Shabbat—including McDonalds, not that we were hoping to eat there. We finally found some restaurants open for tourists along the lakeside promenade, so satisfied our hunger with a couple of falafel sandwiches.

Here is a view of Tiberias with the Sea of Galilee in the background...

And here is another view of the Sea of Galilee (aka Sea of Tiberias, Kinneret), which gives you an idea of what the surrounding landscape looks like. We thought it looked a bit Central-Oregon-ish...

And here is a sign along the lakeside Tiberias promanade that gives you an idea of the shape of the Sea of Galilee. We thought maybe it tells viewers who can read Hebrew the depth of the lake as well. You can see the places where the Jordan River flows at the north and south ends of the lake.

We then drove north along the lake towards Capernaum (also apparently spelled Capharnaum), a lakeside village which is called Kfar Nahum (“Nahum’s Village”) in Hebrew, and is the town in which Jesus lived during his ministry. Jesus also recruited several of his disciples in Capernaum, as it was the home of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, who were local fishermen (see Matthew 4:13-21).

This is a sign stating some of the Biblical references related to Capernaum.

Here is Nicki at the synagogue which stands in the place where Jesus preached. While we were standing in the synagogue, on one side of the wall we heard worship songs being sung by a group of Christian tourists. On the other side of the wall, we heard a tour guide telling his guests that this is where Jesus had “spread his propaganda”. 

Other examples of Capernaum in the Bible include but are not limited to: Jesus performing healings (Mark 1:21-34), Jesus’ astonishment at the faith of the centurion (Luke 7:1-10), Jesus’ “Bread of Life” sermon after having walked on the water (John 6:16-59), Jesus’ take on taxes (Mark 17:24-26), and Jesus healing the paralytic man lowered through the roof by his friends (Mark 2:1-12).

Here is the octagonal Byzantine church that was (strangely, in my opinion) built over the site of what is thought to have been Peter’s house. You can also see some of the ruins of Capernaum.

From Capernaum, we attempted to drive up the hill towards the Mount of the Beatitudes, where Jesus preached to the crowds as recorded in Matthew 5. Knowing which direction to go, but not seeing any signs for the road, we ended up off-roading through a banana plantation in which I’m sure was a short-cut to the Mount. Water-thirsty bananas are grown near the lake, which is Israel’s primary source of fresh-water. This is somewhat controversial in the fact that the lake is drying up. You can read more about the water issues here.

Today, a catholic church sits atop the Mount of Beatitudes, which was a bit of a disappointment for me, as I was hoping for something a bit more representative of Jesus’ time. Nonetheless, we took in some views of the lake and then explored the church and well-kept grounds.

For this shot, I had the choice of capturing the entire church, or cutting of the top in order to include Nicki & Sammy. I chose the latter.

 Here is a view of the Sea of Galilee from Mount of the Beattitudes.

We watched the sun set over the Sea of Galilee from the Mount of Beattitudes.

On the return trip to Tel Aviv, we learned an important lesson about traveling in Israel on a holiday weekend. DO NOT wait until after Shabbat to head for home! Many Israelis were traveling for the weekend, and many Jews don’t drive on Shabbat…so as soon as the sun went down on Saturday, the roads were jammed with people trying to get home. 4.5 hours later, we made it back to Tel Aviv. For two of those 4.5 hours, traffic on our 4-lane highway came to a halt, until people started driving on the shoulders and even off-road! Soon there was a huge could of dust due to all of the cars that were driving through the desert about 20 feet off of the right shoulder. Definitely another China-esque moment, from our perspective.

Here in Tel-Aviv, the last weekend in October seemed to signify the end of summer. Beautiful weather meant that everyone was outside, and all who own a boat seemed to be sailing them at once. Here is a view from our balcony.

This weekend (first in November), on one of our regular walks, we found the beaches of Tel Aviv nearly empty. Sure, it was a bit breezy, but temps were still in the 70s--certainly warm enough for us. We were surpised to see that most of the tourists had seemingly gone home.

Speaking of beaches, I also came across this story about how Tel Aviv is viewed as one of the top places in the world in the eyes of propsective US Ambassadors. This "Miami of the Middle East" is deemed a nice combination of weather, culture, and policy-related issues which seems to bode well for diplomats.

And now for Sammy. He’s now 5 months old and newly-solidified tricks include the ability to roll-over and to jump in his “jump-a-roo”. We couldn't decide which one of these poses we liked best, so decided to post both :)

Note the bib...he was hoping that the verbiage was true!