this year in Jerusalem

I've seen the Holy City. My trip is complete.

The tour didn't start til 11, so I spent a couple hours wandering around outside. Around 930 I'm walking along outside then southern wall when I suddenly hear "JANE?!!" and see Marissa Orenstein running at me! Then Mike Gohari shows up, and is all like "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE??".....yeah, of all the people to run into in Jerusalem, I ran into the UM Birthright group. Again, my world is shrinking, but finding people you know on the other side of the world is pretty entertaining.

I then walked through this open air mall to kill some time, and had the best fresh squeezed orange juice I've ever had. It came out of this totally sick juicer machine that I really want to find on ebay and get Scott for his birthday.

The tour = TOTALLY WORTH IT. I learned a ridiculous amount, and got so much more out of everything than I would have had I gone alone.

First stop: Church of the Holy Sepluchre. Built over Golgotha, the site of the crucifixion. Also contains the site where the supposed true cross was found by Helena, mother of Constantine, what is believed to be the site of Jesus' tomb, and where he was prepared for burial. Obviously, nothing looks anything like it did 2000 years ago and the church is very ornate in places, which kind of annoys me, but when you take a moment to remove yourself mentally and touch the actual stone of the hill where it happened and stand where Mary stood as she watched her son die....it's powerful. Regardless of what you believe about Jesus, it's incredible to be there and think how one man, here, in his death, changed the course of human history. And if you believe he was more than a man, well, then its another thing entirely. I won't go into details, but.....it's moving.
[**Interesting things I never knew: (1) According to oral tradition, Golgotha (the Place of the Skull) was called so because it was believed that the skeleton of Adam lay deep below it. When Jesus died, and the earth cracked below him, his blood was thus said to drip down to cleanse the original sin of mankind. (2) Kalif Omar, the second (I believe) leader of Islam after Mohammed, toured the church at one point and while he was doing so the time came to pray. Instead of stopping exactly where he was to pray, which he always did, he walked outside. When his followers asked him why he did this, he said he knew that if he had prayed inside the church, within twenty years they would have torn it down and built a mosque in its place. He recognized how important the site was to Christians and didn't want this to happen, so he left it before praying...and now there is a mosque built in honor of him across from the church.]

We then walked the Via Dolorosa, the route of the crucifxion, in reverse (which was kind of weird, but oh well). Along the way the stations of the cross are marked (Jesus saying goodbye to Mary, Simon being given the cross to carry, etc), which although the historical accuracy probably isn't exactly very good, is pretty cool. Again, this is now in the middle of the market so you have to mentally remove yourself from what's going on around you.

We ate lunch as a tour group at this falafel bar place, which was very tasty and half the price of the lunch I ate in Ein Gedi. Also fun to sit down and actually talk to the people I was spending the day with.

Next was HaKotel, the Wailing Wall. Really impactful; security was ridiculous but I guess you can't blame them. Then we got in line to go on the Temple Mount. Apparently they let non-Muslims up at 730 am and 130pm, and its only a certain number so you have to line up early (again - things I would not have known had I gone by myself). This is the part where all the people who didn't dress appropriately end up wearing random articles of clothing provided by the tour guide to cover up. Very entertaining. Example: two guys about my age wearing hot pink wrap skirts. Guess ya shoulda worn longer shorts, boys. Luckily I came prepared. It was interesting to learn about the history of the Temple Mount, the building and destruction of the temples, and how the Dome of the Rock came to be. We weren't allowed in the Dome of the Rock; since Ariel Sharon's 2000 speech in front of it (which sparked the Second Intifada, if you don't know your Israel history then Google it) non-Muslims haven't been allowed in.
[**Interesting tidbit: Most orthodox Jews do not go on the Temple Mount, ever. Because the temple no longer stands, there is no way to know where the "holiest of holy" is/was and by not going up there, they avoid walking somewhere that is beyond their level of holiness, so to speak.]

We also went to the room of the Last Supper (again, questionable accuracy but oh well), King David's tomb (not questionable accuracy, cause his body's chillin there), and Dormition Abbey, where Mary died. And a lot of other places a long the way, but I can't remember all of them and I learned more than I could possibly take in. The point our tour guide (who was totally nuts, by the way) kept making at each site was how closely related the three faiths were in their holy sites (not just like, all these things happened on the same place, but things that were similar) and that what causes the conflicts isn't that they are so different, but that they are so alike. All in all, very, very good tour and I highly recommend it.

Thoughts:
-Given the climate of today, and for that matter that of millenia past, this city is important no matter what you believe. Of all the places in this world you can travel, this is one place everyone should see before they die.
-If you are or have ever been a follower of Christ, whether you just found your faith or you're losing your religion, you need to go to Jerusalem. There is so much to be gained, to be found within yourself by walking where he walked and seeing where he lived and died. Incredible. Seriously.

On my last evening in the city Aliza showed back up and invited me out with some of her newfound friends at Hebrew U. It was nice to meet some new people and go out for a change, but two things: (1) I sat next to three of the biggest, most bigoted jerks I have ever heard speak in my life. Seriously, if you listened to them talk too long you would give up all hope in humanity/the world ever becoming a better place. (2) Beer and Ethiopian food is a terrible taste combination. Avoid it at all costs.

Got up early yesterday morning and took the bus back to meet Alla and Tomer at Makhanayim. Pretty pleasant ride, and I actually managed to get the bus to stop at the right stop. The ride from that point through the mountains was, however, again spent trying not to throw up. (Sidenote: I just now realized the bottle of phenagrin I have with me was prescribed to SCOTT PRYJMAK in JANUARY 2007. Oops. No wonder it hasn't been working. Jane Fail.)

Last night Kifa (the housekeeper) and her family came over and we had a traditional Druze bbq. Wow, such good food. We cooked out by the pool and then all of us sat on blankets and ate on the deck, and it was really fun. It was a good thing we put down plastic over the blankets, tho, because food ended up everywhere. Well, we all kinda gave up on being neat after Guy dropped the bottle of Fanta in the bowl of red cabbage and we all got splattered with it. There was a lot of laughter and a lot of vodka involved, which may or may not have been related. All in all a good time, and a very nice Shabbat dinner.

The season has picked up, and last night we had five cabins full of people, so this meant a lot of breakfast this morning. I felt like I was slicing cheeses for hours. Afterward we cleared and re-linened all the cabins since Kifa wasn't feeling well, and then it was time for the birthday celebration.

Oh yes, that's right. Ziv is four today. It was a spectacle.

No, actually it was really fun. I've never seen this kid smile so much. Some of the family's friends came over and the fun part was that everybody got to help her open presents. It was nuts. Basically Lilach gets a ton of inexpensive gifts so that there's a lot to open, and once it starts its like a barrage of small children and paper. I even got to assist. Got some great pictures too.

Hard to believe that tomorrow is my last day in Nimrod. Where has the time gone?