International Mountain Day

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Today is International Mountain Day .
This year's theme is Mountain Farming about which the FAO says, "Here we have an opportunity to raise awareness about how mountain agriculture, which is predominantly family farming, has been a model for sustainable development for centuries."

I like to remember my years in Switzerland, where mountains are mountains and farms are farms!
The slopes of the Jura Mountains, near the French border,  are covered with vineyards.
Lots of wine-making there.

In the Alps most of the mountain farming that I saw was for hay-making.
In the brief summers, green meadows are heaven for  cows, sheep and goats, and even deer.
And of course for hikers too! 
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(Linking to SkyWatch Friday.)
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So many photos, so little time

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No, it is not Israel!
Now, at the midnight contest deadline, I just finished three days of steady image uploading to Wiki Israel.
I contributed hundreds of photos for which I had to write informative but short titles, for almost 30 heritage sites in Israel and Jerusalem.
There were over 600 physical sites on the nationwide list to chose from. 
It was my first time and there was much to learn about how and what to contribute. 

But now I can't bear to look at even one more local picture again, not even for the blog.

So here is a favorite shot of the medieval ramparts that protected Nymburk, now in the Czech Republic!

I went there in 2006 to be at the wedding of my young friend Pavla.
Was living in Switzerland part of that year, so I took the 11-hour night bus from Zurich to Prague. Oi . . . very long and dark.

Sometimes it is tempting to start a second blog about my times outside of Israel.
What's the fun of photos if they can't be shared.
But now my eyes need a good rest.
Tomorrow is another day.
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Good night to all and to the folks at Our World Tuesday.
And the nice Czech town of Nymburk is for N Day at ABC Wednesday.
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A city in a garden

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I had planned to post an altogether different photo for ABC U-Day, but that was before I encountered the useful knife sharpener of yesterday.

Still, I beg to inform you that URBS IN HORTO, meaning "city in a garden," is the motto of the great City of Chicago.
Chicago, that beautiful and friendly city by the Lake, city of my birth, place of my first 22 years of life.

Imagine my surprise when, among the hundreds of exhibiting companies and institutions at the 18th International AgriTech in Tel Aviv, I came upon a booth of the State of Illinois.

I just stood gazing at the photo--had it included just a few more blocks, our apartment would have been visible.
Ah the memories--swimming and fishing in Lake Michigan, climbing the lake's snow mountains when it froze, riding my bike on the cycling path, riding horses on the bridle path . . .
Where else could a kid have such fun in nature in a city of millions?

And now that I know Chicago's motto, I heartily agree that Chicago is an urbs in horto.
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Alpine meadow with "bridge"

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Because I am running out of new bridges from landlocked Jerusalem to show you for Louis' Sunday Bridges, let's make a quick jump over to the Swiss Alps instead.
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Could this be called a bridge?
If not, then what would you call it? Anyone?
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I found it in a summer meadow, high up (about 1,800 meters) on the slope of an alp.
In spring, when the snow melts, I imagine this is a swampy area or with run-off flowing under the timbers.
The cows, herdsmen, and hikers must appreciate it then.
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Bridges abroad

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That's it. I have run out of Jerusalem bridges for Louis' Sunday Bridges.
What would happen if I posted, just once, something from my volunteer years in Switzerland?
Yalla, let's do it!
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Here's a favorite wooden bridge for hikers over the fast-flowing River Areuse, at the foot of the Jura Mountains.
Nicely juxtaposed is the new highway, just being built then, in 2006.
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Spelling it out

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I have lived as a working volunteer with a wonderful monastic community of contemplative Protestant nuns in Switzerland. During my years with the sisters I have lived their heavy and solemn feeling during the liturgies of Good Friday.
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Still . . . what is a blogging Jew to post on Good Friday?
Relations have improved in our times, and thank God for the State of Israel.
Historically, however, Holy Week has been a dangerous time for us.
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One knight in the First Crusade (1096) wrote, "Behold we journey a long way to seek the idolatrous shrine and to take vengeance upon the Muslims. But here are the Jews dwelling among us, whose ancestors killed him and crucified him groundlessly. Let us take vengeance first upon them. Let us wipe them out as a nation."
These Crusaders on their way to the Holy Land did indeed slaughter entire Jewish communities in Rhineland cities.
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Deicide was not the only charge. As recently as the early 20th century, pogroms erupted during Holy Week in Eastern European and Russia when rumors spread about Jewish "crimes." Inflamed by outlandish accusations such as the claim that Jews killed Christian children and used their blood to make matsa for Passover, unruly gangs searched out Jews to kill and maim.

Two crucifixes that I will never forget are NOT IN ISRAEL but in the Czech Republic.
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This famous statue on the bridge in Prague is topped by Hebrew (!) letters spelling "Kadosh kadosh kadosh Adonai tsevaot," -- "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts."
(Well, this photo is from my second visit in 2006. By then someone had thankfully removed one and a half letters from the name of God, making it no longer his name.)
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I was even more shocked when we found the explanation in the Jewish museum:
A long time ago some Jew was falsely accused of writing something wrong in a letter. He was arrested and as a punishment was made to pay for these gold Hebrew letters on the crucifix.
Normally the sign says INRI.
But not in the medieval cathedral of Nymburk in central Bohemia.
There it was spelled out quite clearly: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.
And the blood drips.
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Yes, Good Friday is a difficult day for both Christians and Jews.
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Ben-Gurion Square in Paris

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Bust of David Ben-Gurion at Hebrew University, Mount Scopus

We CDP bloggers are getting ready for tomorrow's Blog day: The Tenin Technique.
It is a 5th anniversary tribute to Eric of Paris Daily Photo. Eric started the "city daily photo blog" idea, and it has grown to 1,178 members.
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And what luck! Just in time! A Paris-Jerusalem connection!

Ynetnews writes that the French have decided to name a big central Paris square after David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, and that the inauguration ceremony will be on March 13. [Hmm, on Shabbat?]

The Yediot Aharonot daily says, "The square, which has a large fountain at its center, is located on the banks of the Seine River opposite the Quai Branly Museum. A statue of Ben-Gurion is expected to be placed in the square.
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Come back tomorrow for a look at France in Jerusalem.
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Gruetzi ! Raise a glass!

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March Theme Day for the friends over at City Daily Photo is Glass. So let me join their fun, albeit unofficially, by jumping back to a former life outside of Israel, just for today.

After a strenuous hike up the Alps on a hot summer day, the reward was one bottle of cold local beer at the upper station of the cablecar. Curious why a beer label would show a pilgrim with a halo, I shlepped the empty back to the chalet and found in the owners' bookcase a history book of the place.

Sure enough, there he was! Fridolin was a missionary who, it is said, converted the people of Glarus to Christianity in the 6th century.
Real or fictitious, Fridolin remains the patron saint of Glarus. Since 1388 (the battle of Nafels) he has appeared on their flag.

St. Fridolin is the only saint to be depicted on a Swiss canton banner, and I'm pretty sure the only saint to appear on a beer bottle.

Let's raise a GLASS to him and to my good years in Switzerland!
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Over to Switzerland, just for Reformation Day

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Two shots of books in this post. (Books is the City Daily Photo group's Nov. 1 theme.)
The same book, the Bible, but in two vastly different moods.

Knowing the church would be packed for All Saints and All Souls Days (Oct. 31 and Nov. 1), Martin Luther seized the day to nail his "95 Theses" protest on the Wittenberg church door. That was back in 1517 and till today Protestants mark Oct. 31 as Reformation Day, including here in Jerusalem.

Well, Luther was no friend of the Jews, to put it mildly, so you won't find a statue of him in Israel (unless there is one I don't know of, tucked away in some Lutheran church). So to illustrate Reformation Day I have to open my photo archive from when I lived in lovely Switzerland (2002-3).
Meet Guillaume Farel (1489-1565), fiery French preacher, a founder of the Reformed Church in the Francophone cantons of Switzerland.

He guards the door to the old (begun in 1185) Collegiale in Neuchatel, Switzerland. Click on the first photo to see his face and understand why, whenever I entered this basilica, I would duck in quickly to avoid his wrath!

The pulpit Bible is more friendly-looking than the one in Farel's hands.

This 14-th century cenotaph is a grand piece of Gothic art, the only monument of its kind outside Italy. Fortunately it escaped the iconoclastic frenzy of the Reformers in 1530. The citizens did not have the heart to destroy their own noblemen in this Monument of the Neuchatel Counts.

I loved to look at them while hearing marvelous free organ concerts the church gave one Friday each month.

What is this one holding, another book, a scroll??

BTW, a major dig around Luther's house was just completed. Interesting stuff in Der Spiegel's article entitled "THE REFORMER'S RUBBISH, Archaeologists Unveil Secrets of Luther's Life."
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Here today, gone today

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I lived once in Switzerland, surrounded by farm fields and vineyards. [sigh . . .]
 Walking to Lake Neuchatel, I was delighted to see a lone sunflower left in the field after the farmer had harvested his crop (forgot what crop, something green).
The lake was lovely and the Alps were shimmering on the horizon like a mirage. On the way home, full of joy at the glory of Creation, I suddenly realized that the sunflower had been taken.


It was devastating! Who could do such a thing?
Where was this poor sunflower's Little Prince?!

"If some one loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows in all the millions and millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy just to look at the stars. He can say to himself: 'Somewhere, my flower is there...' But if the sheep eats the flower, in one moment all his stars will be darkened...And you think that is not important!"      -- The Little Prince, chapter 7
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