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| Old Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives |
Day 63 Sun 27 July DEAD SEA – JERUSALEM
Departure time: 7.30 am
The border is around ½hours run from the Dead Sea Swimming Club and the length of time with formalities can vary. We will hire JETT buses (Jordanian) to cross to the Disneyland (Israeli) border post. (Israel was referred to as Disneyland on all correspondence as officially there was no ‘open’ border and other Moslem nations would frown on foreigners visiting Israel. The Israelis co-operated by issuing their visas on a piece of paper which would be collected at the border when we re-crossed into Jordan). Checks on both sides of the Allenby Bridge (over the River Jordan) – named after the British General Allenby who captured Jerusalem from the Turks in World War One – can take time. On the Disneyland border there will be searches on all luggage and once cleared we will take taxis to the Knight’s Palace Hotel in the Old City of Jerusalem, which will be our base for the next few days.
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| Outside the Damascus Gate, Jerusalem |
Day 64 Mon 28 July JERUSALEM
Jerusalem is perhaps the best known and certainly the most controversial city in the World. Jerusalem is the holy city of both Christianity and Judaism and the 3rd holiest city of Islam (after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia), and consequently all three religions have laid claim to, and occupied, the city throughout its long and turbulent history. Jerusalem is one of the World’s oldest cities, dating from around 4000 BC when a tribe of Canaanites built a town here. In 1000 BC King David captured the city and under his son Solomon, the Kingdom of Israel reached its peak.
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| In the Arab Quarter of Jerusalem |
After Solomon’s death in 930 BC, the kingdom split into two, Israel and Judah, with Jerusalem being, the capital of the latter. The city was destroyed, first by the Assyrians around 600 BC and again by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians in 587 BC. This time the inhabitants were taken into captivity in Babylon where they remained until the Persians under Cyrus the Great destroyed Babylon in 538 BC and allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem. Next came the Macedonians under Alexander the Great who occupied Jerusalem in 332 BC and after his death this part of his Empire, which included all the Middle East and stretched across Persia to India, fell to his lieutenant Seleucus I Nicator. Greek rule was generally benign until 169 BC when Antiochus IV Epiphanes desecrated the Temple of Solomon, forbidding Jewish religious practices. This led to the Maccabean Revolt in 167 BC followed by several years of guerrilla warfare before the Seleucid Greeks were expelled from Jerusalem and Judea, which was ruled by the Hasmonean dynasty, until Jerusalem was conquered by the Romans in 63 BC.
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| Narrow streets of old Jerusalem |
After the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 132-5 AD was suppressed by Hadrian, Jerusalem became the Roman colony of Aelia Capitolina and Jews were forbidden enter or live there. The Jewish diaspora dates from this time, although a limited number continued to dwell in the countryside. Thus, no Jews lived inside Jerusalem from this date until after the 6-day War of 1967 when Israeli forces captured the Old City from the Jordanians.
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| The Dome of the Rock Mosque on Temple Mount, Jerusalem |
In the subsequent centuries Jerusalem came under Arab, Crusader, Saracen, Ottoman, Egyptian and finally British rule. In 1099 the Crusaders of the 1st Crusade established the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem which lasted until 1187 when the city was captured by Saladin. British forces, including troops from Australia, New Zealand and India, led by General Edmund ‘The Bloody Bull’ Allenby, occupied Jerusalem on 9 December 1917, after which Jerusalem and Palestine became a British Mandate under the terms of the newly formed League of Nations.
On 14 May 1948, the British Mandate in Palestine expired and the present State of Israel was born. After a brief but bloody war, Israeli forces managed to seize control of West Jerusalem, but were foiled in their attempt to occupy the Old City with its religious shrines by Jordan’s British-led Arab Legion. The city remained divided, the Old City remaining in Jordanian hands until captured by Israeli paratroopers (fighting as ground forces) in 1967. Jerusalem now remains the main ‘apple of discord’ between a permanent peace with the Arabs, along with the Palestinian problem, and the decision in the last day or two (of this 1980 tour) by the Israeli Knesset, to formally annex the city and move the capital to East Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, has not helped matters and Prime-Minister Begin could be in for a hard time.
Things to see and do during the free time you have in Jerusalem.
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| Christian pilgrims carrying a Cross along the Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem |
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| The site of Calvary, or Golgotha, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem |
The site of Calvary was identified, in 326, by Helena, Emperor Constantine’s mother and he enshrined the site by removing Roman remains and building the first Basilica in 336. This Church was destroyed by the Persians in 614, rebuilt but destroyed again in 1009. Byzantine Emperor Monomachus began reconstruction in 1048 and it was finally completed by the Crusaders in 1149. After the Crusaders were defeated in 1187, Saladin allowed Christians to use the shrine under the condition that the key to the shrine – the right of entry – remained in Moslem hands, which it does to this day - the same family, I believe. The upkeep of the Church is shared among the various Christian sects – Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Armenians, Copts and Ethiopians who do not always seen eye to eye, hence over the years the Church has deteriorated structurally.
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| Entrance to the Tomb of Christ in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem |
Between 1936-44 the British had to install steel reinforcing to prevent the Church from collapsing. In 1958, the various Religious groups were finally able to agree on a programme of repair.
The Temple Mount, Mount
Moriah, is the holiest site for both Jews and Moslems. It was upon Mount Moriah, around 2000 BC that Abraham of Ur,
patriarch of all the ‘People of the Book’ – Jews, Christians and Moslems -
prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac on a flat rock on the summit, until an
angel intervened. King David, about a thousand years later purchased the rock
off a local farmer who had been using it as a threshing floor. His son,
Solomon, built the first temple which held the Ark of the Covenant. This Temple
was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 587 BC. The second Temple of
Solomon was built after the return of the Jews from Babylon and was enlarged
and enriched by Herod the Great in the first century BC. This was the great Temple of Solomon destroyed by the
Romans in 70 AD. When the Moslems under Caliph Omar captured Jerusalem in 637, the Caliph was shocked at the amount of rubble and filth on Mt. Moriah. As
punishment for neglecting such a holy site, he made the Christian Patriarch
Sophronius grovel in the muck. He then set about clearing the site with his own
hands and had a wooden mosque built on the site. Caliph Abd el-Malik commissioned
the Dome of the Rock Mosque in the late 7th century. During the
Crusades it became a Christian shrine served by the Knights Templars, but after
the re-capture of Jerusalem by Saladin, it became a mosque once again. Outside, the Mosque is covered with blue tiles from Persia and the ‘golden’ Dome is
actually an aluminium bronze alloy from Italy.The sacred rock within has an
indentation, said to be the footprint of Mohammed as he leapt to Heaven.
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| El Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount, Jerusalem |
The El Aqsa Mosque, built by Walid, son of Caliph Abd el-Malik, is the holiest Islamic shrine outside of Mecca and Medina. ‘El Aqsa’, or ‘distant place’ is mentioned in the Koran in a vision of the ascension of Mohammed, and means being far removed from Mecca. During the Crusades, it was briefly the Palace of the Kings of Jerusalem then the headquarters of the Knights Templars. An interesting relic from this period are the tombs of the assassins of St. Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Ottoman Emperor Suleiman the Magnificent restored the Mosque in the 16th century.
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| The Western, or Wailing Wall. holiest site of Judaism, Jerusalem |
The Wailing or, Western, Wall is the holiest Jewish site and is the last remaining section of the Temple of Solomon, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. This site returned to Jewish hands after the Six Day War of 1967.
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| Yad Vashem, Holocaust Monument |
The Mount of Olives,
outside the city walls, gives good views of the old city and here are a number
of churches associated with the Ascension of the Virgin Mary, as well as the
Russian Orthodox Mary Magdalene Church with its onion domes and the old Jewish
cemetery.
Garden of Gethsemane is
where Jesus underwent the agony in the garden and was arrested after his betrayal by Judas. The so-called Tomb of Mary is also here.
Yad Vashem is a new shrine to the memory of the Jewish holocaust of World War Two where 6,000,000 perished. This is outside the old city and accessible by local bus.This moving exhibition was completed in 1957 and is well worth a visit.
Day 65 Tue 29 July JERUSALEM
Today I’ve arranged the hire of a bus and driver to follow the footsteps of Christ to Galilee and the Nazareth area.
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| Manger Square, Bethlehem |
Many of you will probably
have, or intend to, visited the Church of the Nativity in Manger Square in
Bethlehem and may have followed the path Christ took as he carried his heavy
Cross to Golgotha, or visited the Garden of Gethsemane where he was betrayed by
Judas Iscariot.
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| Old Jericho & the Mount of Temptations, 1980 & 'The Fall of Jericho' by German artist Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld 1794-1872 |
Today’s trip will visit other places connected with the life and preaching of Jesus, as well as places featured in the Old Testament. First stop will be Jericho, on the Israeli-occupied West Bank, believed to be the world’s oldest continuously inhabited city dating from around 9600 BC and the protective walls of the old city are the world’s oldest. It was these walls that Joshua and his Israelites supposedly shattered by the blowing of trumpets and the Canaanite inhabitants massacred: So the people shouted, and the trumpets blown. As soon as the the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people raised and great shout, and the walls fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword.” (Joshua 6:20-21). Overlooking both Biblical and modern Jericho is the Mount of Temptation where Christ fasted for 40 days and from which Satan tempted him with ‘all the kingdoms of the World.
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| Sea of Galilee at Tiberias |
From Jericho we drive on through the disputed Israeli-occupied West Bank, following the River Jordan valley to Lake Tiberias, the Biblical Sea of Galilee. We pass through the town of Tiberias, 100% Jewish as we are now back in Israel, and we will visit the Mount of Beatitudes from where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, then to Caperneum, the ruined town from which Christ held his ministry. Nearby is Tabgha where Christ fed 5000 followers by the breaking of bread and fish. We will stop for lunch and a swim in the Sea of Galilee at Tiberias before climbing out of the Rift Valley to Nazareth, home of Joseph and Mary and the town where Jesus grew up, training as a carpenter under the tutelage of his father. We will visit the Church of the Annunciation on the site of where the Virgin Mary was said to have been visited by Archangel Gabriel who told her she had been chosen, by God, to have his son.
After leaving Nazareth, time permitting, we will call into the ancient Canaanite site of Megiddo, Biblical Armageddon, before driving into the West Bank passing through the ‘Valley of Dancers’ between Samaria and Judaea, where the young men of Shiloh used to come to dance with the daughters of Benjamin. We pass through the Palestinian towns of Nablus and Ramallah. The Arab mayors of both these towns, has their legs blown off in car-bombs earlier this year (1980). We should arrive back in Jerusalem early evening.
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| Canaanite ruins at Megiddo, the Armageddon of the Book of Revelations |
A free day to further explore Jerusalem, or perhaps visit Tel Aviv or take a tour to the ancient sites of Massada, last stronghold of the Zealots in their war against the Romans in 74AD, and Qumrun, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the late 1940s. Below are a few words about Judaism and Zionism.
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| Tel Aviv from Jaffa & the ruins on Massada |
Judaism, the religion of the Jews, is the world’s oldest monotheistic religion, the creed of which is based on the concept of a transcendant and omnipotent ‘One True God’, the revelation of His will in the Torah and the special relationship between God and ‘His Chosen People’. The Torah is the Hebrew name for the Law of Moses (the Pentateuch) which was divinely revealed by Moses on Mt Sinai during the Exodus from Egypt. An important influence on Judaism may have been the monotheism of Akhenaten, the ‘heretic’ Pharaoh and father of Tutankamun, who advocated the worship of a single entity – Aten, the solar disc. There are striking similarities between Psalm 104 and Akhenaten’s Hymn to the Sun.
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| Ruins at Qumrun, where the Dead Scrolls were found in caves in 1946 |
The Talmud is a book containing the civil and canonical laws of the Jews. Judaism is essentially a social and family religion which, more than almost any other, concerns itself with the observances of every aspect of daily life. Details are laid down in the most minute way for the behaviour of the orthodox. The home is the main Jewish institution and Jews cannot surrender their religion. Circumcision takes place 8 days after birth and a boy becomes a man at his Bar Mitzvah at 13. Among festivals are Passover, recalling the Exodus; Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year; and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The priest is called a rabbi and the place of worship a synagogue.
Zionism
is the belief in the need to establish an autonomous Jewish home in Palestine
which, in its modern form, began with Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), a Hungarian
journalist in Vienna who was forced by the Dreyfus case (Alfred Dreyfus was a
French Jew and soldier who was unjustly convicted of espionage) and the pogroms
in Eastern Europe, to conclude that there was no real safety for the Jewish
people until they had a state of their own. These persecutions reached their
apogee during the genocide of Hitler’s Nazi regime and th death camps of Europe
during World War Two. Today Zionism is supported by the vast majority of Jewish
communities everywhere and it is now an active
international force concerned with protecting the welfare and extending
in influence of Israel – mainly at the expense of the Palestinians!
Free evening in Jerusalem; perhaps time for a beer ot two at Bob's Bar before returning to the hotel to prepare for an early departure for Jordan tomorrow morning.
Text & photographs ©Neil Rawlins |
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