Part 15 – Israel: Old Jerusalem

Date: 4/22/2017

Just the name “Jerusalem” brings up visions of great and long-ago events, of the mixing of cultures, and of great conflicts of history. As a result of the narratives that have come down over thousands of years, Jerusalem makes an extraordinary destination, including its role as a holy city to the three great Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I’ll admit to some curiosity about how Jerusalem might strike me, an independent observer, rubbing elbows with some of the most revered and iconic places of the great religions. After it was all said and done, I would say I came away the same independent observer … but then again our tour of Old Jerusalem was not very conducive to spiritual connection. Our Jerusalem tour kept me very preoccupied just keeping up with the guide to not get lost, straining to hear what the guide was saying, concentrating to remember as much as possible for later notes, navigating dense crowds, ogling the sights all around, all the while blazing away with my camera. The exception to this was our visit to the Western Wall where the tour noise and external distractions were all turned off, and we were given a good amount of personal time to approach the wall, contemplate the space, and make a prayer, which I personally found quite moving.

Let’s back up a bit here and go back to our arrival at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. Landing at Ben Gurion Airport, the first thing we noticed while taxiing to the terminal was that Air Force One or its twin was parked on the tarmac. I wondered who was in Israel from the U.S. … I could find nothing in the news about Trump being in Israel. I later learned from tail number from this photo that this was not Air Force One, but rather was a U.S. Air Force E-4B “Advanced Airborne Command Post”, which is a special aircraft designed to serve as a hardened command post for the president in the event of nuclear war. Upon closer inspection I noticed: no windows, and an unusual radar dome at the back of the 747 hump.  According to Wikipedia, this aircraft cost upwards of a half a billion dollars, and costs $160,000 per hour to operate. We later learned from a diplomat we met on our Dead Sea tour that it was Secretary of Defense James Mattis who had come to Israel, so this was his high-priced ride.

Photo 4538cr1, E-4B 747 USAF Advanced Airborne Command Post

For the 40-minute drive from the Tel Aviv airport to Jerusalem we caught a shuttle which traveled via the Hwy #1 freeway about 15 miles south on the coastal plain … an area of rich agricultural land with lots of power transmission lines going all over. Most highway signs were in three languages: Hebrew, Arabic and English.

We soon turned east away from the sea and started a steady climb into the Judean Hills (more like mountains than hills) winding around curves and up ravines toward Jerusalem, which is at about 2,500′ elevation. That is a pretty good climb, from sea level to 2,500′ in about 15 miles.

Photo 4559, into the Judean Hills; signs in 3 languages: Hebrew, Arabic, and English

Jerusalem sits on and around many hills which are criss-crossed with narrow winding valleys.  The roads all twist and turn around these hills which makes it hard to keep track of where you are, or even what direction you are going. The city is on what you might call the Israeli “continental divide” at the top of the range of the Judean Hills; to the west everything ultimately drains toward the Mediterranean, and to the east the terrain drops off steeply toward the Dead Sea.

The change in terrain and vegetation going east out of Jerusalem toward the Dead Sea is dramatic. As soon as you pass out of the city eastbound, the abundant trees and vegetation of the west side turn almost immediately into a barren desert sloping steeply to Dead Sea, and it’s like a different world. More on that later in our description of our trip to the Dead Sea.

It seems as though everything in Jerusalem is constructed of tan-colored stone, which we learned is “Jerusalem limestone” — it’s everywhere: walls, houses, government buildings, hotels … they all seem to be clad with the same tan stone.

Photo 1285, Jerusalem limestone is everywhere

Our tour of the Old City started with a drive up to the Mount of Olives for the iconic view of the east wall of the Old City.  The golden Dome of the Rock shrine is the most easily identified landmark in the city, and is believed to be the spot from which the prophet Mohamed ascended to heaven.

Photo1266, view of Old Jerusalem & Dome of the Rock from the Mount of Olives

From the Mount of Olives we headed for the Old City and at the Jaffa Gate we disembarked from the tour van to continue via a walking tour. We entered through the Jaffa Gate, and were on our way visiting a good collection of Old City sights. This included the Western Wall, where there was a TSA-type security checkpoint, no photography was allowed, there were separate areas for men and women to approach the wall for prayer, modest dress was required for women, and kippahs (small skull caps) were provided for men. Our guide explained that the Western Wall is NOT a remnant of the 1st or 2nd Jewish Temple.

Photo 1332, approaching the Western Wall

The Temple was located near where the Dome of the Rock is now located — the exact location of the Temple has not been established. The Western Wall is part of a wall built by King Herod surrounding the Second Temple for its protection, but the wall was not part of the Temple itself. The Temple Mount occupies a sizable portion of the Muslim Quarter and dominates the Eastern side of the Old City within the Muslim Quarter … almost like a 5th quarter of the city. The Temple Mount was closed to non-Muslims the day we were there.

Not surprisingly, the Jewish nature of the city was self-evident. Although secular dress was most common, perhaps a third of men wore kippahs. Traditional dress in long black coats, tall black hats, long side curls (“payot”), tails or strings (tzitzis) hanging down, and prayer shawls were not dominant, but were a common sight throughout the city. On the Shabbat or Sabbath (nominally sundown Friday until sundown Saturday), the town largely closed down: stores and restaurants were closed, public transportation shut down, the streets were mostly deserted and it was quiet. We arrived in Jerusalem on the Shabbat and had a bit of a time finding an open restaurant.

 

Photo 1275A, Map of Old Jerusalem
Source: http://media.diercke.net/omeda/800/114091E_Jerusalem.jpg

We walked through all the quarters of the Old City: Armenian, Jewish, Muslim and Christian Quarters. There were some excavated areas along the walk that showed how much the level of the city has risen since biblical times, about 20 feet … the rubble of the various destructions of the city was not hauled away as would be done now, but was built upon. The tour also followed along a portion of the Via Dolorosa noting several of the fourteen Stations of the Cross, and ended at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, believed to include the sites of Jesus’ crucifixion and entombment.

Photo 1397, the Edicule, enclosing Jesus’ tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

During our visit, I found it hard to get my head around the volume and intensity of the historical sights to be found in Jerusalem.  The visit happens so fast and then it is done.  I’m getting a better appreciation of all that we were seeing and its meaningfulness to so many billions of people around the world now reflecting back on the experience, and reading more about it than we had a chance to do before leaving on our trip.

Next: Masada