Young ibex at the benches

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Enlarge to see the "wild goats."

These two Nubian ibex were roaming around the benches yesterday just inside the entrance to the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve near the Dead Sea.

Just the picture I needed for RuneE's "Bench on Friday" bench-watchers.

Ein Gedi is a wonderful oasis in the Wilderness of Judea.

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Clouds over Ein Gedi

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An ibex in the clouds.

For SkyWatch Friday--today's sky over the Judean Desert!

A friend and I took the bus down to the Dead Sea this morning.

Just 65 minutes out of Jerusalem and we were in Ein Gedi.

We hiked up and down in two different canyons for seven hours.

The Wilderness of Judea is so beautiful!

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Soaking up the rays

Best when enlarged

Absorbing the warmth of the sun through a stained glass window.
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Robin, a fellow Israeli blogger, visited a church in Abu Ghosh and found more of the same.
What IS it about these little critters and church windows??
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Greetings to Camera-Critters Sunday friends.

Entangled elk

Why am I posting a grandson for today's Camera-Critters?
Well, you see how the thoughtful and careful Australians cover the swing's chains with a stiff coating?
If this had been done at a school in Pennsylvania, it might have prevented a bull elk from getting tangled in the chains of their swing set.
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Willard Hill, at his wonderful "Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer" blog, explains it like this:
"Bulls often spar with other bulls, or rub their antlers against trees, etc. It seems likely that this was the cause of the entrapment, as the swing was likely a tempting target and gave a satisfy response to being punched with his antlers, until they became entangled."
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If you haven't seen it already, please be sure to see the dramatic rescue of the wild elk, documented by Willard! Click here, then here, and finally here for his three posts.
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UPDATE: Oops, I see Willard is now signed in at Camera-Critters. Good! Let's let him speak for himself. :D
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Onomatopoeia

O yes! O is the letter of the day. Welcome to ABC Wednesday,

where bloggers have fun playing with the alphabet. You can try too.

Oi veh, I thought, which of the many O words to choose?!
OK, let's take that big word I never know how to spell: ONOMATOPOEIA .

Onomatopoeia (from Greek ονοματοποιΐα) is a word or grouping of words that imitates the sound it describes (e.g. the animal noise meow) or suggests its source object (e.g. click, buzz, or bang). Greek όνομα, onoma, means name and ποιέω, poieō, means I make or I create, so it means name-creation.

Let's hear some Hebrew examples of onomatopoeia. My favorite is bakbuk. It means bottle. Doesn't it sound like liquid being poured from a bottle? bakbuk bakbuk bakbuk
BTW, this is also my favorite liqueur: chocolate! A tiny bit mixed with soda water or even milk, yum. Or on ice cream.

A tiftuf is water dripping, leaking. Or a light rain.
After years of drought Israel may soon run out of water. This tiftuf in the photo is at the Mekorot national water authority station in my village, of all places!

Tof is the onomatopoeiac Hebrew word for drum. Tof-Miriam is what we call a tambourine or timbrel.
This Miriam is one of the female Bible heroes portrayed in a dome in Jerusalem's Dormition Abbey.

Gur is a lion cub or a puppy. Grrr

 
Zvuv is a fly. Well, actually this is more a picture of a stinging insect. What he did was zimzem--he made a buzzing noise.

Has is the verb asking you to hush. Sha, sha means shhh, be still.

Rishroosh is the sound of waves lapping on the shore, like above at the Sea of Galilee.

The most well-known and well-loved use of the word is in the song by Hannah Senesh. (Can be heard on YouTube.)

ELI, ELI (Halicha L'kesariya)

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Eli, Eli

Shelo yigamer le'olam:

Hachol vehayam

Rishrush shel hamayim

Berak hashamayim

Tefilat ha-adam.

A STROLL IN CAESARIA

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Oh God!

Let it last forever,

the sand, the sea,

the lapping of the waves,

the glitter of the stars,

the prayer of men.

(translation by anonymous)
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Insides outside

The marvelous annual Sculpture by the Sea is on in Bondi, Australia. These critter photos were taken by my daughter and son-in-law, who live in Bondi.
As Naomi wrote in her blog, "These animals had their insides showing."

My two grandsons here loved the flying whale.

No, this is not Jonah being spewed out of the great fish's belly. It's Dean, under the baleen!

Naomi and Dean befriend the urchins.

Thanks for the use of your fun photos, Naomi!

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Lots more animals are appearing today over at Camera-Critters, waiting for your visit.

Camels and oxen

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Oi veh, I thought, how am I going to tie in animals with my Sukkot theme this week?? It is, after all, time for our bloggers' weekend meme centered at Camera-Critters. So I started reading up, and sure enough, there are at least two animal connections!

The Talmud, in Sukkot 2.3, says,

"If one erects his sukkah on the top of a wagon (though it is on the move) or on the deck of a ship (where it is exposed to gales), it is valid and they may go up into it on the festival. If he made it on the top of a tree, or on the back of a camel, it is valid, but they may not go up into it on the festival . . . ."

And why, I hear you asking, may we not be in the sukkah on the camel on the first day of Sukkot, when work is forbidden? It is because of a side reason. The Sages enacted a gezera (a rabbinical decree) against riding on animals on Shabbat and the holidays, out of concern lest a rider unwittingly break off a branch as he rode along an overgrown trail, and that (the breaking of the branch) would be a violation of a melacha (an activity regarded as work which a Jew must not do on the Sabbath). Got it?

Photo courtesy of Gerald Johnson at Heifer Ranch, Arkansas

A Chabad website explains how oxen are connected to Sukkot's message of universal peace:
"When the Jewish people rejoice, our hearts go out to the whole world.
In the days of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, the Sukkot Festival offerings included seventy oxen, corresponding to the seventy nations -- in prayer for their well-being, and for peace and harmony among the nations of the world."

Transporter beam? Star Trek dog??

Time for weekend Camera-Critters meme, featuring animals from around blogland.

Down in the woods I opened a gate and was surprised to meet this dog in a place forbidden to him, on the wrong side of the wall. He should have been up one terrace, helping the shepherd herd and guard the goat flock that was out browsing.
He knew it and wanted out.
Any Trekkies reading this blog? You reckon the dog was saying, "Beam me up, Scotty!"?

Kindness + respect to animals + people

This dog was waiting outside a restaurant in downtown Jerusalem when a haredi (ultra-Orthodox Jewish) family walked by.
The kids found great delight in petting the dog and talking to him.

It made me realize that you never see religious Jews walking dogs. I think it is not customary for them to have such pets. Although Jewish law does not forbid keeping a pet, it does raise many complications for the owner.
Showing sensitivity to people's feelings the Talmud does, however, say that it is forbidden to keep a pet that will scare other people and specifically mentions a barking dog.

This week's parasha (Torah portion) is Ki Tetseh in which many be-kind-to-animals commandments are given. Deuteronomy 22:10 says, "You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together" (because having two animals of unequal strength and size yoked together would be a hardship on them).
Deut. 22:4 says, "You shall not see your brother's donkey or ox fallen down by the way, and withhold your help from them; you shall help him to lift them up again."

And the most well known is Deut. 22:6-7, the mitsvah of Shiluach haken שלוח הקן
"If you chance to come upon a bird's nest, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs and the mother sitting upon the young or upon the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young; you must first chase away the mother, but the young you may take to yourself; that it may go well with you, and that you may live long."

The reward is great, the same one that is promised for honoring your mother and father.
The Ramban wrote that one reason for the giving of this commandment was so that we do not develop within ourselves a trait of cruelty by grossly causing discomfort to the mother bird by allowing her to witness the taking of her young.

The weekend Camera-Critters meme is underway.

Visit the animals at http://camera-critters.blogspot.com/.

A bevy of Bs

Bagels in the Holy City.
Bright balconies of an old guesthouse in Tiberias.

Basalt church and basalt rocks on the seashore of the receding Sea of Galilee.

Blogger behind bars? Bwahaha, no, it is just the cloister of the . . .

Benedictine Monastery in Tabgha.

Balancing bear in the Biblical Zoo, Jerusalem.

Boy (my beloved) on a burnished bear at the Biblical Zoo.

Braille. Click to make this bigger and see that the third sign in this forest picnic place is in braille!

Bucks, aka billy goats, at a goat cheese dairy farm in the Jerusalem Hills.

Big bales (in Hebrew balot) are the way to transport material in construction and archaeology.

Just-baked bread for the HaMotsi bread blessing on our Jewish Shabbat evening.

And for the Christians, the Blessed Sacrament for the Feast of the Multiplication of Fishes and Loaves. On the ancient mosaic floor of the church at Tabgha on the Sea of Galilee.

To see what other bloggers are offering up for the letter B this ABC Wednesday please visit http://wednesdayabc.blogspot.com/ or http://mrsnesbittsplace.blogspot.com/.

Bioluminescence

Tiny but awesome, eh? For three nights in a row this creature (actual size) was glowing in exactly the same place on the concrete steps outside. The last few nights it was on the wall next to the step.
Any of you nature mavens know what this bioluminescent insect might be??

I go out walking in the cool of the evening and often return after dark. Hope this doesn't sound pathetic, but it IS nice to have someone waiting for me with the light on. LOL!

Other animals, bigger ones, are waiting for your visit this weekend at Camera Critters.

Nightlife

"Nightlife" in our moshav. :) No "city lights" for us in this secluded rural village in the Jerusalem Hills. The only big, brightly lit buildings at night are the chicken houses. Cackle cackle!
Fine with me! And the glowing cat seems content as well.

Camels

Waiting for the tourists on the Mount of Olives. . .

Here they come. Four kids on one camel!

Down in the Negev desert, camels owned by Bedouin graze freely.


These are Dromedaries. The Bactrian camels in Asia have two humps.
A mnemonic to remember: letter D on its side is like one hump and B is two.
In the early 1900s Israel had 20,000 camels. Today their numbers are down to maybe 2,500.
 A very interesting article on the Jewish veterinarian who cares for the Bedouin camels just appeared in the Jerusalem Post. You can read why camels are disappearing by clicking here.
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Lots more animals can be found at the Camera-Critters blog every Sunday.

Ungulates??

Underfoot, cats always running underfoot.

Ungulates are hoofed animals. With the unlikely inclusion of the camel.
Ungulate with an udder underneath.
Sign on a cheese dairy: "All we have we owe to udders."

T animals

Tethered tangle-haired neighbor.
Tight teats.
Tender teats.
Tire toad.

Tail-bearing

. . Please click and enlarge this photo.

This little guy stayed a long time, enjoying my cool moist towel on a hot day.
Please, do you know, will his poor tail be regenerated?

Many more animal pictures from many more bloggers at Camera-Critter Sunday.