Jesus on the Cross at The Church of the Holy Sepulchre that sits at the spot thought to be the same as when he was crucified.
I love the paintings at Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Another painting at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
View of Dome of the Rock from Mount of Olives(they told me a funny joke).
Felt pretty safe with this group loitering outside the Austrian Hospice.
ML and me in front of the Damascus Gate.
Forgot to add this in the last post, Martin, ML, George, and Thomas on the walk to Mount of the Beatitudes.
On the side of the Mount of Olives.
Jerusaem from Mount of Olives (gold Dome of the Rock, mosque).
Tombs on side of Mount of Olives.
Tombs up close.
Looking down at the Dome and the tombs. Notice the Golden Gate off to the left of the picture (jog in wall that gets higher and than lower again) and notice how it is shut, filled with wall stone.
From left: Dome of the Rock, Me, and Western Wall.We hitched a ride with Fr. Ralph back to Jerusalem on Friday morning. We found out Thursday that in a month Fr. Jeremias (my idol here and current Prior) will leave for good to go back to Germany for health reasons. Since the Abbot was only here to act as the leader until a solution for Jeremias’ health was found he will return to Jerusalem at Easter (a better place to oversee Dormition and Tabgha) and Fr. Ralph will come to Tabgha to be Prior. I like Fr. Ralph, he is young, kind, intelligent, and funny, but it is bittersweet because of the connection I made with the Abbot and especially with Jeremias.
We arrived at Dormition and set out for the Austrian Hospice in the Old City, where we had reserved beds. If you knew the way it would take you 15 minutes through the crowded narrow streets of the Old City markets. Not knowing the way and using a map and guidebook it took us 45 minutes and a stop to ask a couple military men (who speak very little English and mostly Hebrew) which way to go. As they just pointed us back in the direction we came from, we made a couple wrong turns and ran into a crowd of tourists being pushed out of the Moslem Quarter because the hour of prayer was upon us and only Moslems are allowed in their Quarter during that time. We made it to the military roadblock that allowed only Moslems in and were turned around again. As I confusedly took my first right, in order to get out of the bustle and commotion, I stepped right onto the doorstep of…the Austrian Hospice! Dumb luck.
As you walk the streets of Jerusalem you cannot help but get caught up in the nostalgia. I love this city. It is beautiful. There is trash littered all over in the Old City and still I find beauty. The people are beautiful. While I do not mean the attractive kind of beauty you find in a significant other, there are gorgeous Jewish and Moslem women on top of the international visitors I find myself jaw-gaping-open, drool-dripping-down-my-chin, starring in awe at, I mean the diverse unique genuine beauty of the people just living their lives. It is remarkable, if you put thousands of tourists of many different nations in my home area/town to the point where we were crammed in like sardines and then give them something important to argue about I would tell you it would get old really quick. Not here; they walk along, do their business, talk with friends, smile, laugh, shout, and I can’t get enough of it. You feel the importance of this city even when you contribute nothing to it. As I find it hard to grasp how someone can be overcome with the “Jerusalem Syndrome” (apparently visiting the City and then overwhelmed with the religious significance people become convinced they are a biblical character or that the Apocalypse is near), there is some sort of stupefaction walking the streets of Jerusalem brings to me.
We hang out with Richard when we go to Jerusalem (Richard is the zivi who works at Dormition). Richard has a great knowledge of the city for only being there 6 weeks and he is great company for his personality and humor. At 4pm on Friday when Richard was done working we all hiked up to The Mount of Olives, which is on the eastern side of Jerusalem. It gives one of the best views of Jerusalem. You climb the ridiculously steep street that I swear exceeds a 50o angle at one point to view thousands of graves sloping down the hill ending at the bottom and up the other side of the valley to the archaic city wall onto the old city and one of the most spectacular features, the Dome of the Rock (golden Moslem mosque). Jewish religion says the Messiah will arrive at the Mount of Olives and enter the city through the Golden Gate (use the pics to paint a better picture) so it is believed that the closer you are to the Mount of Olives the closer you will be to the Messiah when he arrives. Moslems filled the Golden Gate with huge wall rock to hinder this occurrence, so the idea of the Messiah opening this is a true miracle.
On Saturday Richard had to work all day again so Thomas, ML, and I did a day of shopping in the Old City and visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre because Thomas had not seen it yet and I only spent 20 minutes in there the first time I went (you could spend a whole day easily). When Richard was done with work he met us at our hostile and we went to play basketball at a nearby girls college run by nuns. I was in my element being the only basketball player there and oddly the hoops were lowered to about 9 feet. I was doing what the old school-ers would call “slamma jamming”. Finally! Get rid of that soccer ball and give me something I know (although I did buy a cheap football last week only to find out that the zivis were not joking when they said they did not know how to throw the “egg” ball).
Saturday we went out for a night on the town. Shabbat (Jewish Sabbath) ends at sunset and we were thinking we would run into the younger crowd like us out to socialize for the evening. We sat outside at a bar in the New City on the top end of a strip of bars that ran down a hill on a narrow street. The crowd that ensued to surround us around 10pm had no one who looked older than 18. I felt like an old man with my grizzly beard. The oddest thing for me was to see almost every one of the 100 plus males and females smoking either a cigarette or hookah (tobacco water pipe). I’ve spent the last six summers working a blue-collar job with chain-smoking co-workers. I think I can see when someone enjoys a cigarette and then when someone smokes it just to look cool. The looks on their faces after each puff made me smile; holding their head up with this air of prominence they inhale and then as the smoke hits their lungs a look of disgust appears and they quickly exhale trying not to cough. The group that we were immersed in was all Jewish people and you could see who was non-Jewish by the looks on many of the young Jewish males’ faces. The mob mentality can be frightening even when they look pubescent and you feel you are a capable young adult. I noticed a couple uninviting stares in our direction but being in a group of 6 (4 males) we were not bothered. I mentioned earlier about the hostility that can rear its ugly head. I walked by the crash site involving the Arab boy and group of military personnel that happened a week ago, it was very close to Dormition Abbey. Right out the back door of Dormition is a statue of King David (not associated with Dormition, I’m not sure who’s property it is on). It is a gift in respect to the Jewish community but the Jewish religion abhors statues of religious figures and there is a group of young Orthodox Jewish males who continually desecrate the statue on their way by and then proceed to pee on the gates of Dormition. Thankfully Richard has never run into them as he leaves Dormition, I do not like to think what this group might do if they see him alone.
We arrived at Dormition and set out for the Austrian Hospice in the Old City, where we had reserved beds. If you knew the way it would take you 15 minutes through the crowded narrow streets of the Old City markets. Not knowing the way and using a map and guidebook it took us 45 minutes and a stop to ask a couple military men (who speak very little English and mostly Hebrew) which way to go. As they just pointed us back in the direction we came from, we made a couple wrong turns and ran into a crowd of tourists being pushed out of the Moslem Quarter because the hour of prayer was upon us and only Moslems are allowed in their Quarter during that time. We made it to the military roadblock that allowed only Moslems in and were turned around again. As I confusedly took my first right, in order to get out of the bustle and commotion, I stepped right onto the doorstep of…the Austrian Hospice! Dumb luck.
As you walk the streets of Jerusalem you cannot help but get caught up in the nostalgia. I love this city. It is beautiful. There is trash littered all over in the Old City and still I find beauty. The people are beautiful. While I do not mean the attractive kind of beauty you find in a significant other, there are gorgeous Jewish and Moslem women on top of the international visitors I find myself jaw-gaping-open, drool-dripping-down-my-chin, starring in awe at, I mean the diverse unique genuine beauty of the people just living their lives. It is remarkable, if you put thousands of tourists of many different nations in my home area/town to the point where we were crammed in like sardines and then give them something important to argue about I would tell you it would get old really quick. Not here; they walk along, do their business, talk with friends, smile, laugh, shout, and I can’t get enough of it. You feel the importance of this city even when you contribute nothing to it. As I find it hard to grasp how someone can be overcome with the “Jerusalem Syndrome” (apparently visiting the City and then overwhelmed with the religious significance people become convinced they are a biblical character or that the Apocalypse is near), there is some sort of stupefaction walking the streets of Jerusalem brings to me.
We hang out with Richard when we go to Jerusalem (Richard is the zivi who works at Dormition). Richard has a great knowledge of the city for only being there 6 weeks and he is great company for his personality and humor. At 4pm on Friday when Richard was done working we all hiked up to The Mount of Olives, which is on the eastern side of Jerusalem. It gives one of the best views of Jerusalem. You climb the ridiculously steep street that I swear exceeds a 50o angle at one point to view thousands of graves sloping down the hill ending at the bottom and up the other side of the valley to the archaic city wall onto the old city and one of the most spectacular features, the Dome of the Rock (golden Moslem mosque). Jewish religion says the Messiah will arrive at the Mount of Olives and enter the city through the Golden Gate (use the pics to paint a better picture) so it is believed that the closer you are to the Mount of Olives the closer you will be to the Messiah when he arrives. Moslems filled the Golden Gate with huge wall rock to hinder this occurrence, so the idea of the Messiah opening this is a true miracle.
On Saturday Richard had to work all day again so Thomas, ML, and I did a day of shopping in the Old City and visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre because Thomas had not seen it yet and I only spent 20 minutes in there the first time I went (you could spend a whole day easily). When Richard was done with work he met us at our hostile and we went to play basketball at a nearby girls college run by nuns. I was in my element being the only basketball player there and oddly the hoops were lowered to about 9 feet. I was doing what the old school-ers would call “slamma jamming”. Finally! Get rid of that soccer ball and give me something I know (although I did buy a cheap football last week only to find out that the zivis were not joking when they said they did not know how to throw the “egg” ball).
Saturday we went out for a night on the town. Shabbat (Jewish Sabbath) ends at sunset and we were thinking we would run into the younger crowd like us out to socialize for the evening. We sat outside at a bar in the New City on the top end of a strip of bars that ran down a hill on a narrow street. The crowd that ensued to surround us around 10pm had no one who looked older than 18. I felt like an old man with my grizzly beard. The oddest thing for me was to see almost every one of the 100 plus males and females smoking either a cigarette or hookah (tobacco water pipe). I’ve spent the last six summers working a blue-collar job with chain-smoking co-workers. I think I can see when someone enjoys a cigarette and then when someone smokes it just to look cool. The looks on their faces after each puff made me smile; holding their head up with this air of prominence they inhale and then as the smoke hits their lungs a look of disgust appears and they quickly exhale trying not to cough. The group that we were immersed in was all Jewish people and you could see who was non-Jewish by the looks on many of the young Jewish males’ faces. The mob mentality can be frightening even when they look pubescent and you feel you are a capable young adult. I noticed a couple uninviting stares in our direction but being in a group of 6 (4 males) we were not bothered. I mentioned earlier about the hostility that can rear its ugly head. I walked by the crash site involving the Arab boy and group of military personnel that happened a week ago, it was very close to Dormition Abbey. Right out the back door of Dormition is a statue of King David (not associated with Dormition, I’m not sure who’s property it is on). It is a gift in respect to the Jewish community but the Jewish religion abhors statues of religious figures and there is a group of young Orthodox Jewish males who continually desecrate the statue on their way by and then proceed to pee on the gates of Dormition. Thankfully Richard has never run into them as he leaves Dormition, I do not like to think what this group might do if they see him alone.
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