A Cyprus Christmas

We spent a wonderful week with my former student, Anastasia Manoli, and her husband Savva and their little boy Yiorgos. They were marvelous hosts, welcoming us into their home, taking us to interesting places,



ordering the right food for us to eat at restaurants,


and including us in their family Christmas dinner at Anastasia's parents (notice the Jack Daniels whiskey, though we also discovered the pleasures of Cypriot zivannia and Commandario):


Anastasia and family picked us up at the airport, and after coffee at a nearby cafe she took us to St. Lazurus church:

Lazarus came to Cyprus after Jesus raised him from the dead, and lived another thirty years before dying a second time. He is buried in this church.


We have much more to post of our visit to Cyprus, but have limited access to the internet, in a Naharyia mall cafe in the north of Israel, so we'll end for now.
Happy New Year to all.

Touring the North of Israel

On Sunday we bid farewell to our Jerusalem apartment;


I caught the bus downtown, picked up the rental car we had reserved, drove back to Baka, loaded our two suitcases into the trunk, and off we went! The car felt like such freedom after the past several weeks of buses. Our destination was the Jordan River valley, but we couldn't resist exploring a little of eastern Jerusalem on our way out of town. We explored long enough to get lost--all too easy in Jerusalem--and eventually, after asking at a gas station, found the highway going down, down, down, through bare and arid hills, to the Jordan River, far below sea level

and past the obligatory camel.


Turning north, we continued through the Jordan valley, up to Gan Hashlosha, an Eden-like national park.


We enjoyed swimming in the naturally warm pool and having our feet nibbled by little brown fish; afterward, a wonderfully superb dinner at the restaurant in the park--our best since NYC.

Lodgings were close by: Kibbutz Bet Aleph, where we slept in comfort--and in the morning a basket full of typical Israeli breakfast items was delivered to our door: cheese, tuna, olives, chopped tomato and cucumber, rolls, juice, fruit, and even halvah.


Our next stop was Tiberius, a historic city on the banks of Kinneret, (The Sea of Galilee).



We indulged in coffee on the roof terrace of The Scots Hotel, an elegant, well maintained spot of beauty:



with its pleasant view of the Sea of Galilee and the Golan Heights in the far distance:



From Tiberius we drove up the Hula valley as far as Kiriat Shemona, then turned back toward Safed, high in the hills of the Galilee.


The friendly people in the tourist information office recommended a bed-and-breakfast, made a reservation, and sent us on our way to The Safed Inn, a wonderful place owned and managed by a native of Safed and his Jewish-American wife Riki, who eagerly talked with us about Israeli politics and religion. Before bed we enjoyed a warm, relaxing dip in their garden hot tub.

Next morning, the old city and the artist's colony: old synagogues,



archeological remains, a remarkable candle factory, and many art galleries:



After Safed we stopped briefly at Rimon Winery. "Rimon" is Hebrew for pomegranate, and this winery specializes in 100 percent pomegranate wine. The fruit is both delicious and beautiful:


Our last stop in the Galilee region was Hazor, the ruins of an ancient Canaanite/Biblical city. It was the model for James Michener's fictional city of Makor in The Source, which Libby has been reading since we arrived in Israel. We strolled among the desolate ruins, admiring the ingenuity, resilience, and courage of the people who, through the rise and fall of empires, made Hazor home.




Too soon we began our descent from the high Galilee region to Rachel and Shlomo's Kfar Saba home near Tel Aviv to grab a few hours sleep, leaving at 3:30 a.m. to arrive at Ben Gurion airport the required three hours before our 7:05 flight to Cyprus...

Hanukkah, part 2

We strolled down to the Kotel to see the lights, passing an enormous Hanukkia outside the Jaffa Gate to the Old City. It stood waiting to be lit later in the evening by a rabbi lifted up in a cherry picker:



A view of the Kotel from the Jewish Quarter:


Praying at the wall:


Atop a nearby wall, the flames from an enormous Hanukkia:


No longer known as the Wailing Wall, the Kotel is now mostly a place of rejoicing. Here young men dance and sing in celebration of the festival of lights. For those familiar with Black Adder, you may recall the Jumping Jews of Jerusalem...



More outdoor Hanukkah lights, in their wind-proof glass boxes; people set lots of them outside doors and on window ledges all over town and the oil burns cheerily much longer than candles.


Some display electric Hanukkah lights on their cars:


We came back to the Kotel once again for the last night of Hanukkah to see all eight lights blazing:


And in our apartment too:


An atmospheric video (turn up the volume): residents of Mea She'arim, the Ultra-Orthodox area of Jerusalem, rush to prepare for Hanukkah. Men wear long black coats, tzitzit, and big black hats. Women are always dressed in long skirts, dark tights, and head coverings. We saw several families pushing groceries in a stroller while their tribe of little ones walked beside the mama and papa.

The City of David

Modern Jerusalem is divided into two major areas: the Old City and everything else. The Old City is easily identified by the great walls around it, built in 1517 by Suleiman the Great, the Ottoman Turk. But, of course, there are layers and layers of history here, and the Old City is not really very old. A visit to the City of David, an archeological site outside of those walls, took us deep into Jerusalem's Biblical past.

To get to The City of David we first walked through a lovely steep valley on the southern side of the Old City, with wild cyclamen on the cliffs.



The pictures below help make sense of the geography. The first is a modern aerial view of the hillside leading up to the walls of the Old City, with the temple mount in plain view at the top.


This drawing of the ancient City of David shows the same view. The ravine on the right and the road to the left in the photograph above clearly show the original boundaries, even with the walls gone.


The uppermost part of the city is where David's son Solomon built the first temple--the present-day temple mount.

The City of David was originally inhabited by Jebusites, at least 4,000 years ago. It was a good location for a settlement because of the spring of Gihon. Tunnels were hewed out of solid rock to bring water from the spring to another spot safe within the city walls. We walked through the dry tunnel below; another tunnel, built by Hezekiah, still flows with water, but we weren't prepared to get wet sloshing through it.


This sign commemorates the meeting of the rock-cutters in 701 B.C.: what an engineering accomplishment!


After its underground journey the water flows into the pool of Shiloah (Siloam in the New Testament):


Archeological digs continue nearby:


We marveled at the skill of ancient craftsmen and also of modern archeologists, who dig deep into rocky hillsides to uncover the hidden past. An "old city" is really a matter of historical perspective, and in these ruins and tunnels we discovered the true old city of Jerusalem--the City of David.

Hanukkah!

Hanukkah has begun! This Friday Erev Shabbat was also the first night of Hanukkah. We were fortunate to have an invitation to spend the entire Shabbat with our friends Rachel and Schlomo, in their lovely home in Nachlaot, near the shouk, Machane Jehuda.

We have been marvelling at the number and variety of Hanukkah menorahs--Hanukkiot--in Jerusalem. Their construction seems to me to exhibit the hermeneutic principle of constraint and freedom that is characteristic of what Fisch identifies as Hebraism: there is the constraining obligation to a prior authoritative word that you covenantally accept, and there is also a release of imaginative and creative power to carry out that word. Dr. Schaeffer spoke of "form and freedom," and it is essentially the same thing. Here, there is the requirement to have eight candles that are all equal, one for each of the days of Hanukkah, and one other candle that is set apart and distinguished in some way--it is not one of the Hanukkah lights, but only the Shamesh, the helper, to provide light for lighting the other candles, since it is a rule that you cannot use the Hanukkah candles for any other purpose (such as providing illumination in your home) than celebrating the miracle of Hanukkah--the dedication of the temple, when the limited supply of sanctified oil miraculously burned for eight days. So we have seen wonderful displays of them all over Jerusalem. Here are a few:








We decided to make our own, which is another option. Ellen suggested buying children's colored clay, so here is Libby constructing our own temporary Hanukkiah:



In the afternoon we walked around the busy streets of Jerusalem and through the shuk, where everyone was busy shopping for Shabbat, and then to our friends' lovely home:


We lit the first light of Hanukkah, then the Shabbat candles to welcome in Shabbat, and then went to Friday night services. After that, dinner and early bed. Schlomo and I were up at 5:00 to go to a synagogue that displays its zeal for prayer by starting the Shabbat morning service as early as permitted. Libby and Rachel went to a later service at a different synagogue, that displays its zeal by joyful singing. Constraint and freedom!

After lunch and our Sabbath rest we all walked to another friend's house for a study session--it is traditional to spend some time during Shabbat studying Torah or Talmud. We read and discussed some of the verses in Jeremiah, chapter six, where Jeremiah prophecies against the inhabitants of Jerusalem: "they say 'peace, peace,' but there is no peace." There was something so immediate and uncanny about reading this while sitting in a home in Jerusalem.

We returned to end Shabbat with the brief Havdala service, and then lit two candles for the second night of Hanukkah. Here is Rachel and Schlomo's Hanukkiah, in a glass case for displaying outside:


When we got back to our apartment, we lit our own. Happy Hanukkah!

Part II - The video

Yay. It took nearly all day but finally here is the video I made of our little temporary home. Did I leave anything out - just ask. Click on the link to YouTube and take a look.


Our apartment in Jerusalem

Our Jerusalem Home: Part I

Our neighborhood is called Bak'ka and we are told that it's the yuppie side of town. There is a nearby shopping area with fancier cafes and shops, lots of English heard on the sidewalks, and people with obvious leisure to stroll and sip. Most coffee we have tried is good and strong, though in homes and hotels it is usually instant (ugh, why?). From here to our friend's home in the Old City is a 45 minute walk, the only way to get there and back on shabbat, unless you splurge on a taxi - though not with a Jewish driver because you would be causing him to break the sabbath. So that's what we have done the past two Friday nights. Figuring out bus routes and schedules is crazily difficult; people say they change weekly due to the many construction projects - but really I think Israelis don't worry about it (they are so not Swiss) and just ask the driver.

Here is the front of our building, which is older than many others nearby. We are on the fourth floor (no elevator). I think there are eight apartments, though it's hard to tell and impossible to ask. Even though the huge front window is clearly not maintained, the hallways, stairs, and front walk are tidy.







I narrated a nice video of the inside the other day, but alas I gabbed too much and it won't fit. Couldn't this site accept that I need to make it seven minutes long so nothing is left out? Maybe Aaron could make it work, but I can't so I guess I will try to make a shorter version tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here are two attractive nearby homes, just so you'll have a feel for the atmosphere: