Israel -- 2025

 

We originally thought we'd go to Istanbul.  Thought we'd experience some different cultures and so on.  It didn't work out, but  Son #1 invited us to Israel,  and are we ever grateful.  Israel has numerous and diverse cultures, is an active war zone -- a new experience for us --, has history we didn't know we wanted to learn, and sports the  lowest spot on earth. So much of the experience was intangible, thought-provoking, and moving.  We just had to be there.

Here's John on Dog Walking Duty on our first day there.

John, who is the Management Officer for the US Mission to Israel, travels pretty freely in Israel, but there are regions considered too dangerous for him to go, so we couldn't either.   The possibility of missile attacks at any moment was enough to keep us from wanting to go to any of those places.  Even so, John and Georgia provided us with 5 days of whirlwind touring that became a thought provoking, awesome and unique adventure! 

The Adventure Begins

El Al is the only major airline that will fly into Tel Aviv, the only airport in Israel. Tickets are booked months in advance and we don't plan that well.   So with an "in for a penny, in for a pound" attitude, we booked a last minute  flight on a budget airline called TUS Air -- never heard of it, but assumed it would just be part of the adventure.   And so it was. TUS involved really long lines, buses from the terminal to get on the plane where it is parked in the places airlines get to park when they don't pay for gates. There was a free for all for seats, even though they were assigned, a lot of my whining, etc. It was steerage class all the way.  Any way, the flights themselves were fine and landed, despite what that picture from their website appears to show, on runways instead of the Mediterranean or a mountain (my fears).  We would do it again. Probably with lighter backpacks.

Our very first sight inside Ben Gurion Airport was a pile of teddy bears on the floor -- What?  It turned out to be part of an in-your-face reminder that there are many hostages, including children, still kept somewhere in Gaza,  and Israel and the world wants them back.  Each hostage is pictured and named. Look how long the line of pictures is, and it is on each side of the corridor (Bill is standing in the middle). So many lost people.  We were quite saddened on the day we left Israel  by the discovery of the body of one of the hostages.

 Ben Gurion was not crowded at all (no airlines = no people) and had very few directions about their immigration procedure, but thanks to John's detailed directions, we got it right, and easily moved forward in the procedure, only to have  the last immigration official tightly -- and I mean tightly -- hold on to our passports.   It turned out we had to convince her that although we were visiting someone who was not an Israeli, he also wasn't a Palestinian.   Telling her he was American didn't help at all - that lady gripped the passports a little tighter.... When we stopped talking about his citizenship and said the word diplomat  our passports came back to us like they were too hot to hold.   Whew, we found the magic word! And exiting customs, he was right there ready to take us to his apartment in Jerusalem.  

John's apartment in central Jerusalem is across the street from the walls of "The Old City"  The apartment  is characterized by arched windows and several rounded walls-- like the apse behind an alter, but don't take that simile very far.  It is quite elegant in a Israeli sort of way.

The Old City is just that -- really old-- there are structures in it that date, archeologically speaking, to the time of King David, ~1010 BCE.  It is walled, with gates, now modernized from the ancient times. -- The closest to John is the Jaffa Gate, built to accommodate the Jaffa road that came from the old port of Jaffa, on the Mediterranean Sea. 

And so we started our touring in the old Jaffa Seaport  along the beautiful Mediterranean  beaches in Tel Aviv (about a 30 minute drive from Jerusalem). Wow -- Vienna had been cold and cloudy and this beach was a wonderful surprise.  The sky really was that color.

Here's John and Georgia.  We were all way overdressed -- it was warm enough to swim but we were unprepared, wardrobe-wise.  We surely did put our feet in the water.

We walked along the beach from the US embassy building facing the beach in Tel Aviv, where John's diplomatic plates give him parking privileges, to the ~4000 year old port city of Jaffa.  It's mostly a boutique kind of shopping center now with stunning Mediterranean views.  The Jaffa road  originated here and terminated at the higher and more defensible Jerusalem by going through the Jaffa gate across from John's present-day apartment. This combination of antiquity and modernity was a warning of how much bandwidth Israel and its history was going to require from us.  Everything in Israel has layers and layers of history (also mirrored in archeological excavations),  times, cultures, etc.  It's hard to comprehend it all. 

You can see that by the time we reached Jaffa, we had shed all the coats, etc.  We are in the top picture, John and Georgia here.   The Jaffa clock tower is seen behind us.

Georgia was the most magnificent hostess.  Once we were back in Jerusalem, she arranged a private tour for us of the Christian quarter of the Old City.  Our only regret of the trip was not having a similar tour of the other quarters. Next time, perhaps..... 

  Here's Georgia, John, Bill and Habib, our tour guide for several hours.  They are standing in front of the Western wall (used to be called the wailing wall) where Jewish people pray.  It the only part of the Jewish temple left that is available to them.   

Men pray on the left side and women on the right.  The line of umbrellas seen in the back ground is the division point between the men and the women.  Bill and I were allowed to touch the wall and it felt very much like an honor.  

At first it was hard to understand this as a city with streets and residences and shops, but it is.  It is very old, the streets seem like hallways, and the vendors are aggressive, but once you get the hang of it.... well still confusing, but it begins to make sense. 

This Wikipedia map shows the gates, the current walls, the four unequal quarters -- Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Armenian - as well as the City of David (an archeological site that shows Jerusalem during Roman times -- that is, during Jesus' ministry. 

The original walls of the city incorporated a smaller area, and most of the Christian sites, including the crucifixion and burial of Jesus were 'out of town' during Jesus' time.   The Temple Mount, which supports the Dome of The Rock is not in any quarter.  The Jaffa gate through which we entered, now quite modern, is on the left side of the map.

The Temple Mount now holds the Dome of the Rock.  It is a Muslim site built on top of the site of the original Jewish Temples. It is claimed by the Muslims to be the site where Mohammed ascended into heaven and claimed by the Jews as their Holiest of Holies site with ties to their origins.  Right now only Muslims can enter the Dome of the Rock.   

The four of us posed for a snapshot as we climbed the stair of the Temple Mount -- a really big man-made plaza on which  the Dome of the Rock is located.  We passed through a security site to get onto the Temple Mount and that's the  place where we witnessed blatant Jewish/Muslim tensions-- Can't really be specific but it seemed that the Jewish folks were trying to make a militant point that both the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock were Jewish sites, and it is where they believe a third Jewish Temple should be built.   Both John and Habib told us to stay far away from that interaction, so we did.

We learned about two Jewish revolts and the development of what Israel is today with its separate  Palestinian sections of the West Bank, including Gaza (in gray on the map).   The UN recognizes the West Bank as a sovereign state (Palestine) but the US does not. 

This is our way of saying how much we had to understand to even appreciate what we were seeing and where we were traveling.  See how Jerusalem is tucked right against the Palestinian areas.  Combine that with the religious histories and local politics, and we were blown away.  It was hard to take it all in and make sense of all of it (you'd need a couple of life times there to do that) and it is all very moving.

Christian Sites we saw commemorate the time that Jesus lived and worked in and around the Jerusalem:

• The desert, located in the West Bank, in which Jesus went to pray for 40 days and nights, near the city of Jericho-- the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. We ate Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen Chicken there.  Why? because we could!  We also saw camels roaming the hills.  Juxtapositions!
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  Sorry to say we didn't take other pictures of Jericho -- just this one to show the juxtaposition of the antiquities that folks go to Israel to see versus the modernity of everyday life.   (Yes, we know Popeye's is not a Christian site.)

We also saw:

• The  road of the palms, where Jesus entered Jerusalem with palms,  now commemorated by Christians as Palm Sunday. 
•  Garden of Gethsemane.   The word itself refers to a pressing stone used to make olives into olive oil, and the garden  is populated by really old olive trees.  Astounding. 
  
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•  Within the Garden is a modern church called the Church of the Agony depicting the agony that Jesus' is said to have endured just before his arrest and indicating a place where the actual arrest took place.
  

• Adjacent to the Garden of Gethsemane is a Greek Orthodox Church that purports to contain the burial place of Mary. Upon entering the church, we descended about 50 stone steps.
  
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• Where Jesus was tried --  The first  trial was in the Tower of David, seen here in a Wikipedia picture showing the modern road and the walls.  John's apt is on the other side of this street with a direct view.
  
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• We walked the actual Stations of the Cross, until we reached the last five which are all within the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, 
  
  
  
• built to protect the sites where Jesus was crucified and buried.  The site of the crucifixion is under the smaller, higher dome,  over  the actual  top of Mount Calvary (aka Golgontha).   We were able to attend part of a Greek Orthodox liturgy there and witnessed and heard the amazing chanting/ singing/ recitations involved.   The actual top of Calvary is visible  under the glass case behind the alter and one can touch it. There is a crucifix here, but you'll need to make the picture large.
  
  
  
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• The larger dome covers a lot of real estate inside the church, including a small 'edicle' said to contain the tomb in which Jesus was buried and from which he arose.   This is a picture from Britannica followed by one Georgia took of us in front of it 
  
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  Here's what it looks like inside.   Once source we read said that marble slab covering the tomb has been there since at least 1555, and probably centuries earlier.   But this is what we saw:  

  

  
  
•  We roamed around an archeological excavation of the actual "City of David" -- the Roman era Jerusalem through which Jesus would have walked and not the Old City.  We are still trying to figure out how the construction was done.  Narrow streets, lots of shops, houses, etc.
   
• We shared our time in the City of David with groups of young Israeli soldiers who, it was explained to us, had been conscripted for a two-year service to their country, and were being shown all their history.  They all have automatic weapons which we hope are not loaded, because they are pointing them at each other.

  

Bethlehem, and the Church of the Nativity,  is a mere 5 miles from the Old City -- but it's in the West Bank and when we went there, the check point was closed.  No entry for anyone, but especially Israelis -- a sign in three languages made that clear!  So  John took us back to Jerusalem into an Arab neighborhood to his favorite bakery.   Fun to see the neighborhood -- it was small shops with good products.  Georgia speaks Arabic, so she mediated between us and the shop keepers and the really good cookies and cakes -- one for her birthday!  

We did find a grocery selling pomelos.  Known to me only through crossword puzzle clues, it is the largest of the citrus fruits.   An actual one felt like quite the discovery and one of the perks of our traveling life!     Look at this picture compared to the orange in the bowl behind it.   It tastes like grapefruit and would take a whole family to eat it.  

Another trip to the West Bank delivered us to a sad, old resort on the Dead Sea.   The DEAD SEA!  Wow -- its the lowest land point on earth!  A screen shot from my phone's altimeter in feet.  Notice the minus sign.

The sea is full of minerals and  if you just lay on your back, which we did not (wardrobe problems again), you will  float.   We did a little wading in the Sea.  We also noted  a kiddie pool full of black mud on the shore line  which was observed to be smeared on entire bodies, and then such smeared folks would float in the sea. I'm so going back there if I ever get a chance.

Here's Georgia and me -- wading at the shoreline--If you look, it is covered in salt crystals.  

Bill, with the mountains of Jordan far behind him.

 Bill and I took a feet-in-the-Dead Sea picture. The skin on our feet and legs was baby-soft for days.   Truth.

Our visit to the Dead Sea was accompanied by the very low flyovers of 'locked and loaded' F-16s.  It turned out to be the day that 3 people had been shot on a bus far north of us.  We are assuming these events were related, but even so, scary. These weren't training missions.   Another reminder of the tensions these countries live with.  It's a bit heartbreaking and a lot concerning.

We saw wild camels in the desert, and took a picture with a tamed one on the side of the road.  Just local folks trying to make some shekels.   Here's one of Georgia on the camel.

We said goodbye to John and Georgia, Jerusalem, Israel,  the West Bank and a really great trip by celebrating Georgia's Birthday in a restaurant atop a large Catholic (go figure) facility called Notre Dame, with great food and an incredible view.    She topped it off with  three cakes and candles at home, and we were stuffed! It was a lovely evening.   Happy, happy birthday Georgia, and many, many more.  

John assured us we'd be fine in Israel and we were.  Still we were always aware of the possibility of a 90 second sprint to a bomb shelter.  That produces a lot of tension, and I'm sure it's true for all residents of Israel and Palestine (especially Palestine).  So we are ending this blog post with a few pictures of the bunker aka bomb shelter in John's building.  Nicer than we thought, but scary nonetheless.  Glad we didn't need to use it but even more glad to know it was there.   Given the short 'report' time, we were told to be ready any time.  We slept in shelter ready attire, took short showers and followed Georgia's instructions  to have our passports, other ID, phone and a water bottle ready to go all the time, which I did! Bill not so much.    This is my traveling bag  bought so I could be sure I have my doctor-ordered water bottle with me at all times.  It holds a water filter (so I can get water from nearly anywhere with safety) and has a 24 oz  water bottle, with a front pouch that holds all the documents and meds and so on for a good day's survival.   Came in really handy in bunker-planning.

The rooms inside the bunker were large with 2 dining-room sized tables and chairs and bookcases with lots of books.   There's a small no-frills kitchen and fridge and a small 1/2 bath.  There is a door, that when shut would scare you and escape hatches in the walls which are also scary.  

The door with a view inside to the tables and bookshelves

An escape hatch -- up high -- about the level of your chest. The side in the bomb shelter room has the yellow border.   The other side is flush against the wall outside the shelter.

The kitchen

We are grateful that John and Georgia, and Jimmy (a very large Golden Retriever) have this available to them and have used it on occasion.   I am not grateful that there is a need for it.   

WOYAYA