A photo and video preview of the June 2009 trip

by Rev. Don Sensing

Join us for a trip to Israel and the West bank in June 2009! Itinerary and cost information are here: click.

Meanwhile, enjoy these photos I took when I visited there in October 2007.

Click on the photos to see a larger size.

This is an overview of Jerusalem, focusing on the Temple Mount, viewed from the Mount of Olives.




This is the wall of the old city of Jerusalem, looking down toward the Jaffa Gate. However, very little of the city's walls remain from the time of Jesus, as they have been knocked down and rebuilt a number of times over the centuries.




Jerusalem is an ancient city with a mixture of old and new - note the satellite dishes near an ancient aqueduct.



The Church of the Flagellation is located on the site where Jesus was scourged before being crucified.




This is the entrance to the Church of Flagellation.




This is a section of the Western Wall of the ancient Temple Mount. This is not, and never was, part of the wall of the city. These stones were thrown down here by Roman legions in 70 b.c. when Rome crushed the Zealots' revolt and destroyed the Temple. These stones have laid there ever since.

This is another view of the Western Wall, this section being often referred to as the Wailing Wall. Note the golden Dome of the Rock peering above the wall. The Dome of the Rock is not the Al-Aqsa mosque, which is also located atop the Temple Mount, but on one end. The Temple Mount is so called because its plateaued peak was where the Temple of the Jews was built, first by King Solomon. Today, Muslims deny that the Temple was ever there (Yasir Arafat insisted it had been in Yemen).




Near the entrance to the Wailing Wall is this sign explaining the significance of the place to the Jewish faith. Jews and Gentiles alike may pray there. Men pray at one part and women another. Men must wear a head covering, called a kippa, once they enter through the small gate to approach the Wall. My close friend, Rabbi Daniel Jackson, will provide the men on our trip with suitable kippas before we arrive at the Wall. Women also must cover their heads, most wear a simple scarf.




Even the snacks sold near the Wailing Wall are holy!



Here is another view of the Temple Mount, in which you can see how the Dome of the Rock dominates the top. The stone structure atop the Mount, to the far left, is the Al-Aqsa Mosque.



This is the church built at the Garden of Gethsemane. It was near here that Jesus was arrested.



The Gethsemane church is an active church. I took this photo of priests celebrating the Eucharist when I was there last October.

This is the plaza in Bethlehem near the Church of the Nativity. This is the plaza where Pope John Paul II held a New years Eve service, broadcast around the world, on Dec. 31, 1999.



This was the guide for our group in Bethlehem. Unfortunately, I did not record his name. He is Christian. As late as 1970, Bethlehem was 70 percent Christian. Now it is less than 15 percent, and almost certainly lower than 10 percent. Christians in the West Bank and Gaza are strongly persecuted by the Muslims with permission of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and active participation in Gaza of Hamas. A Muslim journalist told us that within 15-20 years, there will be no more Christians in the West Bank.



This is the interior of the Church of the nativity, a very large structure built over the traditional site of Jesus' birth. Most of the building there today dates from the Crusades. although the first church there dates no later than the fourth century.




Lunch in Bethlehem. I bought a couple of falafel, a deep-fried bread that has various seasonings and vegetable ingredents. Think of a big, round hush puppy, although a falafel isn't made of cornbread.




Back to Jerusalem. This is a scene of a Via Dolorosa along the way to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In Jesus' day the streets were much wider. Jerusalem has been hosting tourists for, oh, 2,500 years and there is shopping for every price range, from tourist junk trinkets to very expensive, high quality jewelry and even furniture. It would pay to look around a bit before making a purchase. BTW, every store in Israel and the West Bank accepts cash US dollars and American credit cards. There is no need to exchange currency before traveling - or ever, for that matter.



This is a chapel at the station of the cross along the Via Dolorosa where Jesus fell. It is not, though, the station where the Romans forced Simon from Cyrene to carry the cross. That station is later along the way.




Walking along the Via Dolorosa, this is the first view of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

A view of one of the domes inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The church is also called the Church of the Resurrection. It is a very large structure built over the rock of Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified, and the site of his tomb (hence, the sites of both Jesus' death and resurrection).





This is the dome immediately above the site of the tomb. Regretfully, there was not enough light to capture a good photo of the tomb site.




Inside the sepulchre church is this tableau at the Rock of Preparation, where Joseph of Arimathea and the women disciples of Jesus hastily (and incompletely) prepared Jesus' body for entombment. Alas, that original rock is long gone, having been chipped away over the early centuries by relic seekers.




A Coptic monk near a site holy to the Coptic church, the shrine to Queen Helen.



This sign was near Jerusalem's Ben Yehuda Street in the Jewish Quarter. Yep, Jerusalem has much experience with tourists!



You have to advertise where you can find space - this sign was atop a high, old column, barely readable from the ground.




This is a section of Israel's security wall that runs along the demarcation between Israel and the West Bank. There is another wall at Gaza. Only about 30 percent of the barrier is actually a wall, the rest is fencing. Israel built the barrier to stop suicide bombers from blowing up buses and pizzerias and other places filled with Israeli civilians and children. Within a short time after the wall was significantly completed, terrorist attacks in Israel fell by more than 80 percent. There is no denying that the barrier imposes great difficulties upon the Palestinians, but practically every Israeli, regardless of political stripe, agrees that their right to life comes before the Palestinians' quality of life.

This is a scene from the lower level of the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth. This striking, modern church is quite new, having been dedicated by Pope Paul VI in 1967. It is not, of course, the first church to have been built on this spot. The photo is of the traditional place of Mary's childhood home and the place where the angel Gabriel told Mary that she would give birth to Jesus.



Jericho, in the West Bank, is the oldest, continuously inhabited place on earth. It was in Jericho that Jesus invited himself to have dinner with Zaccheus, who was short of stature and had climbed a sycamore tree to get a glimpse of Jesus as he came by.



Finally, here I am with my good friend, Israeli Orthodox Rabbi Daniel Jackson, Ph.D., enjoying midnight dessert in a cafe near Ben Yehuda Street.

Daniel, his wife, Susan and their son, Schmuel, made aliya to Israel from the US in (as I recall) 2002, just as the Second Intifada's suicide-bombing campaign was really getting under way. Daniel is former sociology professor who left the academy to study for rabbinic ordination at Yeshiva University. Rabbi Jackson lives in the Galilee region of Israel and teaches several classes in Jerusalem at Touro College in Israel. He is an accomplished amateur astronomer.

One of the evenings of our trip, Daniel (and I hope Susan also) will be with us give insights into modern Israel, its sociological challenges and what does it mean for Israel to be a Jewish state. Daniel is an expert on all things Judaica, so he will be able to answer any questions about Jewish faith, history and practice.

Update: Here are three movies I took in October 2007

First is a video capturing the sounds of the bells of the Church of Holy Sepulchre. They bells there are very sonorous. The sound is beautiful




Just a few minutes after the bells ahd sounded, a Muslim call to prayer was sounded from this minaret of a mosque that is located immediately next to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The co-location of the church and mosque and their religious announcements was striking.




The Jewish Shabbat ends at sundown Saturday. At Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem, people come out to celebrate. The party doesn't really begin until abou 10 p.m.! B en Yeuda is a major commercial ditrict of the Jewish Quarter, and on Saturday nights the stores and bistros stay open very late.