Seeing double

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There are three workers here. If, after enlarging the photo, you see ~~ double ~~, it is not because my camera was shaking. Honest.
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I think it is the special new window the neighbor put in.
Double glass or something, for good insulation?

It's good for James' "Weekend Reflections."

The view from inside the windows of the shed that is being worked on.

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The reflected workmen you saw were on the roof of a new addition to the house of my neighbors' neighbors.

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So many moshav members here in the village are improving or enlarging their property.

All except my landlord, that is.

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Shadows on the walls

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Crisp January shadows on the wall for Hey Harriet's "Shadow Shot Sunday."


Shadow of a winter grapevine.
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Tu BiShvat symbolism

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On the Tu BiShvat holiday Israelis like to go out into nature and celebrate the birthday of the trees. Today was warm but unfortunately the sky turned brown and we are suffering through a dust storm.

But last night's Tu BiShvat seder at the neighbors' house was nice.
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The Talmud calls the 15th (tu) of the month of Shvat a Rosh Hashana (New Year's Day) for the trees.
Later, in the Middle Ages, this was understood as being a time appropriate for celebration.
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Wikipedia has interesting things to say about Tu Bishvat and about the revived custom of the Tu Bishvat seder.
Here are some:

"In the 1600s in the Land of Israel, Rabbi Yitzchak Luria of Safed and his disciples created a Tu Bishvat seder, somewhat like the Passover seder, that celebrated the Tree of Life (the Kabbalistic map of the Sephirot)."
That traditional seder ends with "May all the sparks scattered by our hands, or by the hands of our ancestors, or by the sin of the first human against the fruit of the tree, be returned and included in the majestic might of the Tree of Life."
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In addition to this Kabbalistic interpretation, the image of the Tree of Life has recently also taken on new interpretations, e.g. ecological ones.
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You see on our table red wine and white wine. If you look at the plate from my previous post, you see figs, dates, raisins, carobs, and and other dried and fresh fruits and nuts.
Here is the way Wiki explains the symbolism:

"In Kabbalistic terms, the fruits that one eats, dried or fresh, can be divided up from lower or more manifest to higher or more spiritual, as follows:

Fruits and nuts with hard, inedible exteriors and soft edible insides, such as oranges and walnuts.

Fruits and nuts with soft exteriors, but with a hard pit inside, such as dates, apricots, olives.

Fruit that is eaten whole, such as figs and berries.

Kabbalistic tradition teaches that eating fruits in this order creates a connection with the Tree of Life that God placed in the Garden of Eden . . . which is also represented by the Sephirot. In effect one is traveling from the most external or manifest dimension of reality, symbolized by fruits with a shell, to the most inner dimension, symbolized not even by the completely edible fruits but rather by a fourth level that may be likened to smell. At the same time, one drinks various proportions of red and white grape juice or wine, from white to red with just a drop of white in it, also corresponding to these levels."
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Seder Tu BiShvat

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Shabbat shalom and happy Tu BiShvat.

It is the 15th day of Shvat. Today is the New Year for Trees.
I just came back from dinner at the neighbors' house. My first time ever to attend a seder Tu BiShvat.

It is modeled on the Passover seder, complete with the four cups of wine.

But the subject matter is nature and the fruits of the Land of Israel.
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I am too groggy now to explain any more. Hopefully tomorrow morning . . .

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Meanwhile, say happy birthday to your favorite tree!

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Jaffa Gate in black, sky in blue

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After days of cold wet grayness, we in Jerusalem finally got our blue sky back, just in time for Sky Watch Friday and for Tu BiShvat (more on that holiday tomorrow).

The view from Paul Emile Botta Street. Botta was the French Consul General in 1847-57 and was a distinguished archaeologist.
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Jaffa Gate seems to be under wraps. See the black cover? (If not, click to enlarge.)
Must be some restoration work. It was built in 1538.
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On the right is the Citadel or "Tower of David."
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And above is the warm blue sky that is so conducive to a good mood!
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Moving right along . . .

Jerusalem traffic gets heavy in late afternoon.
This is near Jaffa Gate.
And if you remember you should be going in the other direction, well, just drive over the solid white line and make a U turn. :-(

The blue and white striped sheruts take Arab residents of Bethlehem back home.

Sometimes traffic is so heavy cars are even stacked two high.
;-)

Remembering

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For today's International Day of Commemoration of the Victims of the Holocaust --

Sometimes art says it better than words.

At the museum in Hechal Shlomo, seat of the Chief Rabbinate, in Jerusalem.

The assembled elements.

And from all this brokenness and after the screams . . .

. . . our people's hope--Jerusalem--appears.

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And those too soon dead, perhaps they see the Heavenly Jerusalem.

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Books, bookstores, book people

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Jews are known as Am Hasefer, the People of the Book.
This originally meant the holy books like the Torah and the wider canon of written Jewish law.
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I think the definition has widened. This was proved to me when I joined a guided tour called "Sefarim rabbotai, sefarim!" given by the Yad Ben Zvi Institute.
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We love books. Otherwise why would dozens of Jews gather at a windy corner in central Jerusalem, pay 70 shekels each, and walk around for hours on a cold December evening, listening attentively to the Ph.D.-student guide as he led us to legendary old bookstores?
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He also explained where the good libraries used to be some 60 years ago.
It was a big history lesson.
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The one store I could get a photo of was Trionfo, a store full of treasures.
The owner invited our big group in and gave us a lecture about their labor of love.

Their website says they specialize in Chanukah menorahs, yads, torah finials, charity boxes, plates (seder and others), manuscripts, art, ephemera, postcards, documents, and anti-semitica.
(Anti-semitica?? Is that a real word?!)
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They also offer old, antique, and vintage Jewish-related books including 19th century travel books to Palestine; Israeliana (KKL pushkes, posters); Palestine and Jerusalem 19th and 20th
century original photography; and antique maps.
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Trionfo even has an eBay store. Take a look at their photos of Jerusalem in the 1800s.
Quite amazing--like there was almost nothing here, outside the Old City.
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Books and book people--that's my B contribution for ABC Wednesday.
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That sinking feeling

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Before we get back to reporting about Jerusalem, allow me to share just one more thing about my recent visit to Ein Gedi.
It is That's My World Tuesday and I'm wishing my world were still down in the warm Rift Valley instead of up here in presently rainy cold (2 to 5 degrees C) Jerusalem.

We always hear that there are no boats on the Dead Sea because the water is so corrosive.
Some 34% of the water is salt and minerals, i.e. eight times the saltiness of a normal sea.
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So what is this boat for, and what is the thing behind it?
Does anyone know? I searched and found no answer.
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Certain tiny algae are the only creatures that can survive.
It is only a joke that you can catch salted fish here. :-)

The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth. Its surface is more than 400 meters below sea level.
And this unique body of water is shrinking fast.
Kibbutz Ein Gedi built a spa right on its shore 25 years ago. Today a bather or mudpack-seeker must drive 1.5 kilometers to reach the water.

The sun was just setting and we had to catch the bus back to Jerusalem (the bus climbs 1150 meters in an hour and a half).
But first my hiking friend, visiting from Europe, really needed to go down to the lonely shore and touch the famous Salt Sea waters just one time.
Even though I warned her of this:

Bol'anim! Holes that swallow you!
Look at that warning triangle with a person falling into a pit!
A geologist who was swallowed by a sinkhole himself says there are up to 3,000 open sinkholes along the coast and likely just as many that haven't burst open yet.
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UPDATE Feb. 2015: Finally, information (and great photos) about that boat--in The Boston Globe.
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The Chalcolithic temple

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While hiking in the Judean Desert near the Dead Sea, we came upon an ancient temple . . .

These are the oldest findings (so far) in the Ein Gedi oasis, from about 5,500 years ago.
That was the Chalcolithic period.
The pagan temple served as a cultic center for the nomadic tribes of the region.
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Welcome! Step through the entrance gate.
See the stone benches here and along the base of the far wall?
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The temple was found empty.
Where were the cult objects they made and used for generation after generation?
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It has been proposed that the priests of that temple assembled the temple's objects at a time of approaching danger and hid them in a cave for safekeeping. The fate of the Chalcolithic inhabitants is not known. They may have fled or been killed, leaving the hoard behind.
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And in 1960-61, in a cave not far away, in Nachal Mishmar, Israeli archaeologists discovered the fabulous hidden hoard!!

Tools, mace heads, standards, crowns.

Look what beauty from a time when people here in the region were only first beginning to use copper!

And so many--442 objects, most made of copper.

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More about the Cave of the Treasure at the Foreign Ministry website (from which these two photos are taken) and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art website.
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(When I moved to Israel in 1968, I devoured the books and legends about the archaeological expeditions in the desert. That crown shown above always fascinated me. Tears came to my eyes when I first saw it before me in the museum in Jerusalem in 2006.)

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About a hundred standards (tubular scepters) were wrapped in the straw mat in the cave. Traces of wood or reed hafts were preserved on some standards and suggest they may have been carried on poles, perhaps in sacred processions.
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On the temple's central altar animal bones and ash were found, testifying to its use as a sacrificial altar.
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Hoping that the pagan gods of the 4th millennium BCE were no longer around, I dared myself and my hiking companion to stand in the high place.

Neither she nor I was struck down by fire from above.

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The greening of Jerusalem

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Long shadows for Hey Harriet's "Shadow Shot Sunday."

The little traffic island at a busy Jerusalem intersection where Agrippas Street begins.

You can enlarge the picture to pick out (not pick!) the different flowers making their debut now in January.

In Israel, winter and not summer is the season for trees, wildflowers, and garden flowers to bloom.

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Here is the same place last October when the weather was still very hot and dry.

Only the drip irrigation pipes were in place.

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Not much blossoms in our long rainless summer season. Plants wither and turn brown.

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Yay for Israeli winter!

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Biblical bench

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With the excitement that comes from discovering a place for the first time, I give you this mosaic bench!
It sits in the garden of a Christian college on the edge of Mount Zion, one that I knew nothing of until today.
What a blessing to find special, hidden gardens!
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This is my second bench in one day for RuneE's "Bench on Friday" but I hope Rune is not counting. I can't wait a whole 'nother week to post it. :)
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כִּי הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה בָא-שָׁמָּה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ--לֹא כְאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם הִוא, אֲשֶׁר יְצָאתֶם מִשָּׁם: אֲשֶׁר תִּזְרַע אֶת-זַרְעֲךָ, וְהִשְׁקִיתָ בְרַגְלְךָ כְּגַן הַיָּרָק. יא וְהָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם עֹבְרִים שָׁמָּה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ--אֶרֶץ הָרִים, וּבְקָעֹת; לִמְטַר הַשָּׁמַיִם, תִּשְׁתֶּה-מָּיִם. יב אֶרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ דֹּרֵשׁ אֹתָהּ: תָּמִיד, עֵינֵי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בָּהּ--מֵרֵשִׁית הַשָּׁנָה, וְעַד אַחֲרִית שָׁנָה

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"For the land which you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it with your feet, like a garden of vegetables;

but the land which you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven,

A LAND WHICH THE LORD YOUR GOD CARES FOR; the eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year."

Deuteronomy 11:10-12

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Cat on warm cushion

And in the mirror behind Her Majesty the Cat is the hairdresser.
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For Misty Dawn's Camera-Critters, James' "Weekend Reflections" and RuneE's "Bench on Friday."
Shabbat shalom.
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Clouds with engine noise

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Here in the Hills of Jerusalem the last four days have been cloudy, gray, chilly, and with rain off and on.
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What this crop-duster was dusting on the hill across the valley is beyond me.

I mean, it's not like we have crops on the slopes.

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Hope your skies are quieter than in these pictures.

Happy SkyWatch Friday.

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Thatch

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Everyone was so interested in yesterday's thatched roof down in En Gedi, so here is a picture with more detail.
Click to enlarge.
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Kibbutz En Gedi has a huge date palm plantation (and mango trees too), so there is no lack of material for the the big "umbrellas."
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What not to do in the WC

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Only a few hardy souls take the public bus down to Ein Gedi.
Our bus from Jerusalem let us off at the Nahal David station, on the highway that hugs the shore of the Dead Sea, and we walked over to the Nature Reserve entrance.
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Most folks drive their own car.
Or big groups, mostly classes of school kids, have their own chartered bus for the day.
They park here next to the palm trees of the Ein Gedi parking lot.

Here at the entrance, under the two huge "umbrellas" made of dried palm branches, is your last chance to buy some food or to eat your picnic breakfast/lunch.
Once you buy your ticket and enter Wadi David, no eating is allowed.
That keeps Nature clean and keeps the wild animals from getting used to handouts.
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It is also your last opportunity for many hours to use the washroom.
Plenty of toilets for the big groups of hikers.
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Did I say WASHroom?

Don't even think about washing your dishes there. The sign, complete with ibex + tree logo of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, says it is forbidden.

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Eeuw, who would want to do that anyway.

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Antiquities in the desert

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As you would expect, "A" is for ANTIQUITIES and ARCHAEOLOGY for today's ABC Wednesday.
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All photos will enlarge with a click.

Welcome to En Gedi Antiquities National Park, much of which is under the sheltering tent.
Note the Dead Sea in the background, and the mountains of Moab in Jordan.
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The first sign of this magnificent mosaic was discovered accidentally, when a field was being plowed in 1965. It turned out to be a synagogue, adjoining rooms, and a street.
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The thriving Jewish community living in En Gedi existed from the 3rd to the 6th century CE (the late Roman and Byzantine periods, also know as the period of the Mishnah and Talmud).
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Archaeologists conclude that the settlement and its synagogue were destroyed by fire in a wave of persecution under the Roman emperor Justinian I around 530 CE.
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The synagogue probably had a second-story balcony.
The present mosaic carpet was created in the mid-5th century to replace older ones.
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The bamah, where the portable holy ark stood and where the Torah scroll was read.
Three small menorahs adorn the mosaic.
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The rooms might have been dwellings for the synagogue staff.
Two mikvahs (purification baths) were also found.
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This is cool because it shows the stratigraphy of the preparatory layers for a mosaic, layers with fancy names like (from bottom to top) statumen, rudus, nucleus, bedding layer, and tessellatum.
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The most exciting part of any mosaic--the dedicatory inscription!

But not easy to photograph with the setting sun, so instead I give you a picture of it from the excellent leaflet.
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I quote the leaflet written by Avivit Gera and translated to English by Miriam Feinberg Vamosh:

"The first section depicts the 13 ancestors of humanity: 'Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mehalel, Jared, Enoch, Methusaleh, Lamech, Noah, Ham, Japeth.' "
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"The second section shows the 12 signs of the zodiac, the three patriarchs, the word 'shalom,' followed by the names of Daniel's three companions who, according to legend, are the three bases on which the world rests, and finally, a blessing for peace on Israel:

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'Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. Nissan, Iyyar, Sivan, Tamuz, Av, Elul, Tishrei, Marheshvan, Kislev, Tevet, Shevat, and Adar, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Peace, Hananiyah, Mishael, and Azariyah, peace on Israel.' "
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"In the third section, an inscription appears in Aramaic which mentions the benefactors of the synagogue, Yose, Ezron, and Hazikin, sons of Halfi.

The inscription also charges all inhabitants to conduct themselves according to the rules of the village.

It warns of a curse on those who start quarrels, slander their neighbors before the Gentiles, steal, or 'reveal the town's secret.' "

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"Most scholars believe that En Gedi's economic welfare was based on a secret method for producing perfume from the balsam shrubs cultivated in the area. The inscription may hint at this possibility."

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"The fourth section contains an Aramaic inscription noting the names of the above-mentioned benefactors and calls for blessings on them for their good deeds."

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The fifth section (not shown) thanks the citizens and "Yonatan the cantor" who paid their share toward the repair of the synagogue.

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And I, Dina, thank the archaeologists who excavated this site off and on from 1970 to 2002 and the Israel Antiquities Authority Conservation Department who lovingly preserved and restored these wonderful mosaics and the site from 1991 to 1996.

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Rivers in the desert

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After a warm sunny winter the rain is finally hitting us today, all across Israel.
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The south is particularly hard hit, with dry wadis suddenly becoming raging rivers.
Roads have been broken up. Drivers who try to cross the flooded roads have been rescued with helicopters. One woman is dead and one man is missing.
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Just last Thursday a friend and I were hiking in two canyons of the Judean Desert--Nahal Arugot and Nahal David.
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Enlarge the trail map and you will understand the danger that rainfall, even far away, poses.
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The Ein Gedi Nature Reserve is sandwiched in between the Dead Sea (which is more than 400 meters below sea level) and the steep Fault Escarpment, the cliffs which rise to +200 meters above sea level.
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Rain up on the Desert Plateau, even as far away as Jerusalem, sends the water rushing down the narrow canyons.

The water takes with it rolling boulders, rocks, trees, mud . . . .

It makes a powerful sound.

Hikers must always plan their hikes according to the weather forecast. Announcements of possible flash floods in the low places, the desert, are always made in advance if there is any rain expected.

The sudden streams in the desert rush down to the Dead Sea, cutting up or flooding the highway.

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Ein Gedi is famous as an oasis because it has springs and waterfalls and vegetation all year.
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These are the waterfalls in Nahal David in normal times, i.e. last Thursday.

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Scroll down a few days if you missed seeing the animals of Ein Gedi.

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We certainly need rain, but not all of it in one or two days.

Let us pray for all who are in harm's way right now, including the nomads of the Bedouin diaspora who still live in tents and huts in the desert who have lost much today, including many of their sheep and goats swept away by the floods.

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For photos of overturned vehicles, a bus half-covered with water, trapped cars, the helicopter rescues, etc. see Ynetnews or Haaretz.
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That's it for That's My World Tuesday.
More blogger-guided tours await you at the meme's website.