Dividing Line

Friends, a long time has passed that I have been meaning to write this post.  My emotions about the Israel/Palestine dividing line are very strong, and it's taken some courage to post what I saw and felt.  And time (which was suddenly in short supply when I returned!).

Map showing the territory of Palestinians from 1949 to 1967 to today.

We crossed into Bethlehem by car, following Dr. P's direction.  Since we were clearly quite white and had American passports, all we had to do was wave our passports at the guards on the way in.  Dr. P took us to the various interesting sites in Bethlehem that I've already talked about on here.  But at lunch in the Bedouin restaurant, he started talking about what life is like for Palestinians.  In 2002, the giant concrete wall was erected that now separates the West Bank from Israel.  But it was not erected on the lines drawn up by the UN.  It was erected far (sometimes very far) inside those lines.  It was erected around fertile lands, many of which ended up on the Israeli side.  It was erected over top of houses and farms, dividing communities and creating dead ends where there used to be main thoroughfares.

The wall is the most visible and powerful sign of the apartheid that exists here (I use that word deliberately, aware that it will provoke some to anger, because it seems the most true).  The Palestinians who are behind it are persecuted in many other ways.  Primarily, though, they are trapped like mice in a science experiment.

I stayed for dinner with another missionary who has been living in Bethlehem for a year.  As a white American, she can go relatively freely through the gates between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.  But her Palestinian friends cannot.  They are stuck.  Many of the children she knows say they dream of going to Jerusalem one day.  Jerusalem, which is FIVE miles away, is a thing of dreams!

She also told a story that still just sticks in my heart.  Many Palestinians have work permits that do allow them to travel to Jerusalem for work.  To do this, they have to line up at the gate as early as 4am, and wait 2-3 hours in line to cross by foot.  The same wait greets them at the end of the day when they come home.  One day, this missionary was going from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, and made her way through the three sets of turnstiles and armed guards that create a checkpoint.  On the other side, she encountered a long line of Palestinians.  Talking to them, she found out that they had been there for hours, waiting.  Hoping to be helpful, she spoke to the guard at the gate.  The guard said she could not let them through, because there was no other guard on the other side to receive them. The missionary said that was not true, that she had just passed several guards that let her through.  The soldier denied this, continuing to claim that there was no one there.  The missionary pleaded with her, saying, "Please, let them through.  they are just human beings trying to get home to their families."  The soldier's reply?  "They are NOT human beings.  They are terrorists!  And they will wait here until we are ready."

Sadly, this seemed to be a common attitude that the missionary encountered.  It was not common to all the Israelis I met in Israel, but there was a general unease about Palestinians, a preference not to talk about them.

Granted, the Palestinians are far from innocent as a whole.  They have committed their share of violent crimes against the people of Israel, many of whom are civilians.  But the fact remains, it seems clear to me, that they are the oppressed and the minority here.  They are the ones who are trapped behind the wall, and peace will not be able to flourish until the wall is torn down, or at least made far more permeable.  The longer there is entrapment within the borders of a wall, the more pressure will build, until violence erupts on all edges.

That night, I got to experience walking through the checkpoint.  It truly felt like a prison, with armed guards watching from tall pillars above us, lots of fences and gates and steel.  At one of the turnstiles, no guard was there, so we were stuck, yelling for ten full minutes for help.  It was scary.  Fears started to flood my mind about whether I would get home that night.  Finally, a guard came and passed us through.  That was just ten minutes.  Imagine doing that for hours because you're not white and American or Israeli.

Entering the Palestinian side of the checkpoint.

On the Israel side of the checkpoint.  Note lots of barbed wire and fencing.  This was  gate one of three.

On the Palestinian side, the wall contains many beautiful messages of protest.  You can see a few here.  I offer them as a prayer for productive peace.

Behind the Wall

Even though I've returned home, there are still a few important posts I want to make.  First and foremost on my mind was my experience in Palestine, in the town of Bethlehem, behind the giant wall that separates the West Bank from Israel.  I'll do the touristy sites here, and the political implications of what I saw in the next posting.

Our guide for this day trip was Dr. P, an archaeologist and  professor of Old Testament who teaches tour guides in Israel how to discuss Biblical issues with tourists.  Dr. P is also the missionary for the joint United Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) mission agency.  He and his wife, N, agreed to meet us at the outskirts of Jerusalem and take us across the border into the West Bank.

Our first stops were tours of some of the main sites, and then we got down to the very real, very serious political situation.

First stop: the Herodium, another of Herod the Great's (who was really more ruthless than the Bible depicts) system of fortresses.  He built a castle, then moved all the dirt and soil from the top of the mountain next to it, and built up a mountain around his castle so that no one could find it.  (You know, except for the strangely flat mountain next to it that might draw some suspicion.

The Herodium.  The big mountain used to be a little mountain, and the little mountain used to be a big mountain.  I'm pretty sure Herod didn't do any of that work himself...

The holes in the cave behind us lead to "bedrooms"

Next: Shepherd's Fields, where the shepherds received the news of Jesus' birth.  This is one of the best preserved sites in the area.  You can still go into the caves that the shepherds likely lived in, and the churches that were built there haven't been completely eradicated or rebuilt.  There was also an olive tree that was over 2000 years old, which means it was there during the shepherds' experience!  Dr. P said that this is also one of the areas that we have the most evidence was actually THE place where something that was said to have happened in the bible actually did happen.

A star carved into one of the cave ceilings at Shepherd's Fields.

The church that was built at the Fields (because, of course there are churches built there) is relatively new and actually quite gorgeous.  It has a dome whose top has crystals in it to mimic stars, and it has some of the best acoustics I've ever heard.  Dr. P and N. led us in singing Silent Night, and we all sounded like angels!

The church at Shepherd's Fields, with the dome that makes every voice sound magically ethereal.

We even saw an actual shepherd and his sheep nearby -- did you know that sheep and goats are herded together?  So, separating the sheep from the goats is actually something someone might need to do!

Sheep and goats!  Can you separate them?

Next: the Milk Grotto, a lesser-known site (certainly to me, who'd never heard of it), where supposedly Mary was breast-feeding the baby Jesus, and as they were rushing to leave to flee Herod's order to slaughter all newborns, a drop of blessed milk fell off of her breast and landed on the wall of this grotto, turning it bright white.  Now, it is a shrine where millions of women from all faiths (Dr. P. said he's seen Christians, Muslims, and Jews, among others) come to pray for fertility and blessings on their wombs.  Samuel even knew a woman it had worked for.  To be safe, I said a prayer for friends of mine who I know are trying to

conceive.

The wall at the Milk Grotto is SO white that it blotted out Kelly's and my faces!  Behind us is a portrait of the Virgin Mary breastfeeding the Christ child.  Samuel says this portrait is the only one of Mary that shows her breast.  I'm not so sure about that...

After that: The Church of the Nativity -- the place where Jesus was born.  If you go into a giant church that has been there since the 5th century, ruled by Christians, then Muslims, then Christians again, and now shared by five different Christian sects, and you go down into the shrine in the center of it, you'll get to the actual cave where Mary gave birth (How do they know this?  They don't.  But tradition says it's true).  Then, you can stand in line and put your hand on a silver star that marks the actual spot where Mary gave birth.  Then, you can turn around see where the actual manger was.  It's all pretty much covered up by gilding and lamps, so you just kind of have to trust tradition on this.  What's perhaps more interesting to me is the status quo agreement that allows these different sects to negotiate 6 worship services a day at different chapels in the same church.  There's a sermon in that, I imagine...

Jesus was born RIGHT HERE!

Finally, it was lunch time, and we ate in The Grotto, a restaurant styled after Bedouins.  It seemed to be the custom to dress up as a Bedouin before eating, so the restaurant owner dressed Kelly (a fellow UCC'er who joined us for this leg of our trip), Coretta, Noemi, and me as Bedouins. (Funny, I don't seem to have that picture...)  Then we ate a Dee-Licious lunch and learned about the situation in Palestine, which I will post next...

Down to the River to Pray

Today we took a whirlwind trip to the region of Galilee, where Jesus grew up and served out most of his ministry.  There is a holy site approximately every mile, so we couldn't go to all of them, but we did our best!

The first stop was the Jordan River, at a spot called Yardenit. It is revered as THE spot where John baptized Jesus and the holy spirit descended like a dove, with a voice booming out of the clouds that Jesus was God's beloved son with whom God was well pleased.  (There's also another spot further down the Jordan that is THE spot, but we'll not get into that debate...  Here in Israel there are several spots for every event.)

Yardenit has been built up and landscaped quite a bit, so that it's now a bit more like a nicely landscaped logjam ride than a serene and remote river.  They have places where you can get a whole group together and baptize people, as long as the baptizees are wearing special white robes with a picture of Jesus begin baptized by John on them (for a mere $25).  The group we saw doing this looked like they really were just playing around in the water, splashing each other and doing swimming races across the Jordan (which is only about 10 yards wide).  It was possible they'd already been baptized and were simply joyous in the moment, but I have my doubts.

There's another spot where you can just go and put your feet in the water.  We decided to go there, and I followed the lead of another minister there and did some remembrances of baptism with Mom and John.  That was pretty cool!  We filled up some bottles with holy water, too, for future use.

The constant stream of the faithful to the Jordan has collected a following -- of giant muskrats and catfish!  These two types of creatures were ready and waiting, swimming right by our feet as we stepped in the water, begging to be fed.  Many of the faithful obliged.  I wonder if Jesus encountered muskrats during his baptism...

Back in the car, we made our way up the Sea of Galilee (which is really a large freshwater lake) to Tiberias, named after the Roman emperor Tiberius.  We got a great view of the lake here, and saw some old ruins that had no signs in English, so we have no idea what we saw.

Another few miles down the road was Capernaum, now called Kfar Nahum.  (I'm giving you mileage so you can see how close all these places are!)  This is Jesus' adopted hometown after he was thrown out by his people in Nazareth.  It's also the hometown of Peter, James, John, Andrew, and Matthew.  Peter's house is highly revered there, and there have been several churches built on the footprint of his old house (remember, Jesus said, "Peter, you are the rock on which I will build my church").  The church that is there now is really cool.  It's suspended above the ruins, with a glass floor, so you can look down and see them below you!  There are a ton of ruins that are well preserved here, because the town was abandoned several hundred years after jesus.  You can now see the outlines of all the little houses, and a giant synagoge that was built over top of the synagoge that Jesus would have preached his first big sermon in.  I didn't get many good pictures here, so here is a small example of some of the carving.

About two minutes down the road from that was the Church of the Beatitudes, on the site where Jesus is said to have delivered the Sermon on the Mount.  I could certainly see why he would choose this place.  It is lusciously verdant, with an amazing view of the Sea.  There were many tributes to the beatitudes at this church, including my favorite, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God."

We decided to skip the site of the loaves and fishes that was another five minutes away because we needed some loaves and fishes ourselves.  We turned north to our next destination, a tiny mountain village called Safat (or Zafat or Safed, depending on the map).  Safat is the center of Kaballah study, and is known as sort of the mystical center of Judaism.  The village was really beautiful -- many of the stone buildings had been there for about 400 years, and there was a giant artists' colony of kabbalistic art.  Much of the art looked like it had been done while high on LSD, which might be similar to the high one gets from Kaballistic practice...  It was really interesting, though, to see what is basically a whole town of Orthodox and Hasidic hippies. 

We tried to squeeze a trip to Nazareth in on our way home from Safat, but we got a bit lost in the outskirts of town.  By the time we got there, they had just closed the Basilica of the Annunciation, one of the most beautiful churches in Israel from what I hear.  We did hear some prayers from the Orthodox monks inside, though, which was nice.  Then it was time to pile back into the car and find our way home.  After several more wrong turns, we did it!

We're packing up tonight and flying out tomorrrow.  I can't believe this trip is over so quickly!  I've packed about as much as possible in, and I'm sure I'll be processing it for a long time.  Thank you for reading along with me!  I'll keep posting as I have more thoughts...

Shalom!
Rachel

Dead in the Water

Today we traveled Jericho Road to the Dead Sea.  Driving into the Judean desert was surreal.  For a while there was scrub on the hills, and then the hills grew bigger and the scrub lessened.  By the time we were about 20 miles from the sea, it was just large, dry, rocky mountains, totally barren, with small caves carved into some of them.  It's hard to believe anyone ever survived living here, but in fact this is where many of the Bible stories took place.  It's where Jesus was tempted by the devil with bread and water -- I have a better sense of what a temptation that would be, now that I've seen what desolation is there!  Finally, we arrived at the dead sea and drove all the way down its western coast.  There were many oases in the midst of the desert here, and lots of date palm farms along the coast.  But still those mountains loomed tall, dry, and hot.  They are the site the of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were found in 1957, preserved in a dry, dry cave. 

Very, very dry and dusty and rocky land.

Our first stop was on the southern end of the sea, at a mountain called Masada.  It's been inhabited by sevearl different communities, but the most famous was that of the Zealots, who revolted against the Romans in 70 CE, because they refused to disobey their God to follow Roman rule.  They lived at the top of this giant mountain with ingenious methods of collecting water, where they stayed for several years.  The Romans laid siege to them for months, eventually building a giant ramp up the mountain and battering the wall down.  Just as the Romans were about to break down the last rampart, the community committed mass suicide, and the Romans found only dead bodies after all that work.  The community was left very well preserved, and archaeologists have built a lot of it back up.  It's pretty amazing, with an awesome view of the Dead Sea valley.

A steam room (!) in the mountain compound.  The columns supported the floor over boiling water, and the steam came out from clay pipes.  This fortress was originally built by Herod the Great before it was taken over by Zealots 70 years later.  Herod had a taste for fine bathing.

After that, we made our way back down the mountain (by cable car!) to a beach on the Dead Sea, and immersed ourselves in the famous healing powers of the Dead Sea.  The water was warm and lovely, and felt normal at first, but then, when you got about waist high, you were no longer walking on rocks, but on water!  You just don't sink!  It's so full of salt that it buoys you up very high in the water.  Lots of fun! There were peals of laugher on all sides, all afternoon.

Synchronized floating in the Dead Sea.  Those mountains you see in the background are Jordan!

I also found this a great opportunity to pray.  I could lay back in the water, letting it cover all but my face, and totally relax.  It was perhaps the closest to a womb I've ever gotten since leaving it.  I could relax every muscle without fear of drowning, and let my mind wander completely (until I bumped into someone, anyway.  And then, there would be just more laughter).

Eventually, we all got the extremely salty water in our mouths and eyes too much, and it really stung.  Time to move on...

We had hoped to stop in Jericho that evening, but it was getting too late, so we made our way back to Jerusalem.  Along the way, we stopped for gas, and realized you could get camel rides!  it's totally cheesy, but it was it was a really fun and strange experience.  The way they ratchet themselves into standing is really unusual -- and quite surprising to be on their backs while they do it!

Me on a camel!

Coretta suggested a sing-a-long, and we sang various folk songs on the drive.  I realized about halfway through Kum Ba Yah (yes, really) that we were on Jericho Road, the road on which the story of the Good Samaritan takes place.  As the singing grew louder, I became aware that we were passing several cars pulled off to the side of the road having some kind of problem.  We kept singing, and even though I thought a lot about it, I didn't stop the singing or say anything to the others until we were too far past them and the song had ended.  So, there I am, the minister who passed by on Jericho Road.  Granted, there are a lot of mitigating factors (I don't speak the language, we don't know how to get help in this country, we couldn't even be sure what the problem was), but I bet the Samaritan had those factors, too.  In fact, I'm rather sure that he did.  So I failed a test, and it's a test I fail very often on roads not named Jericho, too.  We all do.  But it was particularly poignant today.

Our tour today ended with the Israel Museum, where they have a giant model of the Second Temple period Jerusalem, which basically means it's what Jerusalem would have looked like in jesus' day.  This is also the home of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which revolutionized the way we understand the bible.  It was amazing to see those things, to be so close to history in that way.  So many of the holy sites here are either "we think this happened here, but have no way to know for sure" or are totally covered with gilded and bejeweled decorations.  But these scrolls, which were in a cave 2000 years ago, are now just inches from my face.  Crazy cool.

And with that, I will say goodnight.  I am not sure when I'll get to write about my Palestinian experience, but it will have to be another time.  Getting up very early tomorrow!

Quick Check-in

I had a very long day in Bethlehem today, in Palestinian territory.  It was incredibly eye-opening and powerful.  I'm so very tired, though, that I must sleep now and write later.  Know that I am grateful for you all, and grateful for my freedoms today.  More later...

Shalom.

Tel Aviv and Yossi Lemel -- a very inspiring day!

This was our day in Tel Aviv, the New York City of Israel.  It's the financial and technological center of the country; as Jerusalem is obsessed with tradition, Tel Aviv is obsessed with progress.  It's also on the Mediterranean Sea!

We spent the first hour of our time in Tel Aviv on an accidental tour of the city, as I had some difficulty reading the map.  There is no codified way to transliterate Hebrew, so the words on the street signs often looked very different from the words on my map.  That, and they were tiny.  We did end up having lots of time to see the architecture for which Tel Aviv was famous -- 1930s Bauhaus designs.  Many of the immigrants in the 20s and 30s were German Jews fleeing their homeland.  They brought with them amazing minds, including some very up-and-coming architects.  Almost all of these buildings were originally a bright white, giving the city the nickname, "The White City."  So see, it was a useful tour after all...

Examples of Bauhaus Architecture in the "White City"

Eventually, we found our way to our destination, the office of Yossi Lemel, a world-famous graphic designer and one of my mother's personal heroes.  Yossi does a great deal of political work, pushing the envelope in provocative ways to get people to think.  You can see a lot of his work here, but I will warn you that some of it is explicit. 

We took him to lunch, and over the course of the meal had a great discussion about religion, politics, and social action.  These are all inextricably linked here.  Because this is a public blog, I won't say too much about his personal opinions, although you can guess some of them from his work.  He is a deeply religious man, and we had a lot of talk about interpreting the Hebrew words of the Bible, and how there is so much extra symbolism packed into them that English simply cannot echo.  (I also found out that there is an orthodox synagogue in Tel Aviv that welcomes and accepts gay people as equals -- awesome!)  His parents are both holocaust survivors, which has really shaped his viewpoint, but not in all the ways you might expect.  He is a very intelligent and funny man, and was a great joy to be with!

Yossi talking to Eve and John.  (You might be able to notice the pun on his shirt.  The part under "holy" is a brown blob in the same shape, but a mirror image of the white blob...)

A fountain in Jaffa honoring the whale that swallowed Jonah.

Yossi also took us to Jaffa, the ancient port from which Jonah sailed in his efforts to flee his calling to preach repentance to Nineveh.  The old city of Jaffa has now merged with the metropolis of Tel Aviv, so it's quite a contrast of architecture!  We spent the afternoon on the shores of the Mediterranean.  It was lovely to dip our feet in, even if it was too cool to go swimming as I'd hoped. 

We were politely posing for a photo when a wave surprised us from behind!

Mom was starting to feel sick again, so as soon as the sun set, we skeedadled back to home base in Jerusalem, about an hour away.  We hope not to have to explore the Israeli healthcare system...

Jerusalem Day 3, Continued: Mount of Olives tour

We took a second tour with Erez, who led us up to the site of many scenes in the bible, the Mount of Olives.  It was apparently an olive orchard around Jesus' time; hence the name.

The way Erez, a Jew, described it, it sounded very different to my ears.  Jesus was "found" and "caught" on the Mount of Olives, before he could enter the city and start "riots."  Suddenly, I was able to see Jesus in a whole different light; he sounded an awful lot like a terrorist.  His zealous anti-establishment stances, his careful planning of his demonstration on one of the highest holy days in Jerusalem... it's such a different image.  And he did, eventually, topple governments -- or at least, governments were toppled in his name.  In this city where, even today, there are soldiers on every other corner slinging around machine guns, checkpoints at every border, and regular mortar attacks in border towns, I can imagine how the authorities might be ready to arrest a political dissident rather quickly.

The mountain contains as many shrines as it has mentions in the Bible.  Here, it seems that, every time there is a mention of something on the Mount, a group builds a church in honor of it.  So, we toured many, many churches today.  They were all really neat, but I'm getting them a bit mixed up in my head.  Here's what I can remember...

Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives.  You can see the Southern Wall (on the left) and the Eastern Wall (facing you) of the Temple Mount.  Most worshipers would have entered by the southern wall, up the stairs that are currently being excavated there. Apparently, King Herod built these walls AROUND Mount Moriah, on which the temple stood, in order to level out the ground and make more room for worshipers.  The original mountain can no longer be seen, because it's surrounded by these walls.

This is a cave on top of the mountain in which tradition says Jesus taught his disciples all the wisdom of the world before he went to his death.

This is the chapel of the ascension, where Jesus rose into the clouds after Pentecost.  This chapel replaces a former huge chapel that the Byzantines built.  It was razed by the Ottomans, and then this one was built by the Crusaders.  It was originally an open-air octagon with just the arches you see.  The Muslims added the top two layers after they conquered the Crusaders.  It is now still a functioning mosque, but they let Christian visitors come.

Inside the Chapel of the Ascension is JESUS' ACTUAL FOOTPRINT, left when we took off into heaven.  It has been preserved from the original floor.  Too bad there's no actual footprint there...  Our guide tried to point it out for us, but the area he described looked like a modern-day man's shoeprint (on the right side, you might be able to make it out), and was about three times the size of a human foot.  Details...

This is the view of the inside of the chapel that honors Jesus' Weeping over Jerusalem.  The chapel is  gothic version of a teardrop.  Inside, the altar faces west toward the city.  If you look very closely, you might be able to see the Golden Dome of the Rock through the window.  (Bonnie, I took this shot of the altar for you!)

The bible says that the Messiah will come to the Mount of Olives.  That's part of why it was so important for Jesus to be placed there, but it's also why so many Jews want to be buried there.  This is a Jewish cemetary, with all those box-like monuments over the graves.  According to our guide, there are three things you must be before you can be buried there: 1) Jewish.  2) Very rich.  3) Dead.  (That last one is especially key...)

From the top of the hill, we descended down Palm Sunday Road.  I couldn't get over how steep it was!!  Totally different from the pictures I grew up seeing.  Putting coats down on that road might have made things very slippery for a donkey!  Not sure that was a great plan...

This is the best shot I got of the Garden of Gethsemene.  It's a lovely garden of about 12 giant olive trees.  Our guide didn't know how old the trees were.  He said it's hard to tell, because as a stump dies, a new shoot comes out of it (Jesse's stump, perhaps?).

Inside the Chapel of the Garden of Gethsemene, also known as the Church of All Nations, since so many countries helped fund it.  It was designed in the 1920s to represent grief.  Thus, they don't have stained glass windows, but thin purple alabaster to make a dark, grief-like feeling.  I think it's gorgeous.

Here is THE rock on which Jesus prayed in Gethsemene, according to tradition.  There's some great symbolism around it, including the fence made of crowns of thorns.  There are two birds drinking out of a cup of grief in the front, and the mosaic behind shows the scene in the garden.

An evangelist has carved a message in a century plant.  Take heed.

Near the garden was a building containing ossuaries, small clay boxes that contain the bones of Jewish ancestors.  Bodies are laid out in a tomb fora  year, and then their bones are collected and put in an ossuary.  It's just as long as a thigh bone and as wide as a hip bone, to save space.  Some have said that they have found Jesus's ossuary, but his name was rather common at the time, so it really could have been anyone.

The church of Pater Noster (Our Father) is dedicated to the Lord's Prayer.  They had tile plaques with it written in 137 languages.  The chapel was open-air with a long cloister and an indoor chapel.  Very peaceful and beautiful.

The English prayer.  This chapel is run by the French Carmelite sisters, which is why "Anglais" is labeled as such.  It was also very hard to find the English pane.  It was much easier to find some rarer ones, like Tagalog and Ojibwe.  Very cool that they had those!