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Israel Study Tour - Friends of Hume
May 18-28, 2014
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Jerusalem
We started on the Mount of Olives. We sat to listen, but surrounded by the chaos of the Pope’s arrival with sirens and helicopter circling overhead, noisy foreign tourists and Muslims offering us free Qurans, we attempted to hear, “but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest parts of the earth.” What timing!
Mount of Olives
Separated from the Eastern Hill (the Temple Mount and the City of David) by the Kidron Valley, the Mt. of Olives has always been an important feature in Jerusalem’s landscape. From the 3rd millennium B.C. until the present, this 2900-foot hill has served as one of the main burial grounds for the city. The two-mile long ridge has three summits each of which has a tower built on it.
In Bethlehem we visited the Church of Nativity. Most notable to this observer was the stark contrast between the building and its furnishings and the actual conditions at the time of Jesus’ birth.
We had the privilege of contributing to the support of the small Christian community by shopping at Johnny’s, and I hope the treasures we bring home will remind us to pray for these brothers and sisters for years to come. Lunch included, drumroll… pita bread (of course), and shawarma (now you know how to spell it.)
We spent the day trying to avoid the Pope, or actually the accompanying traffic and closed roads, and even had to resort to bailing from the bus and walking to the Western Wall where we got to witness and learn about the prayer practices of the Jewish people.
Western Wall
The Western Wall is the most holy place accessible to the Jewish people because of Muslim control of the Temple Mount. Known in recent centuries as the “Wailing Wall,” this was built by Herod the Great as the retaining wall of the Temple Mount complex. The plaza was created as an area for prayer when Israel captured the Old City in 1967. At times tens of thousands of people gather here for prayer.
The tunnel under the old city was an AMAZING view back in time where we got to see more of Western Wall at 30 feet underground, but we were still 50 feet from the foundation. The size of the stones and the detail of how well such large stones were fitted was stunning. The word Ronan commonly used to describe Herod was “Megalomaniac,” and in some crazy way we are thankful for Herod’s chutzpah.
Rabbinic Tunnels
The tour of the western wall tunnels is one of the most popular tourist sites in Jerusalem. These underground tunnels connect the western wall prayer area to the north-west side of the temple mount, passing along the side of the temple mount and under the present day houses in the Old City. Along its path are remains from the second temple period, as well as structures from later periods.
Part of the group experienced Hezekiah’s tunnel and got to be both delayed and smiled at by the Pope, while the rest of the group crossed the city through the narrow street of the marketplace, where you really need sharp elbows to get through the crowd and where you also might have to dodge motorcycles! Thanks to the Pope’s visit and the aforementioned closed roads, we also got to walk back to the hotel. One day left…
Hezekiah's Tunnel
A 1750-foot (530m) tunnel carved during the reign of Hezekiah to bring water from one side of the city to the other, Hezekiah’s Tunnel together with the 6th c. tunnel of Euphalios in Greece are considered the greatest works of water engineering technology in the pre-Classical period. Had it followed a straight line, the length would have been 1070 ft (335m) or 40% shorter.
Sheila Bair
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