Israel, Day 3: Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Har Gillo (Israeli 'Settlement')

Today was a very interesting day. We spent most of our day in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

We arrived at the border checkpoint--run by Israelis to keep Israelis out, not to keep Palestinians out-- and the first thing we saw was this sign:

This meant that our main tour guide, Amir, couldn't go with us because he has an Israeli passport; and although Nurith (my professor) was a citizen of Israel, she is now an American citizen with an American passport. If the guards at the gate chose to question her, they could have but because she didn't say anything and they didn't hear her accent, she was able to pass through the checkpoint just fine.

When we arrived in Bethlehem, we met our tour guide from Palestine where she took us to the Church of the Holy Nativity, one of the most well known and holy sites for Christians. We arrived in the Nativity plaza (if anyone has ever seen the Christmas programs from Bethlehem on TV or the internet, this is the place you've seen on TV). My professor told us that the last time she was there, there was a huge Hamas protest in the Nativity plaza right after they were there (there were no such protests while we were there--thankfully we have had a quite uneventful trip so far).

This door is incredibly small. Roughly 3 feet 9 inches. There used to be a door  there where the archway was (you might be able to see it filled in with stone).

This door replaced the old archway which allowed animals to enter the church, but under the rule of the British, the door was changed when the British wanted to disallow animals from entering the church. When you enter the church, you can see the ancient Byzantine floors that were found by the British under their rule, they did research on the age and ancient use tiles and mosaic in the building. There are now pieces of the mosaic floor that can be seen when opening the wooden hatches on the floor.

The church of the nativity is also built over what is believed to be the birth place of Jesus Christ... unlike what many people believe, the inn and stable that Mary and Joseph were supposed to have tried to stay in were actually a cave. We saw the site that is believed to be where Mary gave birth to Jesus, and we also saw where historians believed the manger was located.

The supposed birth place of Jesus, the star is said to show the location of Mary when she gave birth to Jesus.

The supposed location of Jesus' manger is on the right side, where the large slab of marble is.

After we visited the Church of the Nativity, we talked with a Palestinian Christian what he thinks about the conflict and his ideas for the solution. He believed, like many other Palestinians, that there should be a one state solution so that everyone can live in the same place, instead of being a crazy mess.

We then moved onto talk at a house on a settlement in Jerusalem. It just so happens that when we got inside, he told us that the house was his! It was  a total shock, and we didn't know what to do or to ask... we didn't want to offend our tour guide and we didn't want to be seen as unknowing either, so there were long awkward silences pauses,but the time was definitely worth the discussion.

Just behind this group of houses (owned by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchy) is Har Gillo, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. This is where the house we visited was located.

                                                                                                                                                                                              The next day, we gathered an hour later, after packing and began to leave the city. We first took a short tour of the government hill with a tour around the supreme court and the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament). Then we worked our way down the road to Tel Aviv by learning about the battles that were fought over the road from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv in the war for independence. We stopped at some of the battle grounds to find out about the different struggles and how it was possible for a small Israeli population of 600,000 people (men women, and children) to defeat 6 mighty Arab armies: Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria.

I'll throw another blog post up tomorrow depending on how much we end up doing tomorrow... we may get a leisure day tomorrow! Thanks again for reading!

Israel, Day 2: Jerusalem

Today was again a very long, but very informational and eye opening day. We started out the day, by going to the Temple Mount, the 'holiest of the holy' in the city of Jerusalem.

For nearly 1300 years, Muslims have been in continuous control of the Temple Mount. After Omar conquered the Romans in the 7th century, the Muslims have had their holy site located at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Although this is a holy site for Muslims, it is a cause for great controversy in the Muslim community with relation to their traditions. Traditionally, Muslims pray with their faces towards Mecca, but when the Islamic Umayyad Dynasty (661-780 AD) took over the area around Jerusalem, they transferred their capitol to Syria, far away from the Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina, there was a great outcry from the citizens of Mecca (the location of the Hajj--a compulsory pilgrimage required of all Muslims) that the Holy city was being betrayed because the religious center of Islam was--and according to many Muslims always should be--Mecca.

Having no affect on their outcry to the leaders of the Umayyad Dynasty, the citizens of Mecca barred pilgrimage to the city unless they swore allegiance to the holy city of Mecca. For those who did not swear allegiance to Mecca were still in need of a destination for their pilgrimage. So the religious leaders of the Umayyads decided that Jerusalem could the the alternative destination for the Hajj. Their justification for this is that in the Koran, it says that Mohammed had a dream before he died that he ascended to heaven from the rock atop Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, so the next holiest site behind Mecca and Medina is Jerusalem and Muslims looking for pilgrimage could go there.

This is how the current Muslim control of the Temple Mount came to be. 200-300 years after the Umayyads established Jerusalem as the third holiest site in Islam, the Dome of the Rock was completed and was a prominent Muslim destination that could be seen from all over the area.

The front of the Al-aqsa mosque. We weren't allowed in, as we were  not Muslim, and non-Muslims are not allowed in the Al-aqsa mosque. The justification is that non-Muslims with make the Holy house of Allah will become unholy if people who don't believe in Mohammed the prophet will make it unholy.

The lesser known of the 2 mosques located on the Temple Mount--the Al-aqsa mosque was established long before the Dome of the Rock. Before Islam spread so quickly across the known world, Omar, the third great Muslim religious leader came to Jerusalem to attempt to conquer the place (at that time controlled by Christian Assyrians). Omar rode led his horse into Jerusalem to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where he could speak with the Christian religious leaders. They invited him to pray in their church, but he declined saying that if he prayed there he would have to conquer the church as his own because that was the tradition of his culture. So he asked if he could start his own site of worship in a place that "would be untouched by invaders."

The Dome of the Rock. It can be seen from nearly any ridge in the area, and is one of the most visible sights in Jerusalem because of it's golden dome.

So the Christians told him he could build his mosque on the southwest corner of the Temple Mound. Since the beginning of the 600s the Al-aqsa mosque has stood prominently at the south west corner of the Temple Mound. Several hundred years later the Dome of the Rock was completed and it has overshadowed the Al-aqsa ever since. Non-Muslims are allowed to be on the Temple Mound everyday from 9am-10am and from 2pm-3pm (during hours Muslims are not in prayer.) We visited from 9am to 10am. The security check point before entering the Temple mound is just like airport security, metal detectors, bag scanners, and random pat downs.

We then visited the wailing (also known as the Western) wall, the holiest site on earth for Jews. This large wall located on the west side of the Temple Mound is one of the oldest parts of the city (that is still in tact), dating back the the time of King Herod over 2000 years ago. This wall is sacred to the Jews because it was designated as the part of the Temple Mound that Jews could visit where they would not make the house of God unclean. Entering the Temple Mound--for religious Jews--is seen as sacrilege because it is bringing an unworthy human into the holy place of God, making it unholy. Jews view the western wall as a location to get closer to God, without making his house unholy.

The wailing wall is considered the most holy site for Jews today. It's located at the oldest wall still in tact in Jerusalem, nearly 2100 years old. The wall is crowded like this everyday from sunrise to sunset.

After our visit to the wailing wall, we went to the Jewish Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. Known to Israelis as Yad Vashem, the site is one of the most visited non-religious sites in Jerusalem. Yad Vashem in Hebrew means tombstone and a person's name. For ancient Jews passing on you name was a monumental thing. Passing on your name meant that your name would live on forever. This practice is common even today. In the Bible, God says that for those who do not live to pass their name on, their name will be given a place to live on forever in the house of the Lord--in ancient times, names of people who passed on without having children or grandchildren would have their name inscribed in the walls of the Temple on the Temple Mound. Yad Vashem is a place where the names of the millions of Jews who died in the Holocaust will have their names live on forever whether or not they had children or grandchildren.

The roof of the holocaust museum at the Israel Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. The architect chose to make the building very symbolic, as described in the final paragraph. The aerial picture at the bottom shows a thin line that protrudes from the ground... that is this structure. A ten foot tall triangular dome atop the museum. (See description in the last paragraph.)

The most moving experience at the museum is the children's memorial, I have almost no words to describe it besides absolutely moving. When you enter the first room of the children's memorial you see mirrors with pictures of children who died in the holocaust, and as you move along the darkly lit corridor (so dark you can't see and have to hold onto the banister to find your way through) the pictures fade away and new pictures of different children appear. Then you turn the corner into another room. I was overwhelmed with awe when I entered this room. I entered a room roughly 3 stories high that was completely pitch black... except for what appeared to be millions of candles all over the room. One candle for each child. To best describe it: see the video I posted on Facebook of it: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150480992073170

Entrance to the most incredible holocaust memorial I have ever seen. This memorial was absolutely moving.

The last piece I will share today, is the spectacular museum of the Holocaust located at Yad Vashem. Shaped as a large triangular building that goes through one side of the mountain and exits on the other side. The architect made the building symbolic of the Holocaust and the Jewish people. The entrance to the museum, hangs over the cliff, it's called Over the Edge. This part of the museum is dedicated to the diversity of the different national groups that Jews represented before the Holocaust, and it shows their proud nationalistic feelings they had before the Holocaust began. As you move through the museum, the floor plan is a maze with no set direction of how you're supposed to get through... there is no clear path to the end, just as it was for many Jews during the Holocaust. And as you make your way to the end of the long museum building, the floor begins to ascend and you step out onto an observation deck overlooking the city of Jerusalem, where the walls peel off from each other and light pours in, symbolizing the Jews' rise from the dark era of the Holocaust and signifying Israel as the answer to Hitler and all the antisemitic people in the world. I would have put less description of this place and more pictures but no photographs are allowed inside the museum so I'll show you what it looks like from the outside:

The museum is the long piece that pierces right the center of the compound. 'Over the Edge' is located near the center of the picture, and the exit into the light is located near the top left of the picture. The significance of the middle is that it's underground. This symbolizes the way the holocaust was visible to people at the time, but what what under the surface (underground) was unknown to people and people refused to look under the surface to find out what was really happening during the 'Final Solution'.

I know there is a lot of information here, but it makes up for the very short post from yesterday! I hope you enjoy. Tomorrow will be about our first visit to the West Bank. We'll be visiting the city of Bethlehem, the acting capitol of the West Bank, Ramallah, and various sites along the border of the West Bank and Israel.

Airports... Airplanes... and Israeli Security

I started my journey to the Israel on Saturday, January 7^th, 2012. We took off from Minneapolis Saint Paul International at 3:50 pm, and flew to New York City. The flight from MSP to NYC was very nice, and quiet. We even landed about ½ an hour early!

We landed in NYC at 7:00 on Saturday night. We all spread out throughout the airport to look for dinner and a little time to relax. At 8:30, were to meet back up near the ticket gate so that we could start preparing for security and ticketing.

You might think that security for a flight headed to Israel is the same as if you were traveling to any other place abroad, but it’s not. El Al (Israeli Airlines) provides its own security screening for all flights in and out of Israel. So about 8:45, we all got in line to start the security process. To set the scene: the front of the airport at the ticket counters in the airport is nearly empty at this time, except for the area around the El Al ticket counter, where there are roughly 500 people who must go through Israeli security before they get on the plane.

If you have an Israeli passport, you need only go through ‘basic security’. If you have a foreign passport, you are required to go through the ‘foreign security’ line. In the ticket counter area, there were extremely long lines that started at the security check point, which was located about 100 feet from the ticket counter that went far down the ticket counter area. At the security checkpoint there stands 8 Israeli security agents with black music stands, long lists of expected passengers, and handheld scanners for passports.

When it was my turn to go through security, I walked up to one of the agents and handed her my passport. She began by asking questions like: what is your name, where did you come from today, where are you going in Israel, how long are you staying, etc. Then she asked some more obscure questions such as: do you know anyone in Israel? … I paused for a slight moment… I said yes (mistakenly saying I knew someone from Israel, when in fact I know someone from Occupied Palestine). She then asked for the name of the person (Martha Younan). This immediately aroused suspicions. She left me standing at the music stand and walked over to a very large man in all black with sun glasses on (I started to get nervous as this started happening).

She came back and immediately started with more questions. How did you meet her (the National Lutheran Youth Gathering in 2009), how long have you known her (2.5 years), did she know you were coming to Israel or did you tell her (I told her), have we kept in touch since we first met (yes I have, over Facebook), do you know where she lives (Jerusalem). She left abruptly, returning to the large man in all black. She then returned with a barrage of questions. Did you contact her about your visit or did she ask if you were coming to Israel (I contacted her), where did you pack your bags (home), who packed them (me), was anyone with you (no), are you carrying anything from someone else (no), did someone else put anything in your bags (no), are you carrying any weapons, sharp objects, or anything that can be used as a weapon or tool to bring down the aircraft (no), do you know where she lives in Jerusalem (no), do you know her family or friends (no), do you know her address or phone number (no), did you make any plans to meet (no), are you going to be in contact with her while in Israel (I’m not sure)? By this time, I was getting very concerned because the rest of my group had been long gone through security and were waiting past the ticket counter.

The security woman left the stand again, this time I couldn’t see where she went and she was gone for about 10 minutes. Finally, she returned with my passport and said have a nice flight to Israel, sir.

Finally, I caught up with my group and we got through the rest of security to our gate. I thought that security and everything was over when one of the men I had seen behind the 8 security agents came running across the gate area and shouted that everyone needed to move out of the area… We all moved very quickly away from him, when we saw 2 men coming over with poles and ropes to cordon of the area around a backpack that had been left unattended in the gate area.

Just before we were supposed to board the airplane, a man appeared and claimed the bag as his own. Whew, we all thought, now we can finally get on the plane, but that’s when one of the security agents came up to a member of our group and told her that they needed to take her carry-on bags and search them. They said she could remover her passport, money and computer and that they would be taking the rest. The security agent disappeared until about 10 minutes before the plane was to take off. We later discovered that Sarah (the girl whose bags were taken) has family in Iran, so she too was grilled by the security agents and her bags were thoroughly searched.

Now we finally got on the plane and started the 11 hour flight to Tel Aviv. We left the gate at 11:50, and took off at exactly midnight on Sunday. The pilot told us that we flew up the eastern sea board to Newfoundland, east to Denmark, where we turned southeast towards Greece, turning south into the Mediterranean and east towards Israel. The route we took actually saved us time and we landed 40 minutes early at 5:05 pm Israeli time.

The Austrian Alps. Flying over at about 2:30 Israeli time... at least that's what I had marked down.  Who knows I was out of my mind tired! I didn't sleep much on the plane because they served meals at 4 hour intervals, and in between meals for  an hour and a half at a time, the religious Jews moved back and forth from the back of the plane to pray. 2ish hours of sleep, weeeeeeee!

Then it finally hit all of us… we were FINALLY IN ISRAEL! We made our way through customs and found our luggage. We met our tour guide for the trip, Amir, a good friend of my professor and her husband.

We are staying at the Yizhak Rabin Guest House and Youth Hostel in Jerusalem. We are within walking distance of the Israeli Knesset (House of Parliament), The Israeli Museum, The Israeli Supreme Court, several Ministries (Finance, Defense, Foreign Affairs, Immigration Absorption, just to name a few).

A night time view of the new city (Jerusalem) from the accidentally trespassed back courtyard of the Israeli Supreme Court building. :) We wanted to explore and the boundaries are not clearly marked like they are here... Well they are, except we can't read Hebrew (see next photo).

The sign telling Angela, Sarah, and me that the Supreme court is open from 8:30-1:30, and that we probably shouldn't be trespassing on Israeli Governmental property, especially the Supreme Court of Israel. Oopsies.

I’ll be writing a blog post after today’s tour, which will also count as my first blog post for our group’s blog: hamlinetohaifa.blogspot.com. The next post on my blog, and the first post on the group blog will be the same.

Picture of my room at the Yitzhak Rabin Guest House and Youth Hostel.  My bed is on the left, and my roommate Gavin's on the right. Out the window, though you cannot see it, there is a scene of the Israeli Museum on the top of the ridge across the street.

Thanks for reading this everyone, I hope you enjoy!