Jerusalem Walking Tours

Dead Sea Scrolls Online

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Abraham) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:17:00 +0000

One of Jerusalem's must see the Dead Sea Scrolls will now be available for the world to view online. Israel's Antiquities Authority has begun photographing the thousands of fragments and scrolls for the first time since the 1950s and it wants to put those new images on the internet for everyone to see. The Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem is where some of the Dead Sea Scrolls are on display.
The scrolls have fortunately survived a lot of damage and some are quite readable - if you can read Hebrew, but I am sure there are translations on line.
The Dead Sea Scrolls consist of almost 1,000 documents, including texts from the original Hebrew Bible. The scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1979 in eleven caves in and around the Wadi Qumran (near the remains of the ancient settlement of Khirbet Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea) in the West Bank. The texts are of great religious and historical significance, as they include practically the only known surviving copies of Biblical made before 100 AD, and prove there was considerable diversity of beliefs and practices within late Second Temple period. They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, mostly on parchment, but with some written on papyrus.
Israel Antiquities Authority head of conservation Pnina Shor began this project as way of monitoring the scrolls to make sure they were being held in the right conditions. They are housed in the Israel museam with the distinctive encasing.
Surely any person who is interested in the Bible or in religious manuscripts written 2,000 years ago will really be touched by seeing the scrolls.That is when the idea expanded to put all of the images on the internet where they could be seen and studied by anyone who wanted.Professor Steven Fassberg is a scrolls expert from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and says every new letter show will be enlightening.
The Dead Sea Scrolls speak about something that happened or something that will happen in the future many say.The scrolls are incredibly fragile, with only four people in the world allowed to handle them.
This fantastic project will take up to five years to complete.

Dead Sea Scrolls Online

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Abraham) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:17:00 +0000

Birthright

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Abraham) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 03:35:00 +0000

So many young people hvae been in Jerusalem over the last several weeks and all seemed to be brimming with Jewish pride.It’s always a place many of them would picture, but now they are here. This is all due to the program of Birthright. The 10-day tour of Israel sponsored by Birthright Israel, which takes its name from the Zionist notion that all Jews, no matter their nationality, have the right to call Israel home.

The program, which is offered free to Jews between ages 18 and 26 who have never visited Israel in an organized group, is becoming a rite of passage for young American Jews.
The highly structured tour seeks to forge ties between diaspora Jews and Israel, and to strengthen Jewish identity in countries, such as the United States, where intermarriage among faiths is common.
But critics say the tour presents a one-sided portrait of Israel and misses an opportunity to educate a new generation on the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This year, 42,000 people are expected to visit Israel on a Birthright tour. Last year, 39,000 visited. Since the program was launched eight years ago, 190,000 young Jews from 53 countries, roughly 70 percent from the United States, have visited Israel on a Birthright tour.
American billionaire philanthropist Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, donated $30 million to Birthright last year and another $35 million this year. This, combined with a current lull in Israeli-Palestinian violence, has significantly boosted the number of participants.“It has a strategic importance for the state of Israel because in a way it’s a completion of the Zionist dream,” said Gidi Mark, director of marketing for Birthright Israel. “It’s important especially today when we don’t have as many new immigrants as we had in the past.”
The tours showcase Israel as Jewish, modern and thriving. “We didn’t want them coming away with the idea of camels, Orthodox Jews or an island under siege,”

For more information

http://www.hillel.org/israel/travel/bri_hillel/default

http://www.mayanotisrael.com/index.asp

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Abraham) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 05:12:00 +0000

Paris has arrived in Israel this summer. In June, a 4-meter (13-feet) fountain – almost an exact copy of one of the fountains located in Paris – was unveiled in Jerusalem’s Place de France (also known as Paris Square) in the heart of the Israeli capital. The fountain was given to the residents and vistitors of Jerusalem as a gift from Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë in honor of the State of Israel’s 60th anniversary. Delanoe was on an official visit to Israel when he joined Jerusalem Mayor Ouri Loupolyanski for the dedication of the fountain., The fountain and all of it's constuction was said to cost the equivalent of $100,000. Fountains are a common feature in Paris, creating characteristic oases of calm in the city. Now Jerusalem’s Paris Square can be a cooler place for tourists and locals alike to hang out this summer. Mayor Loupolyanski expressed delight with the present, and said it would add charm to his city, which while embattled politically, is still a magnet for tourists.Now you have another stop on your tour of Jerusalem.

The Cardo

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Abraham) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 08:29:00 +0000

When you walking through the Old City one of your stops must be the Cardo.
In 1971, a plan for reconstructing the Roman Cardo was submitted by architects Peter Bogod, Esther Krendel and Shlomo Aronson. Their proposal relied heavily on the sixth century Madaba map, a mosaic map of Jerusalem found in 1897 in Madaba, Jordan. The Madaba Map clearly showed the Roman Cardo as the main artery through the Old City. Bogod, Krendel, and Aronson proposed the construction of a covered shopping arcade that would preserve the style of an ancient Roman street using contemporary materials. Their plan was based on the hope that archeologists would find remains of the southern end of the Cardo, an extension of the north-south Roman thoroughfare built during the Byzantine era (324 – 638).

Time was of the essence and mounting pressure to repopulate the Jewish Quarter led to the construction of a superstructure which allowed the residential buildings to be built while the archaeologists continued to work below. The project was 180 meters in total and was divided into eight sections to allow for construction teams to move quickly from one section to another depending on the needs of the archaeologists. By 1980, 37 housing units and 35 shops were built, incorporating archaeological finds such as a Hasmonean wall from the second century BCE and rows of Byzantine columns. The combination of old and new is also visible on the Street of the Jews, where the shops have been set into old vaults and the gallery is covered by an arched roof containing small apertures to allow for natural lighting.

Sights not to miss when in Israel

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Abraham) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 13:19:00 +0000

Jaffa Port

Red Sea skyline, Eilat

Sunset at Rosh Hanikra cliffs

Masada

The Dead Sea

Acre Harbor

Bahai Gardens, Haifa

Banias Spring, Golan Heights

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem

Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), Tiberias

Western Wall Live Cam

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Abraham) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 13:19:00 +0000

To see a live picture of the Kotel " Western Wall " go to this link

http://www.aish.com/wallcam/

The Ultimate Walking Tour of the Old City

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Abraham) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 12:26:00 +0000

First Stop
Jaffa Gate

Before you enter Jaffa Gate, which is the traditional entrance to the city for visitors from the West, check out the stones from many eras that make up the present Old City wall, which was erected by order of the Ottoman Turkish Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1538. Some stones have been dressed with carefully cut flat borders surrounding a raised, flat central area (the boss), in the style of King Herod's stonecutters, and probably dating from 2,000 years ago. You will see this style again in the monumental stones of the Western Wall, a retaining wall for the vast artificial platform that Herod constructed to surround the original Jerusalem Temple site with room for the thousands of Jews who made the pilgrimage from all over the ancient world. You will notice other kinds of stones with flat borders and rougher raised bosses. These are in the pre-Herodian style of the Hasmoneans (the Maccabees) who were the last Jewish rulers of Jerusalem until modern times, with the exception of Bar Kochba, who conquered the ruins of the city during the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome in A.D. 132-35. You will also see rough ashlars of the Byzantine era, as well as the virtually undressed stones of Crusader and medieval times. In each of the upper corners of the closed decorative archway to the left of the Jaffa Gate, notice stones carefully carved into a leaf design, which are believed to have come from a long-destroyed Crusader church. The walls of Jerusalem, like the city itself, are composed of stones used again and again, just as many of the legends and traditions of the city reappear and are reassembled by each successive civilization and religion.

Second Stop
Cardo

The restored and renovated section of Roman and Byzantine Jerusalem's main market street is now filled with stylish modern shops.

Third Stop

Hurva Synagogue

This site was home to the Jewish Quarter's main synagogue from the 16th to the mid-20th century, but all you see today are ruins from the most recent incarnation's destruction by the Jordanians in 1948. There are plans in the works to rebuild it exactly as it stood before it was destroyed.

Fourth Stop

Herodian Quarter

The present Jewish Quarter, on a hill opposite the Temple Mount, was the aristocratic residential part of Jerusalem in Herodian times. During the 1970s, intensive archaeological excavations were carried out here while the Jewish Quarter was being rebuilt. The ruins of large mansions were found with facilities for mikvot (ritual baths) and with mosaic floors ornamented by simple geometric designs (in strict keeping with the Mosaic commandment against graven images).

Fifth Stop

In the extensive ruins of this Crusader-era church, once hidden beneath buildings from later times, you can explore the cloister (to the left of the entrance), and the basilica, with a view of the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives framed in the window of the central apse.

Sixth Stop

The Herodian retaining wall for the western side of the Temple Mount was built by Herod the Great more than 2,000 years ago. It's a remnant of the outer courtyard of the Jerusalem Temple, and the holiest place of prayer in Jewish tradition.

Seventh Stop

The Temple Mount (in Arabic, Haram es Sharif) is open for visitors until 3pm. Give yourself ample time to walk around the ceremonial plaza and enjoy the views of the Mount of Olives. Non-Muslims must buy admission tickets (approximately NIS 30/$6.60, well worth the fee) from a small stone kiosk to the right of the Al Aqsa Mosque, which will admit you to both mosques and to the museum (you may be asked to wait outside during noonday prayers). It is permissible to take photographs outdoors on the Temple Mount, but you cannot bring a camera into mosques or shrines.

Eigth Stop

The Spice Market was covered during the time of the Crusaders, who perhaps could not bear the blazing summer sun of the region. It's actually an additional segment of the Cardo, once the great Roman north-south market and ceremonial street. The Roman Cardo, originally broad and colonnaded, evolved over centuries into the present warren of narrow, parallel bazaars (including the Butcher's Bazaar, with its dangling skinned sheep heads and gutters of blood, parallel just to the left) that runs all the way north to the Damascus Gate. El Attarin is now mostly populated by clothing and sneaker shops.

Ninth Stop

Take a Break--Abu Assab Refreshments, a busy Old City landmark, sells fresh orange, grapefruit, and carrot juice, and is the least expensive and best of its kind in town. A good place to stave off dehydration and fill up on vitamins, you can order these juices straight, or in any combination. You can stay downstairs for a quick break, or go upstairs where there is table service. Mike, the British-educated manager, who is often at the downstairs carrot juice counter, will translate the Arabic price list.

Tenth Stop
. Ethiopian Compound and Monastery

It's located on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher's roof with the protruding dome in the center. Through the windows of the dome you will be able to see the Chapel of Saint Helena inside the Holy Sepulcher Church below; you'll even be able to smell the church incense, and at times, hear services and prayers.

The Ethiopians use this roof area each year on the Saturday midnight eve of Easter Sunday for one of the city's most exotic religious processions. The Ethiopian Patriarch, with a great ceremonial African umbrella, circumambulates the dome, followed by monks beating ancient drums -- so large that they must be carried by two men -- and by chanting white-robed pilgrims. The procession then retires to a leopard-skin tent (nowadays made of canvas in a leopard skin pattern) to chant and pray through the night. This very moving ceremony is open to the public, and many Jerusalemites make it a point to attend each year.

The compound is spread across the sprawling segments of the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Note that here on this ancient roof entire trees and gardens grow, among them the olive trees (or offshoots of olive trees) in which Abraham supposedly found the ram he offered in sacrifice after God freed him from the commandment to sacrifice Isaac. Beside the expanse of the roof surrounding the dome, are the living quarters of the tiny, walled, fortresslike monastery. Visitors may not enter this monastery compound, but you can look into the lane at the entrance to the monastery: The low round-walled buildings and trees offer a distinctly African feeling. For centuries, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher has been divided among the six oldest factions of Christianity, and in the most recent division, the Ethiopian Church, with roots dating from the 4th century A.D., got the roof. Both Ethiopian monks and a lay community have inhabited this location for centuries (you can often smell the wonderful spicy cooking of the communal kitchen). Note the church bells hanging in the ruined gothic arches of the Crusader-era church structure to the right and above the tiny main street.