Our Trip to Israel

We arrived in New York this morning at about 5:30. Fortunately, our motel was happy to take us in. This gives me a chance to catch the blog up with pictures from before we left. Saturday morning, Amy and I traveled the Via Dolorosa , "The Way of Tears." It marks the path tradition says Jesus took from the time of his condemnation, through His crucifixion, and to his burial. It ends a the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which may very well mark the physical location of Jesus' crucifixion and burial. Throughout the tour, my emotional reaction to what I saw had been strictly one of a detached spectator. It was only on this last day, including our visit to the magnificent church, that the emotional power of where I was truly hit me. This was despite the fact that we were on a quickly moving tour, requiring our attention on the tour guide lest we become lost. Unfortunately, many pictures didn't come out the way I'd hoped, and other sites just didn't present the...

Tonight (Saturday) we head back to New York. Don't know when I'll actually get to update Friday's very interesting day, or do anything serious for today. Let me just summarize, and you see if you can make any necessary connections. Thursday's and Friday's pictures are not in order. Friday morning we visited a possible location where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, and visited Capernaum where Peter lived. Then we visited a Kibbutz in Northern Israel and stood at a spot overlooking South Lebanon (occupied by Israel until 2000). Then we went to the Golan Heights, where we visited battlefields and a modern shopping center. This took us close to the Syrian border. We went back down to the Sea of Galilee, and took a boat back to our hotel. (I'm getting my times and dates mixed up. I'm going to come back and correct the sequence later.) Today, we walked the Via Dolorosa , ending at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre .

[I suppose this is a violation of the Honor Code of the Bloggers, but I am coming back on Sunday to edit this post. We are in New York, and I want to straighten out what I left earlier. I am leaving original text intact, but am adding captions to the pictures.] I'm too tired to write any text tonight. Here are the pictures for Thursday and Friday. I'll put in some captions on Saturday. We set out Thursday morning to visit this kibbutz. It's in the very northern part of Israel, along the Lebanese border. As such, it has been the subject of rocket, mortar, and artillery attack for years. The Kibbutz movement has fallen on hard times, largely due to the discovery by both Israel and the rest of the world that markets do a better job of generating wealth than socialism. The market for farm products in particular has hit this kibbutz. One way of generating income is to lease land to other Israelis, who build houses on the leased land -- as seen in this picture. Israel occ...

We began our day with a visit to the Jerusalem Holocaust Museum. Whenever there are 25 or more children present you need an armed guard. Good money, I'm told, for young people with military experience. After the Holocaust Museum we headed north. We stopped to see this controversial Jewish settlement behind the Green Line. Here's the corresponding Palestinian town near by. Then we traveled to see the ruins of Ceasarea on the Mediterranean Sea. Then it was on to Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. Here's the Sea of Galilee from our hotel room. We'll be here for two nights before returning to Jerusalem. Intenet service here stinks compared to Jerusalem. I'm not sure I'll be posting tomorrow. However, tomorrow we visit the Golan Heights.

Last evening began Tisha B'Av , commemorating the destructions of both the first temple (by the Babylonians) and the second temple (by the Romans). Both destructions are believed to have occurred on the same date, but several hundred years apart. So in the evening I went down to the Wailing Wall, where there was a very large crowd. Because of the crowd, I stayed back and took a few pictures, but none of them captured the immense number of people there. A telephoto shot. The army was there providing security. I couldn't figure out what these girls were doing other than exercising their 2nd amendment rights. Unless they were plainclothes police ... or something. The Al Aqsa Mosque overlooked the entire scene. Tuesday morning we traveled to the Mount of Olives. A common sight along the way. During this time I think they're most concerned about Israeli hotheads -- some of whom we encountered. We see these folks around town quite a bit. Don't know what they're doi...