by Patricia Ray
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When this trip was offered to me I surely wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to visit the Holy Land. We were not with a big tour group or anything, it was just Mom my three sisters and me. Mother had set things up with an American guide who lived there in Old Jerusalem. We had lost dad in July. We wanted mom to get to do something she wouldn't ordinarily have done had dad been here. He was usually tied up into things and he always felt that there was no place like home. Mother had always liked to travel so this was a good thing for her. And if she wanted to go to the other side of the world, then we were going to the other side of the world. Just us four girls and mom.
It was an eye opener for me, also a sort of cultural shock. We boarded a plane and headed for New York I had never even been to New York before. From there changed planes to board the 747 jet that was to travel across the ocean non stop for Tel-Aviv Israel. We were a little scared getting on a jet and flying over the ocean for such a long time, 23 hours I believe it was. As we were going up an incline at the beautiful New York airport, to enter the plane, we looked out the all glass windows at the biggest, most beautiful rainbow we had ever seen in our life. It was like someone said "everything will be alright".
A very long ride it was. We landed at the Tel-Aviv airport exiting the plane down the ramp outside, I thought " gosh "this is just like the President does when we see him on television leaving the plane waving outside to the camera." I had thought they let him do "the exiting outside thing" just because he was The President. But everybody gets off Outside, they don't have any fancy airport like we have where you get directly off the plane into an airconditioned covered gate.
Then we had to go from being outside, into a real old airport to pass inspection, showing our US passports and have our bags checked. This was really old structure with low ceilings, I mean low. It was too warm in there, cramped with no comforts of home. The walls were covered with old blue-green tiles from the 50's or 60's era. It was nice to get through inspection and get back outside where there was a breeze blowing .
It was about 5:00 p.m. when we arrived . The weather was kindof warmish, but a tropical breeze was blowing which made it nice. We called the place where we had made arrangements for a rental van to come to the airport and give us some wheels. It was good we had insurance on all of us on this trip, because we had no idea what we were going to be in for when we reached the City of Jerusalem Israel.
In Tel Aviv we noticed this was a strange and different place. Not anything like I had expected. The climate in October was kindof tropical like Florida is. I was so surprised. I never thought of Israel in this way before. Then after going through inspections and everything we got to our rented van and headed for Jerusalem. It was all open roads all the way with hardly any structures or signs to look at along the way. Just land. Not at all like it is here. Most of the road was lined with fig trees, palm trees, olive trees, seemingly growing out of the dry ground and rocks. We got in our rented mini van, and headed towards Jerusalem. And the road to Jerusalem was only a two lane very old looking road like you would see here on a back road somewhere. No interstate fancy road development there. One thing I noticed , there was not any green grass anywhere, or if there was, it was sparse, and very spotty. But the road to Jerusalem, seemed long and boring. Nothing to see except desert. Kindof like going from Pahrump Nevada, to Las Vegas, there is nothing but desert to see, then boom, Vegas. Finally, we arrived in Old Jerusalem. The Hustle and bustle of the city.... BOOM.....the city.
There were loud horns honking everywhere. People were hollering out the windows of their cars. People drive very different there. It's like New York City only multiplied times 100...if you know what I mean. People expect you to honk and scream it seemed. I think a lot of New Yorkers must be transplants from over there, in the old country. :) They were very dramatic and wild drivers. They weren't mad or anything, that's just the way they do. We found our hotel where we were to stay, and were so relieved to find it, stop and just to rest a bit. We then called our English speaking contact there and she told us where to come and get her in the "Old City of Jerusalem". Although she lived there with her husband and two children as emissaries, they did not own a car so we had to let her ride with us and show us all the sites. I am not really sure why they did not own a car. I know I wouldn't want to drive there.
As we walked the streets of the Old City we noticed there we didn't see any women we would think of as Jewish. But there sure were a whole lot of the Jewish Orthodox men folk. These guys sure aren't any help , mainly because they wouldn't even look at any of us, taking the verse literally, where it says: to "not look on a woman". Of course we only spoke English and not many people there speak our language. We were amazed at all of the Arabic people selling their wares in the bazaars on both sides of the old streets, and hounding us to buy their wares. Now those guys were friendly very friendly and we couldn't get them to leave us alone.
But they also were willing to help us too, so that at least was a good thing because at times we needed help. But the Jews most assuredly are the rich ones and are in control despite the Muslim presence there.
We tried to get in so much in 7 days. The first evening there, we went to see this newly discovered excavational site. Both my sister and I took a picture of it. This place is Very ancient, and right to the right of the Wailing Wall, about 5 ft or so lower, and both of which is right under the Dome of the Rock. You can view this New Excavational Site here..
Now it was pretty strange how those pictures turned out. Both of our pictures have some kind of shadowy misty figure in both our exposures. This was not a sunspot. The sun had already gone down behind the big building behind us. But both our pictures have this. IMAGE Outlined and Marked just in case you don't see what I'm talking about. Then it might be clearer in a smaller view. IMAGE Enhanced . Those are identical pictures taken by two different people with two different camera's. Of course we didn't notice anything while we were there looking at this with the naked eye. But this phenomenon showed up in both our pictures taken with different cameras. I think it looks like an angel or some kind of figure, who could be guarding that site there. I wonder what they have found there since we were there. Most of the work done like that is very slow in forthcoming. It takes more than an act of Congress to do things like that it seems, over there. I am afraid it could have been put at a standstill since it is so close to that Dome of the Rock, and those Muslims wouldn't appreciate any digging there, since that could make the Dome vulnerable structurally.
But still the way this figure showed up was very interesting. In one way, it looks like a face to me, along with some kind of fog like thing. Imagine how shocked we were, after we both developed our pictures and found both our pictures to have this identical images within them....very interesting.
Now as for those Arabic salesman hounding us on the streets, It took our guide and American Emissary, Lisa showing us what to do about this. She would just smile and say something (I don't remember the word she used) but she just kept walking. The Jewish men would not even look at us because they believe it is a sin to even look upon a woman. But Lisa our guide was absolutely wonderful. I don't know what we would have done without her. Lisa knew how to get along very well over there, she was very good at relating to all the different kinds of peoples, tongues and cultures in the Old City.
Like I said, traffic in Old Jerusalem was awful. People were constantly honking horns everywhere. Those people seemed used to it though. My sister Nita was driving our van and she held her cool really good in the stressful situation of driving a van in those circumstances. She's a tough girl though. We soon learned , that people expect you to honk and do the way they do. So it didn't take Nita very long to started Honking away right back at them. Honking horns, everywhere, big tour buses going in and out and those streets are so narrow and crowded. It was very stressful driving over there. That was really the worst part of the trip.
This is a picture of Lisa with mom and sisters at the Damascus gate which is the Arabic side. This gate is full of bazaars and shops and very crowded.
Now the food there is very different. When we went to the Jewish restaurants, we found that you cannot have dairy and meat together at the same time. A meal over there, is like two hours long. They have really fine restaurants there. There is a side where you have to sit if you desire to eat meat, and another side if you want to order something dairy. No burger with cheese there at the Jewish restaurants. But in the mall they did have a "Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and McDonald's". I don't think the Jewish people ate at those fast food places though. It seems like everything we ordered in the city restaurants had lots of herbs on it. It was different from the American way of cooking I must say, but it was pretty good. You had to wait a very long time for the meal to arrive. They do not serve pork. It is not on the menu. Since the pigs have no sweat glands to sweat the toxins out of their body it is not good to eat pig meat they believe. Cows, chickens and sheep are ok.
Now back to Jerusalem. Everything shuts down on the Sabbath-Saturday the seventh day, the "Day of Rest". From Friday sundown until Saturday sundown. Even elevators will not even work right on the Shabbat in this very Jewish town. Here in the US we call it (Sabbath). Pushing a button, is considered work I suppose. We learned the hard way your not suppose to even push a button. It was a problem, and we winded going up and down that elevator I don't know how many times, we thought it was broken. No one at the hotel spoke our language. You wouldn't believe how long it took us to figure out that your not suppose to touch the buttons in the elevator but that it would run by itself and stop at every floor and then you get out when it opens to your floor.We kept hitting those buttons and hanging the thing up. We were in that stupid elevator for what seemed like an hour. No people was around anywhere. I don't know where all the people went. Whereas, the traffic had been "so chaotic" "so noisy" hustle and bustle, chaotic, and busy Sunday-Friday, on Saturday, there was absolutely nothing going on. The whole city was dead. Well except for just a few Arabic salesmen in the Old City, there was nothing. It was like a different place on Saturday.
My mom didn't know what to think of this. Everyone keeps the "Sabbath (Shabbat)Day" as a day of total rest. They really take this thing seriously. Lisa our guide said it was really a special thing to be invited over to a Jewish families home for Shabbat which she said they had done occasionally and just loved it. We learned that they do all the cooking the day before and then on Shabbat they just eat, and rest. It is so different there. I wonder, "Do we ever really rest here?"
They had many beggars, real beggars, on the streets during Sunday through Friday and I wasn't sure how to handle them. If you take a picture of a beggars child, the parents run up to you and expect you to pay them money. So many children were begging. These looked to be Arabic or Palestinian children. The Jewish people seemed to be the ones with wealth. The Jewish lady who rented our rooms at the hotel came to show us all her jewels and gold for sale in a big briefcase. I was wishing I had enough money at the time to buy something from her. They were really beautiful. She said that she owned only the two rooms where we were staying. There were many more rooms in this big hotel (The King David). It was all furnished with lots of gold or gold plated furnishings inside this hotel. This lady seemed to be pretty well off financially. There was jewelry like you have never seen in your life. I really should have taken a picture of that. The Jewish people are the well to do members of society there.
We learned that the Jewish people believe in giving to all the beggars in need. They are very thrifty people, rich and good at saving money but they give to the poor people. They might not look at the beggars but they would always give them money on the streets. We watched this time and time again.
There are so many different religions there and beliefs. Just in the old city there were the Christian quarters, Muslim quarter, Armenian quarters and Jewish quarters. But still the Jewish people is in charge there. This was something you could feel very strongly. At the "Wailing Wall" area all the Orthodox Jewish men had these little books they always had in their hands along with their cell phone of course. They all looked so much the same, dressing in the long black coat and black hats. We were told that when you go to the wall, you are suppose to walk forward pray and back away as you leave. You should have seen all the people going up there, crying praying and putting little pieces of paper with their prayer messages on them into the cracks and crevices between the stones.
Then we exited the "Dome of the Rock" had to find our shoes, it was a big pile of shoes to go through. I was glad to leave and go back down to the "wall" area. Those guards up there didn't make me feel too good. I could not get over how those people of such different religions and so much cultural difference can live in such close vicinity.
We went up to the Mt. of Olives where Jesus is believed to have ascended back up to heaven. From way up there on that mountain, all the way down the mountain are marked old graves, maybe thousands of them. This is outside the stone wall surrounding Old Jerusalem below. The view from up there is pretty awesome. You can look down and see all of the city. It faces the Eastern Gate which is blocked cemented closed. It is the only gate that has been closed of the four gates. The Mt. of Olives area is supposed to be kept up by the Franciscan Brotherhood. It lies in the arabic part of the city and I couldn't help but notice how un-kept it was. There was garbage all in the streets and around the Church that was up there sortof out of the way place.
But down in Jerusalem were lots of armed guards,
We were told by our guide Lisa (who came there from America as an Ambassador or Emissary) she had to be called that instead of Missionary, that the Christians are not suppose to talk about Jesus on the street in Jerusalem, or try to convert anyone or you could be arrested. I know that it is hard to believe but she had been living right there in the Old City for two years so I guess she knew what she was talking about. I was really shocked about that. I had never heard of that happening there before, and didn't think that in That Place,it would be so constricted in this regard.
Best part of the trip for me was going on the "Sea of Galilee" which in in the city of "Galilee" and the Mount of Beatitudes which is very close to the sea. It was so beautiful there I guess it was about thirty miles Jerusalem. Here is a picture we took in Galilee.
To sail out on the sea was really special. It was REALLY COOL. The sweet tropical breeze was blowing as the sun was about two hours from setting in the western horizon. As we reached the seashore it was like a marina resort, with little shops and restaurants all around. Inside these shops you could buy souvenirs. This place was very different from Jerusalem. It was quiet, real getaway vacation-like place. People there were really nice to us there. I couldn't help but notice as about 10 were people being led out of a boat which was just coming in from their little voyage on the sea. A man who could have passed for St. Peter was helping these people out of their boats. He had black curls in his hair and a beard. What made this such a moving experience for me was that all these people were totally blind. He had to help each one , one at a time to get out of the boat. I had to look away from this and leave my little group for a while. That really got to me.
Making the trip to Galilee was worth everything. To get away from the loud hustle and bustle of Jerusalem to this peaceful place was wonderful. I would have been happy to finish our stay right there. Now we all thought it would be neat to be baptized there and the day was getting late, the sun was setting and we were going to have to go back to Jerusalem to the hotel. We didn't know anyone there who could baptize us, but come to find out, we wouldn't need a person to drench us, just when we got into our boat and were launching off, a speed boat of some kind, out of nowhere, came around and made a swift left and splashed us all over. We were soaked to the gills , I mean soaking wet all over. It was so funny. That was an experience I will NEVER forget.
It is weird , when you leave a city over there, there is nothing to see for miles and miles just brown desert looking land and sand, then there you are in another city..Thats the way it was going to Nazareth from Jerusalem. For miles you travel with nothing to see on the way, then there is all the buildings. And all the buildings are made with the same rock and style and color. All of them are the same. I think Lisa said that there is a law or something that makes everybody build structures with the same materials and style. Except for the "Dome of the Rock" structure, the outside of the buildings are pretty identical. Even new constructions are built the same exact way as far as I could tell, having to use new materials, that resemble closely the same rock-type material. Since Lisa and family lived there within the old city, they did some work at renovation, and used that same looking material/block. Outside our hotel room, you looked out and could see many cranes all over the place doing work, but this was a little outside the old city where we stayed in the more modern part of Jerusalem not in the Old City.
We went to Nazareth and there it is almost all arabic people. We also went to the "Masada" and right across the road is the "Dead Sea" you can jump in and just float because nothing will sink in that sea since it is so full of salt. You take the mud spread it all over you and let it soak in, very therapeutic and relaxing. The "Masada" is a very high mountain in the vacinity close to Qumran where the "Dead Sea Scrolls" were found high up in a cave on the western shore of the Dead Sea. The desert had held these scrolls for nearly 2,000 years. It is an ordinary thing to look out in the desert there and see what looks like nomads, or bedouins and tents, miles away from town.
In the "Dead Sea" there is nothing alive in the water just water and salt. There are great big mounds of salt formations. They grow upward towards the sun from the bottom of the sea. A lot of people go there for relief of arthritis pain. Strip off all their clothes practically, and jump in. It is like an epson salt bath soak. On down from that bathing place, a few miles is where Lot's wife is said to have turned to a pillar of salt because she looked back to gaze at the city of Sodom and Gomorrah after the angels told her not to look back..I did not realize that had happened so close to the Dead Sea, and the pillar of salt thing, stands to reason, its full of salt even now. It was very interesting. I mean you look under the water at what looks like big white sculptured looking piles of hard salt masses. Looks like they are growing more salt. I suppose when she turned to a pillar of salt that day, she must have salted the whole area while she was at it, or she became into her surroundings..I don't know. But it sure is interesting. I would say, that when an angel of the Lord tells you NOT to do something, you really ought to take heed.
In closing I will say....This was an enlightening experience for me. I left out a lot of things and this is a brief report here, but since the trip, I know what it feels like to be a stranger in a foreign land. To have nobody understand a word you are saying. And while we never had any real problems on this trip, still I'll never forget how I felt when we got close to the New York Island and I looked out of that big 747 down at all the green trees and grass. It was beautiful! I've never been so glad to see something green in all my life and then to step foot back on American soil where the people could actually understand what I was saying was such a relief. It caused me to laugh for joy almost, when we finally checked in at the New York City Airport, and I asked him laughing the whole time, " you must think we are nuts you for being so happy, to be home, and for you to understand what we are saying?" He said, "that's a very common reaction, that's the way a LOT of people are, when they finally get back home from over there." He seemed to be use to it. At this particular moment, even New York City felt like home. I felt safe, although I never really felt afraid while I was in Israel either. There was some moments of uncomfortableness, though. It just felt FANTASTIC to be home at last. I have heard it said that "All you have to do is go to some foreign land to appreciate what we have here in America". That statement rang true to me IN A REAL way that day when that plane finally landed back down on our US soil. I was so glad. Although, it really WAS a trip of a lifetime, I was SO glad to get back to the good old USA.
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