Happy Jerusalem Day

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Happy Jerusalem Day!  
"We love Jerusalem" on the Damascus Gate (from a light festival a few years ago).
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Happy Jerusalem Day!

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Here's looking at you, Jerusalem!
Happy Jerusalem Day today!
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Photo of the Damascus Gate into the Old City, during the Light Festival in June 2014.
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Damascus Gate like you've never seen it

 
If you look at the Damascus Gate long enough, it starts to look back at you.

 
Here are some of the projections onto the magnificent gate during the Jerusalem Festival of Light.

 A few showed courses of stones tumbling down or fire on the walls, and that was difficult to watch.
May it never happen.

I wonder if this painting with light could be considered momentary murals.
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Either way, I send them now to Monday Murals meme.
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Damascus Gate sprouts a tree of life

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Jerusalem's Festival of Light in the Old City can start only when it is dark, i.e. after 8 pm.
Last night at 7:54 the sky above Damascus Gate was turning pretty shades of blue and pink.

Very soon the air got cool and the sky got dark and they began the projection of "Tree of Life"  by Heinz Kasper of Germany.
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This virtual tree is for ABC Wednesday's V day.
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P.S.  - Even better was how they projected "I LOVE JERUSALEM"  onto the gate in the 2011  Festival of Light!  See my post for the photos.
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Make a joyful noise with Psalm 100 !

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The little group of Psalms illustrators has finished two thirds of the Book of Psalms today, thanks to our host's nudging.  Thanks, Robert!
Join us for the Psalm Challenge as a reader or contributor over at the blog "robert geiss, A PHOTOGRAPHER'S MIND."

PSALM 100 1 A Psalm for the thank offering.    Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the lands!  

2 Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!
3 Know that the LORD is God! It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.  

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him, bless his name! 5 For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures for ever, and his faithfulness to all generations. .Translation: Revised Standard Version Photos  (can be much enlarged by clicking):1. Drum circle and dancing at the 2007 Jerusalem Hug.  2. Men dancing at the 2009 Kurdish Jews' Saheraneh festival.3. Entering Damascus Gate (in 2007, before it got a good cleaning and restoration)..

Pedestrians crossing Sultan Suleiman St.

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As you see (click once or twice), the zebra pedestrian crossing on busy Sultan Suleiman Street is a suggestion only.
Those Arab women down there know that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
I took this picture from the top of Schmidt's College (now also including the Paulushaus guest house), at the corner of Nablus Road.

The stairs on the photo's  left lead down to the great Damascus Gate, one of several entrances into the Muslim Quarter of the Old City.
The east Jerusalem Arab bus terminal is nearby; the small blue and white bus is one of many that go to Bethlehem and back all the time.

City Daily Photo's Theme Day today is "Pedestrians crossing."
Go take a look at the surprising interpretations our fellow bloggers are coming up with!
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UPDATE, Tuesday:  At this very place some violence occurred today.
The Times of Israel reports:

"Dozens of East Jerusalemites protested the death of a Palestinian prisoner Tuesday, with riot police called in to disperse the demonstration with teargas.

Five people were arrested following the demonstration near Damascus Gate outside the Old City. Protesters reportedly hurled rocks at police, drawing teargas fire."

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Written on stone

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Yesterday the nation celebrated Jerusalem Day.
Forty-five years already since the Six Day War ended, allowing Jerusalem to be put back together.
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The photo is from June 2010 when the Jerusalem Light Festival lit up Damascus Gate in many grand ways.
Yes, it's true, We love Jerusalem.
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Written on stone

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"I love Jerusalem."
Actually, this could be the title of my blog.
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It was part of a changing light show projected onto the Damascus Gate last June during the Light Festival.
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I hope you are able to join me in saying "WE love Jerusalem."
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Today we are celebrating Jerusalem Day.
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Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
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Damascus Gate under wraps

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For today's That's My World walk, let's go see what's up with the Damascus Gate.

It's under wraps!
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The Old City wall and its gates were built in the 1530s by the Turkish sultan.

So from time to time they need some attention.

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We have seen how Zion Gate was refurbished recently and then how Jaffa Gate and Herod's Gate were fixed up and rededicated.
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It looks like it's now the turn of Damascus Gate, in my opinion the gate most beautiful.

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A bridge over ancient history

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For Sunday Bridges over at San Francisco Bay Daily Photo, here is a bridge, of sorts, in Jerusalem.
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The 16th century Damascus Gate is the main entry into the Muslim Quarter.
From the street and sidewalk and plaza outside the portal you must walk over a bridge to enter the Old City.

The modern bridge rests on the remains of earlier structures, most of them from the Crusader period. The Crusaders built their own gate here after they captured Jerusalem in 1099.

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Even farther down is what the tour sign calls the Roman Square.

The Roman Legion destroyed the Temple in 70 C.E. In the 2nd century emperor Hadrian changed Jerusalem's name to Aelia Capitolina and it became a pagan Roman city.

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The arch you see in the photo is the only survivor of a magnificent Roman triumphal arch which was comprised of three vaulted gates.

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