Around the World with Marsha & Joel

Late, lazy wake-up — finally. 10 am stroll back to the Old City to explore the Citadel and David’s Tower.

We walk through the artist’s neighborhood, beautiful and quiet on this sunny Shabbat morning. The quiet of the Sabbath in Jerusalem is pervasive. Fountains and gardens and vistas abound.

Pomegranate trees and carob bushes. Did you know that carob seeds are so light and consistent that they were used to weigh very small items. Some say the word carob was the root for the word caret. Really needed to know that. Right?

Approaching the Citadel from outside the Old City Wall.

Once again through the Jaffa Gate into the ancient city. Still bustling.

Vendor selling, among other things, Jerusalem bagels…those long oval pastries covered with sesame seeds. Certainly not a Lower East Side, or Absolute bagel, but light, airy, flavorful…good in its own right.

Someone looks up as we enter the Citadel and sees, no less than a Chihuly glass chandelier. Man does he get around! How great does that look in this space?

Inside the Citadel.

A Verrochio statue of David with Goliath’s head. Strangely feminine. Artist’s interpretation?

The view from the Tower highlights everything surrounding the Old City. The museum is wildly interesting, condensing over 3,000 years of history of these hills, including an amazing factoid of how David pooled and collected water from a spring, drilling far underground through solid rock for about 1,400 feet to make a conduit for the water to secretly and securely pool below. Evidence shows that the tunnel was started at both ends and by some miracle or genius, wandered and met exactly at the middle. No, there were no holes drilled up through the rock, and no apparent way air or light could be forced into the tunnels during construction???

With the afternoon free we had time to re-visit the Israel Museum. What an incredible place. One of the best designed and extensive museums we’ve ever seen. Amazing indoor and outdoor spaces. From the ancient to the very modern. An enviable collection. This is a monumental sculpture by American artist Magdalena Abramovich who has pieces at the Grounds for Sculpture near us in NJ.

And then, the piece de resistance; the permanent installation by James Turrell, the master of light sculpture. This is the view looking up through the top from your seat on a marble bench. A square of sky, changing in color, intensity and content as time rolls by. You can sit for hours and stare.

The shape on the wall, changing dramatically as the sun and light morphs. Genius.

A wonderful view from the Billy Rose Sculpture garden.

Some of Marsha’s favorite artists. This one’s for Matt…. Ever think Tom Wesselmann worked so large?

Frankenthaler.

Basquiat.

Then a cab back for a farewell dinner for half our group not going with us to Eilat and Petra. Unfortunately, we read in today’s Israeli papers about security issues along the border with Egypt in the Sinai, not far from where we will be traveling tomorrow. Take a look at your maps to see Eilat’s location. Since the bus bombing of Korean tourists recently, Israel has been increasing border security in that area. But, because of the tenuous “good” relations currently with Egypt, Israel is theoretically not to do any pre-emptive striking into what might be a potential threat on the Egyptian side. Many Israelis are not happy about this vulnerability. I guess we’re not either. But chances for trouble are slim, so on we go tomorrow.

It’s a day for emotions to run wild. We start in tears at Yad Vashem, the recently updated memorial to the Holocaust — no, not just the Holocaust, but everything leading to it, and the additional horrors that followed (and are following).

First a visit to the Children’s Memorial, a gut-wrenching piece of art (no photography inside). Music and darkness opening to reflections of a million and a half points of light. The darkness makes you walk slowly through as the names, ages and places of the children are recited and sink in to your soul.

Next into the newly enhanced museum itself. Beautifully designed…a sledge hammer to your heart. It crosses you back and forth from the events and traumas before to every phase of the inhumanity to the indifference and cruelty occurring beyond. Photos, objects, quotations, interpretations pop up in front of you, making you gasp harder with each one. Most moving are the video testimonies of survivors putting faces to it all. You can wind through for hours. At the end you walk out to a terrace with an amazing view toward the hills around Jerusalem, filling you with both hope and the comfort that Israel is a place welcoming to all Jews, from anywhere, offering sanctuary from any unspeakable. If only this land of Israel were here as the horrors were building. The world would be a very different place.

Then on to the Israel Museum to get a hard look at the Dead Sea Scrolls, found hidden in clay pots in caves in the Judean desert hills as described yesterday. The dome above covers the display and is intended to reflect the top of the clay vessels hiding the scrolls. Again, no photography allowed inside, but a beautiful display of facsimiles and actual portions of the scrolls. For a close look yourself, Google and the Museum (I think) have digitized all the scrolls making them available to all who want to see. Amazing that these codex were written 1,000 plus years before what we thought were the oldest writings of the law.

From the museum we stopped back to the market for some yummy pita-stuffed lunch (yes, Marsha’s eating again), and a wind down the emotions walk back to the hotel to get ready for the Shabbat…it’s Friday afternoon, and everything, I mean everything will shut down by about 4 pm.

On the walk back we find a sign post listing all that is going on in Jerusalem. We carefully read it for something of interest. Not.

We pass the Jerusalem Great Synagogue on the way and see that they have a candle lighting service at the beginning of Shabbat services. Since our night tour of the Old City is not until 7 pm we change our clothes and go back to the synagogue. Unfortunately the greeters tell us there is no candle lighting before the 5:30 services and invite us to stay (all the hotels have candle lighting near their lobbies — so guests don’t light up their rooms instead). We can’t come back then, but tour the grand synagogue built in Sephardic tradition instead. Beautiful place.

Our evening takes us back to the Western Wall to observe and take part in the chaotic Shabbat services. It is an amazing frenzy of every sect of judaism, praying, swaying, singing, dancing in a wall to wall mob of frock coats, grandiose fur hats, sideburns and tsitzit. Marsha manages to get to the wall while I can’t on the men’s side through the tumult (always thought that was a yiddish word). No photos on Shabbat…sorry.

Then a Shabbat dinner at a nearby Kibbutz on the hills of Jerusalem. A very rich Kibbutz who traded in growing vegetables for growing real estate some years ago. It’s an amazing dinner for a Shabbat (where all the foods had to be prepared much earlier in the day. I’m not sure where all this food is going…ahhhh, yes, I think I do. To bed.

From Jerusalem to Masada to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth (geologically speaking).

Driving down from Jerusalem toward the Judean desert we pass again through the checkpoints at the West Bank. We go through without stopping. Kind of interesting, the state of security in Israel these days. Since the beginning of the “Arab Spring” Israel’s been able to catch it’s breath and relax, just a bit. All the “neighbors” are too occupied with each other to turn their eyes toward Israel. All are hoping the results of “spring” will result to a blooming, not a scything of all that’s growing.

Past an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. Our guide believes the settlement issue will be the smallest cog in the negotiating issues. Compromise can be made by annexing land to the Palestinians in exchange for most of the settlements. (His opinion). Other issues will be much more difficult, as we know. Interesting note: All newly-built Israeli housing must contain at least one room that is completely reinforced with concrete and rebar as a “safe room”. Could we live like that?

The Judean desert. Beautiful and rugged to our right and the Dead Sea on our left.

Yet date palm groves thrive and several oases bloom from the occasional runoff from the bordering mountain ridges. We also stop at the Ahava (Hebrew word for Love) factory. The only company licensed to mine the Dead Sea for minerals and plants to produce cosmetics. Some of you have used them for sure. We bought a few, probably for more than you can get on sale at Marshall’s.

We pass Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered (hidden in caves in the side of the mountain in clay jars) so the Romans would not find them (almost too successfully). We’ll see them in the Israel Museum tomorrow. And, we get our first sight of Masada looming off to our right.

We take the cable car to the plateau (yes, I’m sure you hiked up Jessica…we just didn’t have the time). The feeling is erie, putting yourself in the sandals of the Zealots and the decision they had to make. Lots of King Herod’s fortress still remains.

Some ravens size us up.

Looking down to the remains of the Roman camp below the ramp they built to breach the top. You can see the two walls, the inner camp where they laid in wait, and the useless fence they built to say to the Zealots they were no longer able to escape.

A mikva (ritual bath) outside the complex bath house. Herod did consider himself “King of the Jews” and did things like this to prove it.

Quiet and warmth at the top.

Back down and a short trip to fully experience the thick waters of the Dead Sea – nearly 1,400 feet below sea level. The mineral saturated water is thick and almost greasy. Sinking is impossible. Such a strange sensation, especially for someone who ordinarily can’t float without churning his hands and legs. Even floating vertically is possible with a little maneuvering. Some people required help getting their feet down to stand back up. Any cuts or scrapes burn like hell.

From there a drive back to Jerusalem where we walked to the Mahane Yehuda market. One of the busiest in all Jerusalem, full of fresh produce, meat, fish, baked goods and sweets.

Halvah in so many varieties it would make Zahadi’s blush in envy. We bought way too big a piece…then some seed mixes for snacking…some pistachios of course…and some baklava-like pastries for dessert.

Made our way back through the crowd to a late dinner at the Cafe Paradiso, near our hotel and recommended by our friends the Milsteins. Delicious.