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<\/a> ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/files\/2012\/07\/churchofannunciation.jpg\")
<\/a> Most of the time was spent following the steps of Jesus, which accounts for the alpha and the omega (the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet) in the heading.\u00a0 We got off the ship in Haifa, and went to Galilee, then stayed on the west bank until Jerusalem, then went to Bethlehem.\u00a0 Thus, we saw where\u00a0 Christ was born (Church of the Nativity in ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/files\/2012\/07\/mountofbeatitudes-monaster-rotated.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/files\/2012\/07\/DSC04751.jpg\")
<\/a>Bethlehem, in an area under Palestinian administration), where\u00a0\u00a0 he grew up in Nazareth (and where Mary learned she was to bear Jesus–Annunciation), where he preached (Mount of Beatitudes), where he was betrayed, and where he was crucified (the Church ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/files\/2012\/07\/DSC04868.jpg\")
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<\/a>of the Sepulcher, and the Via Dolorosa). \u00a0I\u2019ll have another comment, but one of the most interesting places to me was the Mount of Beatitudes, where our guide suggested Christianity began because Christ drew a crowd of 5000 who followed his preaching for the first time.<\/p>\n<\/a>Because of the importance of Jerusalem (especially) to Judaism, and its role as the third Holy city of Islam, both their religious sites made our itinerary, I was a little surprised at the nature of old Jerusalem, a city of 750,000, like As for the Christian holy sites, their administration reflects, I think, the divisions that sometimes plague Christianity itself\u2014 <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" August 1, 2012 From the beginning to the end? The alpha and omega of our trip to Israel We spent two days in Israel, which. for a boat trip, is a long time; of course, it barely scratched the surface. Most of the time was spent following the steps of Jesus, which accounts for the … Continue reading “2 days in Israel”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-venice-and-the-med-2012"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3075"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3077,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3075\/revisions\/3077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a> too.\u00a0 The Wailing Wall\u2014the remnant of the Temple area where the two great synagogues of antiquity stood\u2014featured an evening visit during which Orthodox Jews were, ironically, mourning the destruction of both temples (the 9th<\/sup> day of the 9th<\/sup> month), as well as one during the day.\u00a0 As mosques point to Mecca, synagogues point to Jerusalem, and the synagogues within Jerusalem point to the Wailing Wall.\u00a0 Of course, since 1967 and the end of the 6 day war, all of Jerusalem is part of Israel, and the democratic\/theocracy of Orthodox Jews who run the country (more or less) have stamped some of the laws\u2014for example, our hotel had a \u201cSabbath elevator;\u201d when I asked what that was, I was told it was an elevator that automatically stopped at every floor, without anyone indicating a floor, since pushing it was \u201cwork,\u201d which is forbidden on the Sabbath for Orthodox Jews.\u00a0 We also stopped in a Kibbutz, which dated from the late 1930s, for a kosher meal; since we had meat dishes (the farm raises cows), we had a flavored ice desert, not ice cream.<\/p>\n<\/a>The main Muslim site is the Church of the Rock, sacred to Muslims because that\u2019s where Mohammed was supposed to have ascended to Heaven (and to Jews because it is where God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice Isaac). It is pretty much off limits to tourists, however; we were told that you have to recite the Koran to gain admittance.\u00a0 For many years (really until the British mandate over Palestine after World War I), Jerusalem was under Muslim rule after the fall of the Byzantine empire.\u00a0 The Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted about 200 years after the first crusade, rebuilding many of the churches the Muslims destroyed, but the Muslim reconquest again turned many of the churches into mosques, or destroyed them again.\u00a0 Hence, many of the churches on sacred sites are fairly recent constructions, though many include remnants of those built by Empress Helena (Constantine\u2019s mother who helped him decide on the conversion of the Empire into a Christian state), and those of the crusaders.<\/p>\n<\/a> Israel itself, roughly 80% Jewish.\u00a0 A wall built by the Ottoman emperor Suleiman the Magnificent surrounds it, which you might have seen on the news because Mr. Romney was here\u00a0 \u00a0Walking in the old city, one goes from quarters to quarters\u2014there\u2019s an Armenian quarter (Armenia was the first Christian country), a Muslim quarter, and a Jewish quarter\u2014along with ruins from the Romans, and even King David, who founded Jerusalem around 1000 BC. \u00a0There was some pretty neat shopping\u2014and it says<\/a> something about the tourist mix that there were Sox, Cubs and Bulls t-shirts in English\u2014and Hebrew.\u00a0 At 3000 feet above the Jordan Valley (which is around 1000 feet below sea level), it was a lot cooler–thankfully.<\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a>there are usually three groups\u2014Catholics (usually the Franciscans), the Greek Orthodox (you can easily tell their part of the church by the icons), and the Armenians, but sometimes others such as the Coptic Christians (of Egypt), Assyrians, etc. There\u2019s a ladder in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, for example, that the Armenians used until the 1870s to enter the church from an adjacent building, until a truce allowed them to use the front door <\/a>like everyone else. The ladder has remained in place, however, because the three groups haven\u2019t been able to decide who should move it. The Muslim-other position can be perhaps defined by their closing of the Dome of the Rock to nonbelievers; and the Muslim-Jewish position was suggested by our guide from the Jewish side, when he pointed out a synagogue in the old city was destroyed when the Muslims took the city; when the Jews returned, they did not destroy the mosque, but rebuilt the temple next door.\u00a0 And across from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher <\/a>(through the checkpoint to get into Palestinian authority land) there\u2019s not only a new mosque, but a poster of an armed Palestinian warrior with the challenge to restore and reunite\u2026.wouldn\u2019t it be wonderful if there were peace among the religions in the Holy Land, as a step toward peace on Earth?<\/p>\n