Day 34: Sunday, May 25, Jerusalem

A view of the slum across the valley from David's palace and the Temple Mount.

Today we headed to an excavation site on the side of a hill in Jerusalem. They think it might be near David’s palace because of some writing and other clues they found in the ruins of a house. Unfortunately, since I’m not writing this soon after like I expected, I don’t remember the name of the person to whom the house belonged. Part of the reason they know it was a rich and important official is that it had… a toilet. In conversation with our guide later that day about Bathsheba he argued that David’s affair with Bathsheba wasn’t technically adultery. It centered around a Jewish concept of conditional divorce; I don’t remember the whole explanation, but I do remember thinking that even if I accepted his starting assumptions, it was a very technical argument and iffy even then. I was more interested in the fact that Jethro felt compelled to argue that Israel’s hero king didn’t have any flaws, as opposed to Christians who look on that and can accept David’s flaws because being a “man after God’s own heart” doesn’t mean being perfect.

Before we left, I asked about some Arab houses on the other side of the small valley. The houses looked like prime property – they had a clear view of the old city and a nice valley and were right next to everything in Jerusalem. However, they looked like slums, and people obviously dumped garbage over the wall and into the valley below. Our guide said they belonged to some poor Arabs who were stuck in a hard place. They are “land rich” – they have no cash, but their property is worth a lot. For legal reasons they can’t sell to an Arab, but if they sell to a Jew then they risk being killed by other Arabs simply because they don’t want that area going to the Jews. As a result, they continue to live in poverty there.

From there we went through Hezekiah’s tunnel, a half-kilometer underground aqueduct built during King Hezekiah’s reign. Its purpose was to bring water into Jerusalem during a siege. It’s pretty amazing that they could successfully dig this tunnel from both ends simultaneously and meet – today we use lasers and other tech to be sure our tunnel diggers meet in the middle. The tunnel is narrow, short, and still has water flowing through it, so you spend most of your time walking slightly hunched with ice-cold water up to your knees.

For lunch we went through a local open-air market. This was for the locals, unlike markets in some places that are aimed at tourists. Offerings included fruit, hodge-podge electronics/household goods, baked goods, meats, and a few miscellaneous stalls. The dried apricots were irresistible, so my brother got some and we shared them on the bus. The apricots were neither cheap nor expensive. We also got some great (and cheap) cinnamon buns.

Backgammon is the new bingo.

While looking for some restrooms I came across a great sight in the back of the market. About 10 backgammon tables were lined up with older men playing, betting, and slapping each other on the back. It was like the AARP social. I wandered over and watched for a while. One spoke marginal English (and even that is stretching it). Through signs I asked if I could take some pictures, to which they readily agreed – so long as I showed them the results. Some chests puffed out, guts got sucked in, and serious thinking faces went on as I took pictures, which was actually too bad. The one quasi-English speaker “talked” with me for a while, and I got out of it that he had been born in NYC, moved to Israel when he was a little kid, and had a grandson or other young relative in NYC. When a board freed up I asked if he wanted to play backgammon, but he didn’t, which was disappointing. I’m not sure if he didn’t quite get it, or if I should have put out money and then we would have played, but it didn’t work.

That afternoon we headed to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial/museum. It is actually a compound with several different buildings, a monument garden, etc. Everything means something, and it is obvious that they put an incredible amount of both thought and money into this, which is in some ways an explanation of a big part of the purpose behind the modern state of Israel. The Holocaust is still the defining chapter in cultural Judaism.

The Pillar of Heroism: "Now and forever in memory of those who rebelled in the camps and ghettos, fought in the woods, in the underground and with the Allied forces; braved their way to Eretz Israel; and died sanctifying the name of God."

One monument we went through was dedicated to the children killed in the Holocaust. You enter a room that is pitch black save for a single candle in the center of the room, and the walkway splits and goes around this. However, the interior is constructed of glass and mirrors, so the single candle is reflected thousands of times all around the room. In the background a voice reads the name, nationality, and age of children killed in the Holocaust. In an odd way, the memorial to what might be the most revolting aspect of the Holocaust is also the most peaceful, but haunting.

The other primary building is the actual museum, though it is also a memorial. The architecture is something else, with the museum housed in a concrete triangular tube that juts out from the hillside and into the air. The museum zig-zags down the length of the structure, with a narrow skylight down the apex providing some natural light. The museum starts before the war and spends a large portion of its space chronicling a part of the Holocaust that isn’t as well known – the forced ghettos and ghetto wars, for example. There is story after story of death in just about every form, of Jews being flushed out of burning ghettos, of people recounting how they survived a mass shooting because they were hidden under the bodies of their friends, of the starvation that was the norm, and of the more infamous gas chambers. The museum superficially wrestles with some issues – the decision of some Jews to run ghettos for the Germans in an attempt to shield its occupants from worse fates, for example, but each one ends with the “mediator” finding out that he was truly a pawn. Much of the story is told through a patchwork of personal stories, and the personal stories serve to keep the reader’s heart open while the body count numbs the mind. (Interestingly, Corrie ten Boom did not get a panel, but she is referenced in one. The parents of this person, a child at the time, had been told that if anything happened to the parents, they were to go to the ten Booms. One day the Germans came and took away the parents while the children hid in a closet, and they then went and found the ten Booms.) Our guide had a personal story of his own: Jethro’s grandfather had been in one of the concentration camps, and it was his responsibility to drag the lifeless bodies out of the gas chamber and burn them – only after doing a body cavity search to be sure the dead hadn’t hidden anything valuable. His grandfather was one of the very few in such roles to survive, because when the Nazis knew the game was up they did not want these people around to tell the stories.

The end of the museum is a glass wall at one end of the tubular building that opens onto a very pretty view of a surprisingly green valley. It is the needed breath of fresh air.

I had about three hours if I remember correctly, and I was rushed through the second half by the time limit. It was a place where you could spend a whole day – part of it in the museum, but part of it on the rest of the grounds thinking about the horrors in the concrete structure while surrounded by the peaceful green of natural life. However, would I want to? Do I need to? I don’t know.

That evening we had dinner with some Israeli home schoolers. I had a good time and enjoyed talking with them. The house is, in many ways, a stereotypical “granola home school” house – messy (this one much messier than normal), books and educational toys everywhere, a skeleton hanging on the front porch, and a big totem pole in the center of their living room to top it all off. (The house previously belonged to a consul from the West Indies, if I remember correctly, and hence the totem pole.) Apparently the mess was due to their interpretation of the Old Testament of letting fields lie fallow every 7 years; they weren’t cleaning the house or weeding the garden for that seventh year. That explains the huge cobwebs on the ceiling. Their daughter, Rose, is the first home schooled kid in the army. Home schooling is sort of a shadow movement in Israel where most things are socialized. They are having the debate that existed here twenty years ago – do we seek legal recognition that might lead to restrictions, or do we just do our thing and lie low until someone bothers us?

Day 33: Saturday, May 24, Jerusalem

Since today was Shabbat, we were on our own. Most of the group went to the Shrine of the Book on the recommendation of a guy who had been to Israel before. The Shrine of the Book is part of a larger museum whose name escapes me. The Shrine houses a display of ancient Biblical texts, the crown jewels being texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls. The exhibit is housed in a semi-submerged building whose exposed top looks like the end cap of a scroll tube -- sort of like the onion domes of Russia. The architecture doubles as a natural cooling system for the temperature-controlled rooms below, which is very cool. It also had an exhibit on the life of the Essenes, the sect that made the Dead Sea Scroll copies.

The rest of the museum complex included an art museum, but not your typical art museum. It was entirely filled with art confiscated from Jews during WWII and included some notable artists (a Sisley, for example).

It also included a scale model of Jerusalem from approximately the time of Christ. A lot of it is guesswork, of course, but it provided a good “zoomed out” view so that I could start relating the places we had visited geographically. The place was swarming with tour groups from a Kay Arthur tour (a Christian writer who does an Israel tour). They had something like 600 people on the tour, divided into “sub-tours” of manageable size, so that they were all together for a little bit and then broke up to do things at different times before meeting back together in the evening. I’m glad I wasn’t on a group like that, though I assume the teaching was really good.

That evening I heard a steady commotion out of my hotel window, though I couldn’t see anything. I went out to walk around and have a look about 10:30pm. I walked out to a world that was as alive as it had been dead the previous night. A mostly young crowd was sitting at cafes, walking up and down the street with ice cream, going to clubs, and just generally having a good time and enjoying the nice evening. I had wandered out in a t-shirt, shorts, sandals, and a jacket against the evening chill, and I was quite underdressed. I guess I was in a hip hangout without knowing it until then. There were several buses on the street, and judging by the amount of English I heard I’m sure that some of the Birthright tours had dropped their passengers there for an evening of fun. Since the Jewish day starts at sundown, Shabbat is over (and the party begins) once the sun goes down on Saturday.

Day 32: Friday, May 23, Jerusalem

What's odd about this picture? Click for a close-up.

Today we started off by heading just outside of Jerusalem and shifting through trash. Actually, whether or not it is trash depends on who you ask.

Back up a few years to 20 BC. King Herod orders a new temple built. In order to make it more magnificent and in order to build in a sloping valley, he builds a huge platform supported by an arched substructure and builds the temple on top of all of this. Now fast-forward a bit to 1999. The Waqf, the Muslim group that controls the Temple Mount, applied for a permit to open an emergency exit to an underground mosque under the Dome of the Rock. The “exit” turned into an entire mosque. To build the mosque they removed 200 dump truck loads of the rubble that was in the substructure to a landfill. At first they sent it to a landfill in the Kidron Valley in between the Israelis and Palestinians, but then they started shipping it to a landfill in Palestinian-controlled territory. By cleaning out this rubble they opened up the area underneath the Temple Mount (for the mosque).

Someone said this was the work of rockets, but I doubt it. This private bus line is a primary means of intercity transport for Palestinians.

The crux of the matter is that no one had ever been under the Temple Mount because it was filled up and because it was too politically sensitive. The Waqf is widely accused of destroying evidence of any Israeli presence on the site, and Israelis are now sifting through the excavated landfill for artifacts. They have found quite a number of objects. Here’s the crazy part: Palestinians claim that anything found in the rubble must have been “planted” by Israelis, because the Palestinians claim that there never was any Jewish temple on the site at all. (I don’t know if this is true of Palestinians in general or just the Waqf/religious zealots, but it’s pretty widespread in Islam over there.)
http://www.archaeology.org/0003/newsbriefs/flap.html

So here’s how the debate goes:
Israel: “Quit destroying artifacts!”
Palestine: “What artifacts? There are no artifacts.”
Israel: “The artifacts from under the Dome of the Rock that are ending up in landfills.”
Palestine: “You must have planted those, because there never was any temple there.”
Israel: “But we’re finding these in the rubble you brought from the temple!”
Palestine: “That proves that you must have planted them, because there was never a temple there and therefore there couldn’t be any artifacts there.”

Frankly, that’s a pretty disturbing pattern. It would be one thing to engage in a debate over who should control the Temple Mount, whether or not the artifacts are really important, etc., but it’s a very different thing when your debate tactic is to simply deny that X ever happened/existed, and therefore any evidence for it must be trumped up. You simply can’t debate that, because it starts with a conclusion and accepts/denies evidence based on that, rather than the other way around. (There are some situations where this might not be such a fallacy, but that’s another conversation.)

Just be glad I didn't bring you anything from this store.

Now you’re caught up to today. We spent an hour or two sifting through landfill. Other than the expected broken rocks, I found some mosaic tiles, pottery shards, animal bones, and a mushy cigarette butt. Nothing that will really be of any use archaeologically, but the fact that the items were present (particularly the bones) was telling.

Mosaic on the front of the Church of All Nations. Click for a close-up to get a peek at the style of the art in the church.

Afterwards we headed to the Church of All Nations near the Garden of Gethsemane. It was interesting because the architecture is fairly standard Catholic Church, but it has very modern frescos inside. Across a valley you can see a Muslim graveyard up against one wall of the Temple Mount in front of a sealed door. I forget which door this is, but it is the one through which the returning Lord is supposed to enter. Entering a graveyard makes a Jew ceremonially unclean, so putting a graveyard there is basically an attempt to spiritually block the entrance.

Part of the Kidron Valley. The Muslim graveyard is in front of the sealed gates you see in the wall.

We then went to one of my favorite places on the trip. It was the Garden Tomb, the site where Jesus was supposedly laid after taken down from the cross. I will admit that I was a bit suspicious – it sounded like a relic to me. We had a great Scottish Presbyterian guide named Bob who pointed out a few things. From the edge of the garden you can see a hill that, if you squint right, does look like skull is carved in the pits in the side. He talked about a few other reasons why it might have been the crucifixion site. All made sense, but I wouldn’t bank on it. The description of the tomb, however, made a lot of sense. I talked to Jethro (our group’s Jewish guide) later, and he affirmed everything that our Garden guide said about why the site would match the Biblical description. One reason I have enjoyed him is that he is honest about everything and it is good to bounce things off him to make sure that you’re not hearing a bunch of unsubstantiated Christian hype in some places. The reason I liked the Garden Tomb so much wasn’t the fact that I might have been looking at the tomb where Jesus’ body lay, but rather what the rest of what our guide had to say. His presentation wasn’t an attempt to sell us on the idea that this was “the” tomb, but rather the opposite: whether or not this is the tomb doesn’t matter, because it has no bearing on our faith. The only important part is that the tomb is empty.

This garden was the first nice, lush garden I had seen on the trip. There was also a huge underground water cistern (the third largest in Jerusalem) that held collected rainwater, which is one of the reasons they are sure it was a rich man’s garden/vineyard.

That afternoon I stopped by a Jerusalem McDonald’s. It had a security guard out front, and I saw him check some bags as people entered. The McD’s here have a “10 Shekel Value Meal,” their equivalent of our dollar menu (though the exchange rates make it closer to $3).

That night back at our hotel in Jerusalem, someone not with our group sat down and played some worship songs that I recognized on the piano. A Muslim lady went over and said that she liked the songs, probably not knowing what they were. After the girl left, a Muslim man went over and played the Moonlight Sonata. Normally I like the song, but he played it with the sustain pedal depressed and with absolutely no style, and it turned a good piece into an awful noise.

I wandered around that night for a while and the area around our hotel was totally dead. Keep in mind that it was the evening of Shabbat, since Shabbat starts at sundown on Friday.

Day 31: Thursday, May 22, Jerusalem

Kids run through the street with waste wood they have collected. That night was a festival (I forget which one) where everyone burned bonfires. All day, kids were running through the streets with scrap wood. This team had a wheeled cart typical of the narrow Jerusalem streets and announced their presence by continually blowing a whistle so they wouldn't have to stop their careening through the streets.

Today was our first day in Jerusalem. The old city is just like you might imagine it in Jesus’ time, except that the “Shalom Y’all” plaques and made-for-tourist shofars in the closely-packed stores are garishly lit by electric lights. The narrow, stepped cobblestone streets are all the size of a back alley. There is an Arab Quarter, Christian Quarter, Jewish Quarter, and obviously that leaves one quarter that I’ve forgotten about. (Google has reminded me that it is the Armenian Quarter.)

A sign on the Via Dolorsa.

This is the parallel parking test that Israelis must take for their license.

It’s hard to tell the difference between them. Almost all of the Old City has been taken over by hawkers calling you into their shops. Some are overeager, some are creative: one advertised his shop as the “5 and a half stop on the Via Dolorosa.” As we went by, another guy acted like he was dialing a phone and pretended to have a conversation with Barak Obama, asking him if he wanted a Michael Jackson t-shirt (all for our benefit). The alleys are stepped, so there are two narrow ramps at each step just far enough apart so that you can pull a handcart up the steps. When one person slipped on a step and landed on his tailbone, a store owner who had been sitting down got up laughing and congratulated him, saying “you are number 7 today! Come shop in my store,” with absolutely no transition.

School kids released from captivity.

All of this happened as we walked the Via Dolorosa. It was interesting, but there were a lot of stops that aren’t in the Gospel account and therefore I didn’t know anything about. We saw lots of Catholic pilgrims who sang a certain song at each stop.

One of the main stops of the day was a Jewish bookstore that doubles as an idea forum and place for religious discussions. The two proprietors are twin brothers that, though 50, couldn’t look any more similar, even down to their matching beards. He talked for a while about Christianity and Judaism, then took questions. It was fascinating, and once again I wished I had a mini digital audio recorder. Some highlights:

Light from an oculus in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the last stop on the Stations of the Cross.

-He said that you don’t have to Jewish to be “saved” under Judaism. (I put that in quotes because its meaning when used in Judaism is only similar to that when used in Christianity. Jews do not believe in a fallen nature, and therefore there is no need to be saved from inherent sin.) You only have to “love God with all your heart.” That does not mean that you have to love the Talmudic God with all of your heart; monotheists who live an ethical life qualify. Without having asked this explicitly, it seems to indicate that dedicated devotees of Islam also are “saved” so long as they are ethical (which presents an interesting bind if you believe that Islam calls the killing of infidels legal and desired).

-He made the interesting (and I think true) observation that few Christians want to claim a denomination these days. Denominations are a whole different discussion, but it was an interesting point, particularly since Jews claim that there are no denominations and only three “styles” of Judaism – Orthodox, Hasidic, Reformed – but there are definitely different strands within those.

It is perfectly legal to drive your tractor down this road. Just leave the tiller at home.

-Christians frequently talk about the “burden of the law.” He said there is no “burden,” because there is no greater joy than to obey God’s laws if you love him. This also hinges on the Christian view of the sin nature: Christians believe it is impossible to meet all of God’s laws on your own and that they are there to point us toward our need for salvation; Jews believe that it is possible to meet the requirements of the law. “The whole Rabinnic culture about how I can serve God more than he demands,” hence the extra man-made laws that are considered on par with the laws of the Torah.

-The afterlife: Jews believe that there is eternal separation from God, but that it’s only for the worst of the worst and your soul just ceases to exist. You get snuffed out of the cosmic candle, if you’ll pardon me. Everyone else is in the presence of God, but for some that is a burning feeling as God looks at their sin, and for others it is incomprehensible joy.

-He talked about how Jews dislike Christian proselytizing. He said he sometimes feel’s like someone’s project. In his words, “Christians are not called to pass out tracts, they are called to be tracts.” True to a point, but unlike Judaism, Christianity believes there is specific revelation (as opposed to general revelation) required for salvation.

One of the things I found most interesting was how well he talked in Christian lingo. If he had used a bunch of Judaic lingo we wouldn’t have understood it, particularly the nuances. I definitely realized that Christian lingo can be a huge barrier to conveying Christian ideas, even if it helps us debate those ideas internally.

He, and many others that I have met, strongly dislike Olmert. Olmert is currently in the middle of a scandal about possible bribery.

After that we went to the Temple Mount. I was told that this was no small item. Our tour guide had never been on the Temple Mount, and he was so excited that he dressed up in slacks, dress shirt, and tie. For him, this was his chance to get as close as allowed by Judaism to the original site of the Holy of Holies. We went through rigorous security and were then allowed on the Mount. The place itself is just a large flat square. On one end is the al-Aqsa mosque, where Mohammed is said to have been transported overnight from Medina before ascending to heaven. Up a few steps is the Dome of the Rock, which is not actually a mosque. Jethro wouldn’t go very near the Dome of the Rock, because it is believed to approximately rest on the site of the Holy of Holies. No Jew is allowed in the Holy of Holies or the area of the temple immediately surrounding it, so since Jews don’t know exactly where that is, they just avoid the whole area. The Dome is an ornate building. Since we weren’t Muslims, we weren’t allowed in either building. I was surprised to find young Arab kids playing soccer and some Arab families just hanging out up there. Overall, it was anticlimactic in the sense that you couldn’t do anything except wander around and see the outside of the buildings up close, but on the other hand it was quite amazing to be standing on the site that housed the actual temple and is now the holiest site of Judaism, the third holiest site in Islam, and the center of contention between the two.

The Dome of the Rock as seen from the outer courtyard of the Temple Mount.

I forgot to mention that last night (or technically today because of the time) we went under the Wailing Wall and against that western wall of the Temple Mount. In doing so we stepped back through all of modern history and onto the street level. Jews pray at the Wailing Wall because it is the closest accessible point to the Holy of Holies. Under the wall you can get even closer, so when we went (at 11:30pm), there were Jews in the tunnels praying at the closest point.

Note the ridged cuts in the stone. This is called Herodian stone because it was a standard feature of Herod's building projects. The Temple Mount is another engineering feat. Herod shaved off one hill, built up a valley, and filled arches in with rubble to support the top.

Outside at the Wailing Wall, it wasn’t nearly as crowded as you typically see it in pictures, but at the same time I was surprised by the number of people praying there at 1am on a weeknight/morning.


The Wailing Wall at night. Note the fence dividing the men (left) from the women (right).

Day 30: Wednesday, May 21, Jerusalem

Today I went to Blogger (but didn’t have a chance to post anything) and had trouble because it was all in Hebrew. Obviously the computer I was using had an Israeli IP address, so Blogger instinctively made everything mirror-image to accommodate right-to-left reading and gave me Hebrew script.

Today was a meandering road trip to Jerusalem. By this time I’m pretty used to the landscape, and it forms an interesting backdrop to Biblical promises. This “land flowing with milk and honey” is brown as far as I can see, where bushes don’t even attempt to grow most places, and sheep have to be continually moved to find grass. The only exceptions are the few wadis and the Jordan, and the concentration of green plants around those make them look like people rushing to hoard the water. The more I’m here the more I realize that God was working daily miracles whenever the Israelis were fat on good crops. However, to the Jews who have clung to this as their homeland, it is the best place on earth. I don’t exaggerate there; if you talk to people (particularly those who made aliyah and were not born here) you will usually get the same emotion you’d expect from a cheesehead who was invited to live in the Packer’s locker room.

On the way to Jerusalem I talked to Jethro about Judaism. Along the way I asked him about the Jews’ relation to the rest of the world. Unlike Christianity or Islam, you can’t become a Jew by believing the Talmud. I can fervently believe everything in the Talmud and keep all the laws in the Talmud, but unless my mom was a Jew, I’m just a groupie. (It used to be that Jewish descent was passed through the dad, but back a ways they had trouble showing lineage. Sometimes it’s hard to know who the dad is, but there isn’t much confusion about what mom you came from.) I asked Jethro what the point of modern Judaism is, and he said it is to “spread knowledge of God.” He said people aren’t inherently good or evil, it’s just how we respond to the God-knowledge we have. I asked him then if spreading knowledge of God is thus mean, because it burdens people with more God-knowledge to which they must respond, whereas ignorance was bliss. I didn’t get a straight answer, but he emphasized that Rabbinical teaching states that people don’t even have to repent, they just have to think about repenting.

Jews have another problem. Assuming they can get the Muslims off the Temple Mount, they still can’t do anything with it. That’s because no religious Jew would dare go near the site of the Holy of Holies from the temple, and no one knows exactly where that is. Jews require a prophet to tell them where the temple stood/should stand and thus where the Holy of Holies is – but a prophet must be confirmed by the Sanhedrin as a prophet in order to be legitimate. Simple, except that that there hasn’t been a Sanhedrin since shortly after Christ.

I also saw a bumper sticker with Jonathan Pollard’s face that read, “Bush, Free Your Captive!” I asked Jethro what he thinks about Pollard and he admitted that he was a spy, but didn’t think he should be imprisoned for life because “it wasn’t like he was giving secrets to enemies.” That’s the general Jewish reaction: Pollard is a hero, because Israel looks out for #1 even within its relationship with its staunchest ally. Somehow I don’t think the “between friends” argument would carry much weight for any American spy caught in Israel’s borders.

Our actual trip took us through Hebron. Jews occupy only a tiny sliver of the town. Jews were driven out in 1929 by rioting Palestinians, and thus there are signs up everywhere in the Jewish section talking about stolen homes, etc. and demanding that it be returned.

The Tomb of the Patriarchs, which Abraham purchased for his wife and descendents, is memorialized there. It is said to contain the bodies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their wives (except that Jacob is buried there with Leah, not Rachel). Jethro said that in one of the wars – I believe the Six Day War – a Jewish military rabbi told a unit not to capture Hebron without him. He woke up at one point and the unit was gone. Thinking they had gone to Hebron he got his few escorts and they raced to Hebron, where he went straight to the mosque on the site and declared it captured. (I haven’t been able to verify that.)

A woman prays at the Tomb of the Patriarchs.

The tombs are now sealed up, and the compound is split between a Muslim mosque and a Jewish synagogue. It has been the site of attacks by both sides. There is an old man there who, in 1981, snuck down into the actual tomb. He was caught because he tracked mud out of the tomb, but now he sits in the synagogue with his oxygen tank and corners tour groups that come through to tell them about the tomb and then ask for money.

An Israeli soldier wands an Arab at a checkpoint in Hebron.

We also stopped at Herodium, another of Herod’s fortress retreats. Herod essentially leveled one hill and added the dirt to another hill to build his circular palace/bath on the top. He was proud of his buildings, and rightly so.

As we drove into Jerusalem, one of the first things we saw was “Freedom for Jonathan Pollard Square.” No joke. Most nations cover up their captured spies, and are even more embarrassed if they are caught in a friendly nation. Israel does the opposite and doesn’t just name things “Jonathan Pollard Square,” but specifically names it “Free Jonathan Pollard Square.” Getting the picture?

Another thing we saw was the UN headquarters. The UN took over what was the British colonial governor’s mansion overlooking Jerusalem. How appropriate. Just outside the razor wire-topped fence that surrounds the UN compound is the Tolerance Monument.

We also saw the big wall the Jews are building between the Arab and Jewish areas. Jethro was not a fan of the wall. He said that it did appear to be having an effect on the rate of attacks, but he pointed out that walls don’t encourage rivals to settle their differences, just stew on them without ever hearing the other side. Israel is also not being too careful about where it builds it, because there are Arab houses on the Israeli side of the wall. It’s a “so long as we get most of them” approach.

The Wall. The lone building in the bottom left is Arab.

Day 29: Tuesday, May 20, Tel Arad and the Negev

Watching the sun rise over the Dead Sea, this time without several hundred American college students to ruin the peace and quiet.

Today we visited Tel Arad and wandered the Negev. First, however, I got up with a couple of others and watched the sun rise over a formation that looks like a mini Grand Canyon. I’m surprised that it doesn’t get any press, because I think it is a more interesting formation than Masada. I don’t know if it’s ancient or the result of some recent Dead Sea changes. It definitely has strata, and the way it flakes it definitely seems to have a high mineral content. (I thought rocks were really boring in middle school, which I now regret.)

The Bible talks a lot about "sitting in the gates" of a city. I decided to do just that.

It was then off to Arad. (“Tel” just means a hill with layers of ancient cities on it.) Arad was leveled by the Israelites during their exodus from Egypt. More recently, Arad became a “development town” in the 1960’s. Development towns were originally set up as homes for Jews who emigrated. However, they didn’t integrate well with the rest of Israel, so Israel changed some incentives to give existing Jewish families incentives to move into these development towns. Arad was one of the first of these new development towns.

A shot of the strata from the morning's canyon. For comparison, that tall outcropping is probably forty feet tall.

We stopped at another wadi (spring) and hiked along it for a bit. The trees always grow over the water, so it is actually very nice to just walk in the shallow stream.

When we were done there we went to our “Bedouin camp” where we were to spend the night. I say that because I quickly realized this was a full-fledged tourist operation that happened to have camels and Bedouin running the show. [I was later told that it’s Israeli-owned and they just employ the guy.] I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything else, but frankly I was a little disappointed. Bedouins these days rarely move around for reasons I already discussed, and most of their places are shacks of corrugated metal. This place had big tents laid out in the traditional fashion, with concentric circles of mats that were both chairs while you were awake and beds at night. Our tent could probably have slept 40 people. It had electricity, and right around the corner were the communal bathrooms/showers. It was like a hostel, except that each group had a massive tent instead of each person sleeping in their own room. We got a camel ride and then played some Frisbee and lazed around talking for the evening. I guess I had never paid attention to the way a camel walks, but I was fascinated by their feet – they splay out like gelatin pads when they walk on them in order to reduce the pressure and not sink into the sand.

For comparison, here is a real Bedouin dwelling we passed on the side of the road.

The whole place had a Disney air to it – the buildings were nice, and the dirt floors were only there to keep the atmosphere. The only very non-Bedouin thing was the “party tent” – a tent blaring techno music that was basically the club. Our bus driver was having a good time. He travels with us and brought a suitcase, but I’m not sure why. He hasn’t changed his jeans and only seems to have two shirts. You smell him every time you get onto the bus.

I did, however, really enjoy our host. He was Bedouin, but had gotten a degree in music at Tel Aviv University and had been to the U.S. three times. He spoke excellent English and explained about Bedouin customs for a bit and played some on a lute-like instrument. I would have loved to talk with him except that he had to make the rounds and talk to all of the tents. Apparently a lot of people come during the evening, then their group leaves at 3am to drive to/hike Masada as the sun rises.

We also got a new tour guide. I’ll wait and see how it works out, because he’s very different from our departing tour guide. He’s in his late 20’s as opposed to his mid 60’s, for one thing. Our other guide was incredibly knowledgeable, but he also didn’t “read people” very well and was oblivious to some unspoken group sentiments. Our new guide seems to be the opposite. I’ll call him Jethro, just because that was the first Hebrew name that popped into my head.

Jethro knew he wanted to make aliya (come to Israel) since he was in high school. He struck a deal with his dad that he could move over here once he graduated from college. He graduated from Columbia with an English major, if I remember correctly. I asked him why he moved here and he just said he felt like he was home here. He said NYC was all stressed, busy people who equate money with success. Here he can just be himself. “Himself” is a huge movie buff with a quick laugh. He generally echoed our previous guide on issues of Israeli/Palestinian relations, foreign policy, etc. However, he had a different approach that I can’t quite describe. Maybe it was the difference between a older man whose views had hardened versus a younger man with the same views, but who was more willing to listen to another side even if he still disagreed with them after the discussion.

I saw a field with what looked like cotton growing on dried plants. Turns out it was thousands of bleached-white snail shells. Check out this snail-covered dead grass.

He echoed one complaint that I have heard a lot: red tape. Israel’s bureaucracy is notorious for red tape. He told about having to get his name legally changed on his national ID because his mom’s maiden name on his card didn’t match that in some other database, and a bank wouldn’t give him a loan because of it.

He also said that there are two Talmuds, a Babylonian version and a Jerusalem version. They are pretty much the same, but most everyone uses the Babylonian one because it is more reader-friendly. I got the idea that the Jerusalem one is more terse and more open to interpretation, whereas the Babylonian one is a little more wordy but consequently easier to understand.

Interesting article

There is an excellent article in The Washington Post. It doesn't say much by itself except that most Arab nations, including a lot of oil-wealthy ones, are paying only fractions of their commitments to support the PLO. Who is contributing a lot? "European governments, the World Bank and the United States have provided more than three times as much money as Arab countries this year to keep the government afloat..."

While the article (properly) withholds from most editorializing, I think reading between the lines tells more. Contributions spiked when Hamas, which does not recognize Israel's existence and calls for its obliteration, controlled the PLO. A recurring theme of Middle East relations is that the Palestinians are pawns for both sides. They are probably pawns more for the Arabs, in fact, because the Israelis actually have to deal with the Palestinians, whereas the Arabs sit at home, stir the hornet's nest every once in a while, and (sometimes) cut a check. What happens when the Arabs have to deal with the Palestinians? Last time the border between Gaza and Egypt was forced open, the Egyptians rushed to plug the hole and keep the Palestinians in Gaza.

I don't mean to cast equal aspersions on all Arab countries or imply that the Israelis are perfect, but it's healthy to view Arab nations' statements of solidarity with Palestine with some skepticism.

Day 28: Monday, May 19, Masada

A view back into the valley. Our hostel is just to the right of the trees.

Today we got up bright and early to hike to the top of Masada. Our tour guide was deciding between 5AM and 4:30AM; he chose 5AM, but I wish we had left at 4:30. The sun was already fighting its way over the Jordanian mountains as we started up the Snake Path. There are three ways to get to the top: the Snake Path on the east, the path the Romans took (or built) from the west, and a modern cable car. We hiked up the Snake Path, which rises about 1000 ft over 1.5 miles of switchbacks. The sunrise over the Dead Sea was visible the entire time. When I got to the top there were tons of Birthright kids up there as well as a group of Young Presidents. We got the talks and tour and then headed back down the cable car; there were plenty of jokes about hiking the toughest path up and going down via the cable car.

Herod's overlooks carved into the cliff. His palace is in the rock behind them. If it looks like it's a long way down to the valley, you're right.

Masada is a stunning place. Any mountain fortress would be difficult to capture in those days, but this is in a whole new category. Even today, taking it would be like taking Iwo Jima – you could bomb it back to the Roman Period but the defenders would just be sitting underground waiting to pick apart anyone who tries to scale the cliffs. Herod had an entire summer palace complex built into the cliff, with his private quarters and a bath at the north tip that juts out like the point of a teardrop. He had a 300 degree view for miles. Granted, there isn’t a lot to see (desert and the Dead Sea), but it’s awe-inspiring. You realize how easy it was for the Jews, number about 960 including women and children (so probably more like 400 fighting men) could hold off an entire legion of about 15,000 Romans. The Romans built their siege ramp from the taller side of the surrounding valley, but they still probably had to build up at least 500 feet vertically. No wonder it is a powerful symbol of Jewish resistance and courage.

William on the Snake Trail, with an overexposed sunrise reflecting off the Dead Sea.

It also makes you think about history and historians and be sure you separate facts and interpretation. Josephus records the speech the Jewish leader made when convincing them to kill their own wives and children. One problem: Josephus wasn’t there, and I’m sure that the seven women and children who survived were not at that meeting, either.

We then went to Beersheba. It pops up in the Bible with some regularity; it was where Boaz and Ruth met. The entire town was 5.5 acres, which really makes you realize how small they used to be. Modern Beersheba is a couple of miles away and is 120,000 people.

William and a chameleon face off. This guy was a vibrant green a minute ago; in about one more minute he'll be a mottled brown just like the plank.

I bought a postcard from a guy who runs a little shop in the hostel. Yesterday I asked him how much a postcard was and he told me two shekels. Today I went and told him I wanted two postcards. I was holding four shekels in my closed hand, but I didn’t just hand it to him, I wanted to see what his price would be. He told me five shekels for the two postcards, so then I reminded him that he had told me two per card the previous day, and I got them for four. It taught me two things. First, you can bargain on anything no matter how small. Second, it reminded me that it’s a game. I couldn’t be miffed that he was trying to charge me more than four, because I was holding out to see if he would name a number less than four. I also used a computer at the hostel that was in Hebrew; since Hebrew reads right to left, the Start menu in Windows is on the right side.

I also saw on the news that it is 36 C in Houston, which is hotter than it is here – and we have no humidity. I’m not looking forward to that part of the return.

Day 27: Sunday, May 18, Dead Sea/Masada

Today we followed the “Way of the Patriarchs” south along the Jordan River. The landscape changes here. It’s still desert everywhere, but the Jordan River is clearly distinguished not because you can see the river – it’s little more than a lively stream at points – but because you can see the agriculture that pops up along the bank. Rows of date palms run like spiders as you drive past them.

Ibex on the cliff. Can you spot the little guy?

Our first stop was the Ein Gedi nature reserve. It was really beautiful. A stream trickles from the Ein Gedi springs through a rocky valley. The canyon walls do go almost straight up on either side, and there are myriad natural caves in the face. It was in caves like these that the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, and after looking at these you can see why they were safe for thousands of years. First, there are a lot of them. Second, they are on almost vertical cliffs – I wouldn’t be able to get to most of them without rappelling down. It was in this area that David spent a lot of time hiding from Saul, and it’s obvious why. When the Bible talks about the “clefts of the rock” I will always think of these caves.

Our next destination today: the Ahava factory. Ahava markets beauty products made from Dead Sea mud. (Am I the only one who finds it funny that people clamor for skin care products made of mud, let alone mud from a place called the Dead Sea?) They have a factory there on the edge of the sea where you can see the products being made. Or, more accurately, you can watch through glass as finished products are boxed by a robot; the main attraction is the short film on Ahava products (i.e. promo video) and shopping in the store. A quick look at some of the pictures and clips in the promo video show that this is definitely not a conservative Jewish operation. They are not above selling their beauty products next to men’s boxers with “100% Kosher” written on them.

After the checkout counter there is a VAT refund stand. Israel has a VAT (Value Added Tax) system. Tourists can get refunds on the tax paid on items over a certain amount. Since few tourists want to go home, mail paperwork to Israel, then wait six months to be paid (like those sketchy mail-in rebates), there is an industry that pays you up front and submits the receipts for you in exchange for a percentage of the refund. Ahava made a lot of money off of people buying stuff, then made more money off of them by giving them tax refunds. Very smart system.

My stunning good looks are all due to regular Dead Sea mud treatments.

There was no way we were going to drive by the Dead Sea without testing the waters, so of course that was our last stop of the day. It really is an odd experience, because you can sit Indian-style in the water and float perfectly. However, getting to where you can float is sort of a painful experience. On the bottom of the sea is a crust of crystal minerals, so it’s like walking over the inside of geodes. You also have to shift your weight carefully, because if you step to hard or hit a thin spot you will fall through the crystals and sink knee-deep in the thick mud that is below. The mud is fun to play around in, as you might imagine. Any scratches you had (and the many you get from the crystals) are instantly and painfully cauterized. Despite all of this, it really is worth hopping in. One girl got the water in her eyes and it obviously wasn’t pleasant.

We stayed that night (and the next) at the Masada Youth Hostel. It was a very new and much nicer than “hostel” implies and could handle small conferences as well. They had a central grassy courtyard… oh wait, it was actually Astroturf. A basketball court and large swimming pool made for some good diversions.

I forget the name of this groundhog-type animal.

There are several Jewish school groups with us. For each group there are several student leaders who carry guns around everywhere. The vast majority use the M1 carbine, which is a WWII weapon. Today I saw a waif of a girl whose rifle was about as big around as she was. Israeli school kids dress more skanky on average than their American counterparts seem to do.

Bush is in the country right now. I have gotten used to hearing fighter jets roaring overhead every couple of days, but I noticed a spike the other day. Now I probably know why.

Today on the bus our guide told us that there are several tribes that just disappeared – “the Jews” today are almost all descendents of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. There is speculation that the Pashtuns are actually descendents of the “lost ten tribes.” I’m not sure how much speculation vs. evidence there is.

Chillin' in the Dead Sea. Can someone pass me a mojito?

The family that joined us the other day arrived with no luggage – Delta has assured them it will arrive soon. Also, I was talking with the mom and she talked about how she had asked the trip coordinator the obvious question: is it safe? His response hadn’t been yes or no, but simply to refer her to the story of Joshua and Caleb. Of 12 spies sent into the land that Israel was to conquer, 10 reported that the inhabitants were too mighty to be defeated. Joshua and Caleb reported that it didn’t matter, because God had said he would protect them and go before them. It was an interesting response to the safety question.

Day 26: Saturday, May 17, Samaria

Part of the reason I haven't posted in a while is that I don't have my notebook with me at the moment, so consequently I don't remember things like where exactly we were this day. (It was somewhere in Samaria.) Also, since it was Shabbat, I don't have any pictures from the day.

Saturday was Shabbat, so we had an easy day and just did stuff within the community. I should actually backtrack and say that we went to synagogue on Friday evening. There are several synagogue meetings, the biggest of which is on Saturday morning. The room was roughly hexagonal, with desks laid out in rows along the outside, all facing the front. Women were in the balcony in pews. In the center of the room was a platform with a desk and ornamented pillars. There was a podium up front facing the ark (where the Torah is kept) – thus facing away from the audience – where someone would lead the ritual; however, they rotated out from time to time, with almost no break in the action. They would read in a sing-song voice while bobbing their head, and at certain times everyone would join in singing songs in a dirge-like but attractive melody. Not quite wailing Arabic, but definitely Middle Eastern. This wasn’t like in a church where the pastor would say, “Now let’s turn to hymn such-and-such,” but rather the whole service was one big script that everyone obviously knew by heart, so they could join in on a song on the first note and knew exactly when it was coming. There were times when we stood, but mostly we were seated. I couldn’t figure out the reason we stood. When compared with my church services (Bible church/Presbyterian) I would call this service organized chaos. People wandered in at any time, people walked around, people looked around, little kids played. (The men would be still singing/reciting as they walked around, like it was subconscious.) When people would come in late they would go around and greet their friends before going to their seat. People were always bobbing as they said the rituals, and there was no prescribed way to bob. Some people were practically thumping their heads on their desks, some were doing more side-to-side twist than forward-backward, and some would dip by bending their knees before tipping forward. It really did remind me of a bunch of bobbleheads. Everyone had a head covering – were were given yarmulkes before entering – but one guy had a ball cap and another had a straw farmer’s hat. Some people were reading synagogue newsletters. There was a “sermon” – I don’t know what he said, but his delivery was just like a lot of American pastors.

The official rule on Shabbat for Jews is that they are not to work. However, this was interpreted by Jewish sages to fundamentally mean you should not “create or destroy.” Later commentators specified what was/wasn’t an act of creation – writing is an act of creation, for example. Still later, commentators said that you should not carry pen/paper on Shabbat so that you cannot unwittingly create by writing. This seemed pretty typical of a lot of Jewish religious laws – the real Biblical law is X, but in order to make sure you don’t do X we’re going to ban Y and Z. Don’t forget that the ancient commentaries have the same force as the original Torah in Judaism. Using electrical devices has been deemed bad because electricity is too much like fire, and you are not to create fire on Shabbat. One of the families on our trip was joining us this day, so Benjamin had given his cell phone to one of the other people on our trip just in case the family called – that way he wouldn’t talk to them directly and thus not break Shabbat. However, the Jewish taxi driver called for directions, and since only Benjamin could speak Hebrew, the other guy held the phone up to his ear.

A soldier named Ed joined us for lunch. He was in his early 30’s and doing reserve duty. I really enjoyed talking to him. I asked him what he had found different/odd when he first came to Israel. Among other things, he said they call all cereal “corn flakes,” stereotype Americans as soft (and Americans in turn stereotype Jews as CPA-soft), that all American Jews want “exotic”-looking Yemmenite Jewish wives, that there is no sense of personal space, and that most Jews think America is all like Disneyland and that everyone becomes a millionaire within a year of moving there. He also said that Jews aren’t very polite, but he said it’s more like they all treat each other as brothers – ordering each other around to some degree, but it’s not meant in a rough, I-don’t-like-you way. I got him to read some bumper stickers to me, because I think bumper stickers reveal something about the hot issues or what people think. We were in a settlement and this particular sticker was, understandably, a pro-settlement sticker. It was or orange, and Ed said that orange is associated with pro-settlement and blue is anti-settlement. After that I could count the blue vs. orange bumper stickers and have a feel for the area’s sentiments. He also said that all men serve reserve duty until they are 40. Whenever you are called up you are paid your regular salary, unlike the U.S. reserves. I think this is an excellent – but expensive – system. Doctors get paid a week of lost doctor wages; construction workers get paid a week of construction wages. The U.S. military has a problem with drawing disproportionately from lower classes, and taking away the financial penalty to those with upper-class jobs might help.