Two domes, one crescent and one cross

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In honor of Ramadan, which begins on Thursday, here is a favorite shot of the Dome of the Rock.
It is a Muslim shrine (not a mosque), built in 687-691 by the ninth Omayyad caliph, Abd al-Malik.
I took this picture in December 2008 from the roof of the Ecce Homo Convent.
The grey dome with the cross belongs to their church. 
On the left of the photo is the Mount of Olives.
All the houses of worship and the holy places are packed together in Jerusalem's Old City, area less than one square kilometer.
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(Linking to inSPIREd Sunday.  Lots of nice churches at the meme; have a look.)
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Deserted streets of snowy Jerusalem (by guest photographer)

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Thanks to "ester," my friend who lives in Jerusalem, for taking these photos Friday morning and sharing them with us all.

Walking in the street up the hill toward the New Gate of the Old City.

A giant Christmas tree and Santa Claus with real snow.

 Only one woman praying at the Western Wall.

The shuttered shops inside the Old City at 8:56 a.m..

The golden Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount.
On the horizon, the Mount of Olives.
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More about Israel's snow storm in my previous posts and in the newspapers, e.g.  the Jerusalem Post.
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(Linking to Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.)
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Abu Shukri

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Here is grandson Dean, the famous photographer from my previous post, and his famous yellow hat and sunglasses.
When he was here from Australia last summer he and I ate humus and falafel at Abu Shukri, the famous (in its simplicity and popularity)  eating place on El Wad Street in the Moslem Quarter of the Old City.
Abu Shukri has been there like forever and I hope it always will be.
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Sharing the view

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Israel has been having rare May rain in the last few days.
When I got to Jerusalem at noon clouds were everywhere, but they didn't drop any rain.

The Tower of David, our museum for the history of Jerusalem, was having a free admission day for International Museum Day, the 2013 theme of which is  Memory + creativity = social change.
The rest of the world has IMD on Saturday, May 18. 

This scene I found after climbing to the top of the Phasael tower.
On one side of the observation deck a class of Arab school kids with their teacher.
On the other, a group of young soldiers learning about Jerusalem from a Jewish guide.

Here is the splendid view they were all looking at--the Old City and beyond, the Mount of Olives and Mt. Scopus!
Except this last shot is from 4:30, after the bright sun had come out.
Only a long line of clouds remained, to the east, where the desert begins.

I climbed the tall tower a second time, with SkyWatch Friday in mind.
You can enlarge the photos with a click and a second click to get a better look at our city that is like none other.
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It's a bloomin' glacis!

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The grass in the moat and the vegetation on the glacis is bright green and thriving with the abundant winter rains we are having.
A glacis is a bank sloping down from a fort which exposes attackers to the defenders' missiles, the dictionary says.
The nice Hebrew word for glacis  is a "chalaklakah," meaning literally, very slippery.
This one is part of the 12th century Crusader fortification system of the Citadel (of Tower of David).
It was later repaired by the Ottomans. 

The dry moat was "probably built during the Crusader period (twelfth century) and originally reached the entrance and was partly spanned by a wooden drawbridge," according to the sign.

That is easier to understand if you look at an earlier post with pictures of the present-day bridge.
Or at this post with night photos of the beautifully floodlit bridge.

Oh, and a nice little bonus is the group of nuns in black walking past the Citadel.  (Just click on the photo once and then once again.)
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(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)

Tonight's moon on the ramparts

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The almost-full moon rose over the Old City wall.
We walked here just a few hours ago,  at 5:25 pm,  in the magical light of not-day not-night. 

At the base of the ramparts Arab boys were kicking a ball around on what's left of the green grass in Gan Habonim park. 
I was happy for them because if they live inside the small Old City, there they have almost no grassy open spaces for soccer.
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Jerusalem is so beautiful, day and night.  Always.
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(This post joins hundreds of other bloggers' skies at SkyWatch Friday.)
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Mosque of Omar

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In the Muristan area of the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, just opposite the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,  you will find the Mosque of Omar.

Its distinctive square minaret, 15 meters tall, was built in the 1460s.
The minaret was  renovated by Ottoman sultan Abdulmecid I in the mid 19th century.

(All photos can be much enlarged, to see, for instance, the big loudspeakers atop the minaret for the call to prayer.)

The mosque was built in 1193.
As you can read on the beautiful gate, it is "For Prayers Only," meaning non-Muslims may not enter.

It is a very tight corner in the narrow lanes of the Old City and I could not back up enough to capture the gate in one shot.

Sacred Destinations explains why the Mosque of Omar was built:

After a brief and bloodless seige, Muslims seized control of Jerusalem from the Byzantines in February 638. Caliph Omar Ibn al-Khattab accepted the city's surrender from Patriarch Sophronius in person.

Omar was shown the great Church of the Holy Sepulchre and offered a place to pray in it, but he refused. He knew that if he prayed in the church, it would set a precedent that would lead to the building's transformation into a mosque. He instead prayed on the steps outside, allowing the church to remain a Christian holy place.

The Omar Mosque was built near the site of these events in 1193 by Saladin's son Aphdal Ali.

This means that we have Caliph Omar to thank, because his actions after his takeover of Jerusalem ensured that the Holy Sepulchre would remain open to Christian worship.
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UPDATE:   In 1172 the Crusaders added a beautiful bell tower, 29 meters high (!), to the Holy Sepulchre.
After Saladin’s arrival in 1187, the 18 bells that had chimed the hours and announced the services were melted down and not replaced until the 19th century, when the current ones were installed.
An earthquake in 1545 caused a collapse of the upper parts of the bell tower, but the Ottoman governor of Jerusalem refused to authorize its reconstruction.
The truncated bell tower has been dwarfed ever since by the 15-meter minaret of the adjacent Mosque of Omar.
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P.S. Jerusalem had a rare snowfall!  If you haven't seen my posts of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday you are welcome to enjoy snow pictures there.
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(Linking to Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors and to OurWorld Tuesday.)
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Magi arrive today with frankincense and myrrh

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IMPORTANT UPDATE:  Read here  how botanist Dr Elaine Solowey is currently nurturing a fragile frankincense tree sapling in Kibbutz Ketura, after the plant has been absent from Israel for 1,500 years!
 

". . . And there it was—the star they had seen in the east! It led them until it came and stopped above the place where the child was.  
¹⁰ When they saw the star, they were overjoyed beyond measure.  
¹¹ Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary His mother, and falling to their knees, they worshiped Him. 
Then they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh."

--Matthew 2

January 6, the Feast of Epiphany, the day the Wise Men arrived in Bethlehem. 

Happy Epiphany, Christian friends! 

These days frankincense and myrrh are readily available in spice shops in Jerusalem's Old City. 

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You're welcome to see my older posts:

T.S. Eliot's "Journey of the Magi"

and

Epiphany at Abu Ghosh monastery

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UPDATE: I realized I didn't know how they were made.  Here is the answer from How Stuff Works:

"Derived from tree sap, or gum resin, both frankincense and myrrh are prized for their alluring fragrance.
Frankincense is a milky white resin extracted from species of the genus Boswellia, which thrive in arid, cool areas of the Arabian Peninsula, East Africa and India.
The finest and most aromatic of this species is Boswellia sacra, a small tree that grows in Somalia, Oman and Yemen. . . .
Myrrh is a reddish resin that comes from species of the genus Commiphora, which are native to northeast Africa and the adjacent areas of the Arabian Peninsula. Commiphora myrrha, a tree commonly used in the production of myrrh, can be found in the shallow, rocky soils of Ethiopia, Kenya, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Somalia. . . .

The processes for extracting the sap of Boswellia (for frankincense) and Commiphora (for myrrh) are essentially identical.
Harvesters make a longitudinal cut in the tree's trunk, which pierces gum resin reservoirs located within the bark.
 The sap slowly oozes from the cut and drips down the tree, forming tear-shaped droplets that are left to harden on the side of the tree. 
These beads are collected after two weeks."
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The fascinating article continues here with more about the historical AND modern uses of frankincense and myrrh!
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The city of God

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Psalm 87

1. Of the Korachites. A psalm. 
A song, its foundation on the holy mountains.

2. The LORD loves the gates of Zion, more than all the dwellings of Jacob.

3. Of you glorious things are spoken, O city of God.   Selah.

4. I recall Rahab and Babylon to those who acknowledge Me; behold: Philistia and Tyre, with Nubia―“This one was born there.”

5. But of Zion, it is said, “Every single person was born in it.” He, the Most High, establishes it.

6. The LORD records in the census of peoples: “This one was born there.”   Selah.

7. And they, singing as they dance: “All my roots are in you.”

Translation: Rabbi Benjamin J. Segal.

PHOTOS (all are enlargeable): 

1. Zion Gate
2. Heinrich Bünting's map of 1581 with Jerusalem (Zion) as  center of the world.
Please enlarge the photo to appreciate the ceramic map.
More about this work in a previous post.
3-4. Singers/drummers/shofar blowers lead the joyful procession through the Jewish Quarter of the Old City down to the Western Wall where the boy will become a bar mitsvah.
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This post is for Robert Geiss' weekly PsalmChallenge at daily athens photo.
You are welcome to join in illustrating the Book of Psalms.
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(Also linking to Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors meme.)

Christian Quarter Christmas decorations

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Here in the Jewish parts of the Holy Land you would never know that Christmas starts tomorrow evening.
So for you, gentle readers, I made a trip into Jerusalem today and walked through the Christian Quarter of the Old City in search of red and green of the season.

Right inside the city wall a life-size Santa robot was singing and talking, bowing and waving.

A picture was hung from the New Gate proclaiming "Glory to God in the Ela and on earth peace and happiness in people."
Ela?  I guess that means something like "highest"?
This seems to be a translation from Arabic. 

The baby's halo looks none too comfortable to sleep on.
(All these photos can be twice enlarged.)

The big Palestinian school had a big tree and a big picture near their gate. 
Collège des Frères is one of over 1,000 schools world-wide that is owned and operated by the Congregation of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, also known as the De La Salle Christian Brothers, based in Rome.

Christ Church had a Christmas tree, albeit a rather scrawny one.
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Our Keren Kayemet/JNF  distributes Christmas trees to the Christian population of Jerusalem every year just before the holiday.
See my impressions of that happy event here .
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More blog pictures of local Christmas 2008-2011 are here.  Welcome.
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Merry Christmas to all my Christian friends out there!
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Old City garbage collection

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See his eyes? 
The driver seems to be thinking, "Ya zalameh! Am I going to clear those hanging dresses?"
If you hear the garbage tractor coming, you had better squeeze over or duck into one of the bazaar shops.  Give him room!

There he goes, with the second worker sitting on top.
Jerusalem's Old City streets were not built for cars (let alone garbage trucks).
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See also my post Old City vehicles.
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(This quick view in the Muslim Quarter is linked to  Our World Tuesday.)
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Non-conformist

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Noticed today  in the yard of an old public building in the Old City.
It made me smile. 
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P.S.  Yesterday I felt moved to post about mailboxes and did,  and now I learn that yesterday was World Post Day!
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The writing on the door

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Everyone knows the verse of Psalms that tells us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, but today this new graffiti in the Old City rings true as well.

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The umbrellas of Ramadan

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My two visitors and I went up to the top of the Mount of Olives for the panoramic view!
There were even a few clouds on the western horizon for SkyWatch Friday.
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It was the third and last day of Id il Fitr, the Muslim holiday which closes the month of Ramadan.

This was my first time to see the many rows of folded sun umbrellas and big black sun shades near Al Aksa mosque on Haram ash-Sharif [the Temple Mount].
I assume they had been added to shelter the hundreds of thousands of Muslims who came there to pray from the burning sun.
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Al Arabiya News says that this year over two million came to the Old City for Ramadan, from 48 countries. That can't be right, two million, but it seemed like it in the streets.
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(If you click on the photo, and then click once again, it will be big enough for you to find the umbrellas.)
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Monkey bars

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These cute little girls waved at us just after we entered the New Gate into the Christian Quarter of the Old City.

Nice how they see a home security measure as fun monkey bars.
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Keeping watch at the gate

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Stand back in the corner, inside Jaffa Gate, for half an hour.
Keep your eyes open.
You will see all humanity pass through.
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(A post for Our World Tuesday, and for Toby's meme, Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors
and for Louis' Monday Doorways.)
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Jerusalem by night

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For SkyWatch Friday, the black dome of the heavens above Jerusalem!

The Old City was lit up last week with dozens of dazzling light displays for the 4th International Light Festival.

At the foot of the newly rebuilt Hurva Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter--a whirling "Meetings Composition" with its movements triggered by the location of the spectator.

At the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer--dynamic illumination to nice music.

Illuminated narrow street in the Armenian Quarter.

At Jaffa Gate--the Italian "Cupola."

But even with "just" her normal illumination, the Old City is beautiful, so beautiful.
Here, the Western Wall and above it, the Temple Mount with the Muslim Dome of the Rock and el Aksa mosque.

The Citadel or Tower of David.

Hundreds of thousands walked along the old city wall and entered by various gates.
Enlarge the photo to see the people.
In the sky above the Latin Patriarchate, a big Vatican flag.

The Old City and the new city.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
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The night life of Old City cats

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This curious or maybe bewildered kitten didn't know what to make of this installation.
Neither did I.

It is one part of "Residents of the City" and was created by Bernardo Shkolnick.
Umm, I wonder what city he refers to.

It was part of last week's Old City of Jerusalem Light Festival. (See more in previous posts.)
Their website explains

The installation shows a representation of the different parts of our own personality in 5 stereotypes. The diverse mixture of these psychological stereotypic elements in each one of us creates the infinite kinds of human beings that we meet everywhere walking in the city . Skolnick uses ordinary illuminated display-window mannequins to represent these universal stereotypes as “humans” of diverse ages involved in different activities.

Near the "artwork" on Muristan Street I found the evening gathering place of the Old City's countless cats!
They must have felt secure behind the fence that protects this monument.

You can click on the photo and read the interesting history.

The complex in back of this stone is called the Muristan (bimaristan meaning "hospital" in Persian).

After the Hospitaler knights left their headquarters on the Temple Mount, they took up residence in the Muristan.

The order was founded during the First Crusade and is also known as the Order of St. John.

These knights, entrusted with caring for the health of Crusaders and pilgrims, built a hospital here.

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We learn from the inscription, "the Grand Priory in the British Realm" followed their example in more recent times.
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(This cat post is for Camera-Critters.)

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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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Tools of the trade

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My made-in-China watchband suddenly popped a few weeks ago.
Lucky that I caught the watch before it could fall to the street.
I wondered where it could be fixed.

This week, as if by miracle, the person I was walking with through the Old City stepped into a leather goods shop in the Moslem Quarter.
Many leather bags and shoes are sold in the Old City; I think much of the merchandise comes from Hebron, long famous for leather tanning.

I saw the special sewing machine and fished the watch out of my pocket.
The young man kindly accepted the challenge of sewing the narrow little watchband.
He did a great job and I was so happy to have my watch back on my wrist.
And happy that such places and working people still exist!
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(That's a little corner of my world for Our World Tuesday.)
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