Spring Travels

I've been trying to make the most of my remaining weeks in Jerusalem by visiting as many places as I can before the dreaded departure date arrives. So since my last post, I’ve been hopping around the country to various cities and areas that I hadn’t had the chance to visit yet.

Umm Al-Fahm/Beit Jann

On Thursday, April 12, my friends Sara, Jacob, Sonya, Adeeb, Hilal, and I took a trip up north to visit Adeeb’s hometown of Umm Al-Fahm, and Hilal’s hometown of Beit Jann. Umm Al-Fahm was about an hour away from Jerusalem by bus, and we stopped off there to visit Adeeb’s home (where his mother greeted us with tea, coffee, and chocolates). We drove around the town for a bit and had a delicious lunch before we left for Beit Jann, where we would spend the weekend. 

Umm Al-Fahm, home to my roommate, Adeeb.

Adeeb, Sonya, Sara, and Jacob walking towards the town.

In a cab we took to Adeeb's house. 

When we arrived, we met Adeeb's mother, who gave us coffee, tea, chocolates, and, best of all, broke out Adeeb's baby pictures. 

During our Adeeb-led tour of the town. You can't really tell from this picture, but the streets were terrifyingly windy, and things like speed limits and stop signs didn't seem to exist at all.

View from Umm Al-Fahm.

Just your typical encounter with a horse being led by a man from a car in the middle of a busy street.

Our pre-Beit Jann lunch! Adeeb knew the guys who owned the restaurant, and because he didn't have enough money on him to pay for the meal (he refused to let us pay), we all left to go back to his house, get some money, and then return to pay the restaurant owners. Practically unheard of in America. 

Beit Jann is a Druze village (the Druze are a secretive, breakaway sect of Islam who are notable for their radically different opinions towards Israel; though they’re Arab, they serve in the Israeli Army, and are generally supportive of the state) several miles from the Lebanese border. Located on a mountain and within a nature reserve, the village is beautiful, with stunning views of the surrounding area. On a clear day, you can see for miles. We met Hilal’s family, including his dog, stayed at his home, and spent our time hanging out with his friends and family. We also visited another nature reserve nearby to see the Banias Waterfall, and went on an hour and a half-long search for a rare flower that supposedly only grows in the Beit Jann area. It was a great two-night trip, and I’m glad I had the chance to meet my roommates’ families.

Beit Jann.

Hilal's home. We slept in the basement, which is that bottom blue section. 

Jacob bonding with Hilal's dog. 

On the hunt for the rare and elusive flower unique to the Beit Jann area. It took almost an hour of frustrating searching to find the damn thing. 

Though the search was worth it to experience this. 

The flower itself. Worth an hour of wandering? You decide. 

Some less-rare, but very cool flowers. 

Cool trees. 

View from the hills of Beit Jann.

Beit Jann's version of traffic. 

Looking out from a popular lookout point in the village. 

Moody skies. The body of water you can see in this picture is the Mediterranean Sea. 

On our way to visit the Banias Waterfall; you can see the snow-capped top of Mount Hermon (located on the border shared between Syria, Lebanon, and the Golan) in the distance. 

Being so close to the border, there were live mine fields everywhere. 

The parking lot of the nature reserve containing the waterfall, with an old mosque standing guard over the cars. Fun fact: I changed from pants to shorts right underneath that minaret. 

Entrance to the park. 

The water comes from both Mount Hermon and natural springs. 

Walking to the falls. 

The path followed the river, and let us see some cool rapids. 

The Banias Waterfall. 

Walking on a wooden path suspended above the rapids. 

A grove of blossoming trees, where we met up with Hilal's family after seeing the waterfall.

Yom Hazikaron (Israeli Memorial Day)

The evening of Tuesday, april 24^th marked the beginning of Yom Hazikaron, or Israel’s Memorial Day (according to the Hebrew calendar system, a day officially begins at sunset). The day itself (the 25^th) is marked by sirens which sound throughout the country, and bring everything to a standstill in remembrance for Israel’s fallen soldiers. I went to the Western Wall Tuesday evening to attend the day’s opening ceremonies, and was able to see Israel’s President, Shimon Peres, speak (though it was all in Hebrew, so I didn’t understand a single word). Despite the language barrier, it was very interesting, and worth seeing.

The Western Wall all prepared for the memorial ceremony. 

Honor guard, Israeli flag, and memorial torch. 

Lighting the torch. 

Shimon Peres, Israel's Peresident (see what I did there?)

Children watching the ceremony from the windows of a Yeshiva (religious school).

Ramla

On Tuesday, May 1^st, our Arabic program had a field trip to the city of Ramla, a city close to Tel Aviv which was founded over 1300 years ago. Though predominantly Jewish, it has a significant Arab minority, and despite undergoing a severe economic depression, there have recently been attempts to revitalize the city. Interesting fact: Adolf Eichmann was executed in Ramla. Ramla is also home to a fair amount of Karaite (pronounced Kar-ee-ite, I think) Jews, and we were able to visit their synagogue in Ramla and learn a bit about them. Karaite’s reject oral Jewish laws and tradition (the Talmud) accepting only the Tanakh, or the canon, of the Hebrew Bible. Along with the Karaite synagogue, we also visited a local mosque, the Ramla market, a museum on the history of the city, the Ramla tower, and some archeological sites, including a subterranean reservoir. 

The inside of the Karaite Synagogue. 

Outside the synagogue. 

The mosque we visited.

The ritual bathing area. 

Entrance to the mosque. 

The qiblah wall (direction of Mecca) with a minbar, which functions sort of similarly to a pulpit. 

Interior of the mosque. The astute amateur architect might notice that this was actually a church which was converted to a mosque after being conquered by Saladin.

Walking through the Ramla market. 

Olives and all sorts of delicious pickled things. 

Gold coins that we saw in the museum of Ramla's history. 

Hey! Detroit street!

Just your average local. 

Some Ramla ruins. 

A church we walked past. 

Cool statue. 

A building with an interesting window. 

Old car parked randomly on the streets.

Wandering through Ramla.

The Ramla Tower, located next to the ruins of the White Mosque. 

Square near the tower. 

Another shot of the tower. 

The ruins of the White Mosque. 

Ramla. 

An old graveyard seen from the Ramla Tower. 

More of the graveyard. 

View of the square from the tower. 

Walking around town. 

I didn't understand this when I saw it, and then googled it. Apparently this 'Twin Cities' business is done with a ton of cities. 

Outside the reservoir we visited. 

Inside the reservoir. 

We immediately took advantage of the boats provided in the reservoir. This was the least blurry picture I took. 

Hebron and Bethlehem

On Friday, May 4^th, I went with a group of friends (Sara, Jeff, Naomi, Arielle) to the West Bank, where we visited the cities of Hebron and Bethlehem. Visiting Hebron was probably one of the most interesting experiences I’ve had here yet. Home to almost two hundred thousand Palestinians, the city is the largest in the West Bank. But what makes it interesting is the presence of about five hundred Israeli settlers smack dab in the middle of the city. The settlers live completely separate from the Palestinians and are seen as invaders, to the point that they need significant IDF (Israeli Army) protection. One of the main streets of the city, Shuhada Street, was even closed by the army to provide a safe path for the settlers to reach their synagogue, which ironically shares the same building as a mosque. The people living on Shuhada Street were evicted from their homes and businesses to facilitate this process. Palestinians even need special permits from the IDF to so much as approach the areas in which settlers live. To me, Hebron is an extreme example, if not the extreme example, of what is wrong with the region; and this is an opinion shared by a significant amount of Israelis as well. 

That cart in the middle of the street is some guy selling cups of coffee. This is the Arab world's version of a drive-through Starbucks. 

Walking through the streets of Hebron. 

Hebron market. 

This grating completely covers the street which the market is on. It's necessary because of the trash and debris that the Israeli settlers living above the street routinely throw down at the Arab citizens below. 

High fences and barbed wire were common sights in the city. 

Passing the checkpoint into the settler-section of the city, on our way to visit the Tombs of the Patriarchs.

Shuhada Street, which was closed down by the IDF. It was eerily empty.

A group of Indian tourists approaching a barricade in front of Shuhada street. 

The steps to the synagogue containing the Tombs of the Patriarchs. The synagogue shares its building with a mosque, with only a thin wall separating the two. 

Armed guards outside of the synagogue. 

Security station outside the stairs leading up to the synagogue's entrance. 

Inside the synagogue. 

One of the tombs. Not sure who's this is though. 

Because the synagogue was once part of the mosque, Arabic writing is everywhere. Just adding to the surreal feeling of the entire experience. 

Another tomb. Again, not sure who this is. 

More Arabic writing. 

Another tomb. 

One of the rooms in the synagogue.

IDF post outside. 

Walking back up Shuhada Street. 

Cool graffiti. 

One of the depressing things about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (and something that can be easily seen in Hebron especially) is that no one is innocent. The city, just like the land, has been contested for decades, even before the birth of the Israeli state, and unfortunately a solution still seems a long ways away. 

We stopped at this shop, and some of my friends bought some gifts for their families. The shop owner, a local, invited us to have tea with her, and we spoke with her in Arabic and English about what it is like to live in the city. 

Back where we started, to catch a bus to Bethlehem. 

After Hebron, we took a bus to Bethlehem, where we visited the Church of the Nativity, had some delicious Taybeh beers and mint lemonade, and got to witness the end of the afternoon Muslim prayers in the square of the city.

Walking towards the center of Bethlehem. The church in the picture is a Lutheran church, known as the Christmas Church.

Better view of the Christmas Church.

Bethlehem streets. 

Entrance to the Church of the Nativity. 

Inside the church. 

Mosaic floors. 

Mint lemonade. Delicious. 

The best beer in the Middle East. Fun fact: its made by somebody with the last name of Khoury. Maybe we're related!

 When we exited the Church of the Nativity, it was time for midday prayers and the square was filled with   Muslims praying. It was really cool to see, and I shamelessly joined dozens of others in videotaping part of it. 

Haifa

Friday, May 11^th was a trip to Haifa, organized through the university. The trip centered on a visit to the magnificent Bahai Gardens, a sprawling, terraced area in the center of the city, named for a religion founded in the 1840s. We toured part of the gardens, and then saw a presentation which briefly introduced the Bahai faith. The Gardens were stunning, and the presentation was fascinating, even though it barely scratched the surface of the religion. After the gardens, we went to a nearby Muslim neighborhood, called Kababir Village, which is home to the Ahmadis, an Islamic reform movement also founded in the 1800s. There, a representative of the community spoke with us about the differences between the Ahmadis and the rest of Islam, and held a question and answer session, which was great. Prior to this trip, I had no idea that either the Bahai or the Ahmadi faiths existed, and I was glad to have the opportunity to be introduced to them. 

View of Haifa. 

More of Haifa. The buildings in the foreground are part of the Bahai Gardens complex. 

The Bahai Gardens. 

Another view of the Gardens. 

Peacock statue. 

Walking through the gardens. 

Gardens again. It was really beautiful to see, even though it was far too hot outside. 

The Bahai Archives building (I think). They also had a government building within the gardens. 

The Ahmadi mosque. 

Entrance to the mosque. The presentation we had here was very interesting, and the presenter/lecturer was very forthcoming and honest with his answers. 

Before leaving to go back to Jerusalem, we briefly stopped by a Druze village just outside of Haifa. Because we were short on time, we weren't able to see much, but that didn't bother me, as I'll be back to visit this village with the Arabic program. 

Nakba Day

Tuesday, May 15^th was Nakba Day, a day of mourning for Palestinians which commemorates the mass displacement of the Palestinian population during 1948 and the formation of the Israeli state. In the past, Nakba Day has been a day of violent protests all across the West Bank and Israel, though this year it seemed significantly more peaceful. This might have been connected to the fact that just days earlier, Israelis and Palestinians had finally reached an agreement regarding the treatment of Palestinian prisoners, ending a massive hunger strike that had been going on for over fifty days and involved around one thousand and seven hundred Palestinian prisoners. But that didn’t mean that there weren’t any protests whatsoever. There was some violence in the West Bank, with several people injured, and there were protests in Issawiya (an Arab neighborhood just down the road from our dorms), and even the university itself. My friend Sara and I decided to go to the Old City for a bit, to see if anything was going on there. We wandered around, visiting the Austrian Hospice and having a delicious lunch of shawarma, before leaving through the Damascus Gate to return to the dorms. But right outside the gate we encountered a peaceful and relatively minor protest, consisting of a group of Palestinians chanting in Arabic and waving Palestinian flags. It was quite interesting, and I was able to take some cool pictures and a video. 

Damascus Gate, pre-protest. 

Before we saw the protests, Sara and I wandered around the Old City for a bit, and decided  to check out the Austrian Hospice, which was said to have a great view from it's roof. This statue was just inside the front doors.

Doors to the Hospice building itself. 

Looking out from the front door/lobby area. 

I'm not sure what this is, but it looked nice so I took a picture of it and put it on here!

Halls of the Hospice. 

View from the roof. 

Dome of the Rock from the Hospice roof. 

After leaving the Hospice, we walked to the Muslim-only entrance to the Temple Mount and I took this cool photo.

Streets of Jerusalem. 

Church of the Redeemer. 

As we were leaving the Old City, we saw this outside of the Damascus Gate. 

Paramedics were standing by, in case things turned violent. 

Close up of the protesters. 

There was also a substantial crowd of journalists covering the demonstration. 

Here's a short video I took of the protests. 

Well, that’s what I’ve been up to over here as of late! We also experienced a minor earthquake on Friday, May 11^th, which was the first I’ve ever felt. It was a profoundly odd experience, and thankfully no one was hurt, and there was no damage. My time here is drawing to a close, and though I’m excited to see my family (and my dog) after almost a year, I’m also immensely sad to be leaving this incredible place. But before that happens, expect at least one more blog post as I try to make the most of my dwindling days in Jerusalem!