A message from the Mosque of Omar

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In Jerusalem's Old City last week I peeked through the locked gate of the Mosque of Omar and was surprised to see this sign in the courtyard. 
It is apparently sura 3:51 of the Quran which quotes none other than Jesus! 
The banner says
[in Arabic:] There is no god but Allah. 

"Jesus Said:

'I am indeed a slave of Allah,

Allah is my Lord and your Lord,

so worship Him Alone.' "

The mosque, with its tall minaret, is right across the lane from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  
I wonder how many Christian pilgrims on their way to the church  pause a second to look at the mosque and at the unexpected message on its wall. 

The Mosque of Omar, built in the 1460s, has a fascinating story in itself.
You are welcome to read about it in two of my earlier posts. 
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Tomorrow is Friday, the Muslim holy day, and al Aksa mosque will be packed.  After the prayers big protests are expected against Trump's declaration on Jerusalem.  Palestinian officials have called for "days of rage."  Let's hope and/or pray that no one loses his life. 
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(Linking to inSPIREd Sunday.)

Not such a pleasant ride this time

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A cool reflection of a single street light pole, but a sad story for my Beer Sheva to Meitar bus.

About 10-15 minutes out of Beer Sheva, last Wednesday, a passenger went up to our driver and said a window was broken and that when she had gotten on the bus she saw the glass was damaged but now the glass was starting to fall out.

When the driver got to a stopping place on the busy road, he stopped.  

It was the bus stop just outside of Omer.

He took a look.  He asked if there were any witnesses.  No one had heard anything hit.

So no one knew when or where it had happened. 

You see the tiny hole on the bottom?
Could it be a bullet hole?
Or is that how it looks after someone throws a rock?
I don't know because--miraculously maybe--I have lived in Israel many decades and have been spared first-hand experience with such events.

Our driver telephoned Metropoline and asked whether to continue driving or not. 

No, they would send another bus to collect the many passengers.

People asked what happened, some got on cell phones, everyone looked at their watch, and then we all sat quietly and just waited;  I myself felt a bit like like a sitting duck.

Finally, 20 or 25 minutes later we were let off.
Someone foolishly pressed on the pane and more glass fell out; there goes the evidence.

 

Soon the replacement bus came and within ten minutes our same driver got us to Meitar, my town. 

Good wishes (and how to pronounce them) in the languages most heard here in the Beer Sheva area: Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, and English.
Let's hope so . . .
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(Linking to Weekend Reflections.)

Tense times in Israel

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Yesterday I stood in this line outside the Be'er Sheva branch of Bituah Leumi, Israel's social security institute.
It was like being squished inside a microcosm of Negev society.

With the spike in terror attacks in Israel these last several months, everybody is more tense than usual.
So one older woman told off two teenagers who were sneaking to the head of the line.
In heavily-Russian-accented Hebrew she said, "You have no respect for old people standing here in the hot sun for half an hour, that you push ahead of us?!"
In Arabic-accented Hebrew the boys stood their ground and lied, "It's OK, we have a number already."  (There are no numbers at this stage.)
Then a Sabra with no accent, more well-dressed than the rest of us and obviously not used to being squished, shouted at the security guard who was regulating the "flow" of citizens, "Why do you treat us like animals?!?" (She meant why like cattle pressed into a chute but didn't have the vocabulary for that.)
The guard in tie and jacket answered her, "I only work here. For a security agency. Complain to Social Security about it, not to me."
I really wanted to (but didn't) tell the prima donna, "You think THIS is bad?  Have you ever seen how Palestinian workers in the West Bank have to line up in real chutes at the checkpoints every morning before they are cleared to go to work inside Israel?!"

Only the Ethiopians and the Bedouins stood in stoic silence, knowing that with patience we would all eventually get inside the National Insurance Institute of Israel.
(Enlarge the photo to see one Bedouin man and the woman next to him in traditional dress.)
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The second stage, once inside the door, is to wait in another line for one of the two security guards to inspect your bag; once you walk through the metal detector you might also get wanded and patted down; once I was even told to drink from my water bottle (to prove it's not a Molotov cocktail I guess).
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The third stage of Gehinnom is then waiting in another line, with your ID card and documents ready,  in order to go stand in front of a clerk behind a computer for a short minute.
Only rarely are you allowed to then enter the inner sanctum and talk to someone higher up who might have an answer to your question.
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 So, for  ABC Wednesday today, T is for tension.
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Pray for the peace of Jerusalem

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Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:

May those who love you be secure.

Psalm 122

1I rejoiced with those who said to me,

“Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

2Our feet are standing

in your gates, Jerusalem.

3Jerusalem is built like a city

that is closely compacted together.

4That is where the tribes go up—

the tribes of the Lord—

to praise the name of the Lord

according to the statute given to Israel.

5There stand the thrones for judgment,

the thrones of the house of David.

6Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:

“May those who love you be secure.

7May there be peace within your walls

and security within your citadels.”

8For the sake of my family and friends,

I will say, “Peace be within you.”

9For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,

I will seek your prosperity.

(NIV)

In Hebrew, here.

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Synagogue in a bomb shelter

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When our counteroffensive, Operation Protective Edge, began on July 8,  I remember the Home Front Command instructed people not to gather for public prayer in synagogues that lacked a missile-proof room.

The Conservative congregation of Meitar is lucky then.
Even in normal times they meet in this purpose-built bomb shelter.
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Here are some interesting guidelines from various rabbis on how to observe the Sabbath while under fire:
1. from Chief Rabbi Lau 
2. from Tzohar
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(Linking to OurWorld Tuesday.)

Battering ram

Sometimes you feel like the battering ram, and other times you just feel battered. 

An air raid siren blared for the first time in my town in the Negev this morning at 6:00.
Now we had a second alert at 6:00 pm.
We sat for ten minutes in the house's bomb shelter and waited for the boom that--thank God--never came.

If you want to keep up with the news from Israel and Gaza as it happens, this live update is a good resource.

The monumental sculpture "Battering Ram"  is by Dror Eshed, 2004, in the Ben Shemen Forest.

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(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)

In the bus

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The newer Metropoline buses I take from Meitar to Beer Sheva (about a 40 minute ride)  have all the comforts.
Free WiFi, USB sockets, folding tray tables for your laptop, plush seats, individual overhead A/C and lights, a clock, and curtains or shades.
In front, a screen shows and announces the coming stops.
When the driver opens the underneath luggage compartment door, the screen shows who is taking which bag.
There are seat belts, of course, but Israelis consider it not cool to ever use them.
A ticket costs 7.50 shekels ($2.20), but as a senior citizen I pay only half price.

Some passengers get on the bus and immediately connect their gadgets.
Sometimes I start to imagine  these are their infusion lines.
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UPDATE:  Well, I won't be going in to Beer Sheva any time soon.
Yesterday several Grad rockets were aimed at the city; one or two were shot down by Iron Dome.
And now tonight this about Omer, the town between us and Beer Sheva:

News item by Matti Siver

Published:  07.06.14, 23:26 / Israel News

Masked protestors from Tel Sheva, a Bedouin town bordering Beersheba, are throwing Molotov cocktails and hurling stones at cars at the entrance of the southern Jewish community of Omer.
Damage was caused to several vehicles.

Small protection

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This is the makeshift bomb shelter in the small Negev Zoo on the outskirts of Beer Sheva. 

Painted in Hebrew is "merchav mugan," meaning protected space.

If you hear the Code Red  siren go off, make a run for it, fast. 

Several rockets have been fired into southern Israel from Gaza in the last two days. 

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At times, when the pressure gets too great, stones meant for building and beauty break loose, fall into the wrong hands, and become projectiles instead.


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The separation fence

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The separation fence -- like a scar across the landscape.

Made necessary (many say) by the pre-wall all-too-easy access of suicide bombers into Israel's restaurants and buses during the painful intifada.

Enlarge the photo all the way for full effect.


Actually, some 95% of the barrier is not the concrete wall that the media likes to show, but rather chainlink fence with barbed wire and detection devices.
See the sketch in this link to understand how it works.

It is a temporary thing, until peace allows it to be taken down.
Meanwhile, a lack of budget money and some Supreme Court cases have stopped the completion of the barrier for now.

The Anti-Terrorist Fence goes through several hundred miles of the West Bank.
But the part around three sides of Jerusalem was euphemistically named the Jerusalem Envelope.

For more details see pro and con websites:
Ir Amim or
government sites
Anti-terrorist fence
Seam zone website
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Sorry folks, I looked for a pretty white picket fence for today's City Daily Photo fences Theme Day but couldn't find a one.
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Click here to view thumbnails for all participants where you will see many pretty fences.
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Birds on a (razor-) wire

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Yesterday Israel learned that wire fences are for the birds.

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(Enlarge to see the sitting doves.)

"For the birds" -- an American idiom meaning worthless, meaningless.
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That's My World for now.
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Clouds, winds of change

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Cumulous clouds for ABC Wednesday.
There is a big heavy cloud over the Middle East.

Here it has rained since Saturday; it is wet and windy and at night it goes down to almost freezing in the Jerusalem Hills.
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The sun is down now and I wonder how cold it is for the over one million people right now in Tahrir Square. Cairo is only 264 miles from here.
Let's all hope for the best, for Egypt and for Israel.
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A rare airport-closing fog

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For SkyWatch Friday

Some mornings our village on the hill wakes up to a cloud of fog sitting in the valley around us.

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Last Monday night and Tuesday morning we had no fog in the Jerusalem Hills, but 45 minutes west of here Ben-Gurion International Airport was totally covered with fog.

So thick it was that the airport was closed to landings and take-offs for 8 hours, something unheard of in Israel.

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Apparently the fog could occur intermittently but instead of joining queues over Israel, the pilots chose to land safely in Cyprus, Jordan, and Egypt and wait until they could guarantee a landing at Ben-Gurion.

Thank God for nice neighbors.

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But why is our "alternative airport" in the neighbor countries and not in Israel itself, we started wondering.

Ovda Airport near Eilat used to serve that purpose but it is owned by the military.

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And as Transportation Minister Katz said yesterday,

“Most countries have an air force; in Israel the air force has a country. The main problem is that even when the government decides that an alternative airport is necessary, the air force expresses reservations and things don’t go ahead."

Haaretz has a very telling interview with El Al Airlines chief pilot in which he explains the sorry situation, and why Ben-Gurion can't use its ILS instrument landing system, and why fog can shut down the country.

Catch 22.
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Trouble in Jerusalem

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Violence erupted yesterday on the eastern side of Jerusalem.

Riots took place in the Palestinian village of Silwan and on and around the Temple Mount.
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The picture above (taken on a quieter day) is from inside Silwan, looking toward the Temple Mount which is just behind the Old City wall.
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Some 40,000 Palestinians live in Silwan, on both sides of the valley.
This photo is taken from the City of David excavations.

Since the 1990s several hundred Jewish settlers have moved in, renovating or building new houses like the ones seen in the pictures above and below.

Over the last four years I have tried to educate myself by taking three tours in Silwan, guided by guides from opposing ends of the political spectrum, from Elad/Ir David to Emek Shaveh to Ir Amim.

The only tour where you actually talk to and listen to the Arab residents of Silwan, in this protest tent, is the one led by the Alternative-Archaeology archaelogists of Emek Shaveh.

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Unfortunately for this blog, but luckily for me, I was not in the fires and the blood of the riots yesterday.

I can only direct you to media reports with slideshows that you can click through:

Haaretz

Jerusalem Post

Ynet Yediot Aharonot
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Brave bird

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A brave bird for Camera-Critters Sunday.


It has been a bad week in the Mediterranean.
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A new song parody helps to understand; great satire. See the "Flotilla Choir" on YouTube.
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Trees teaching

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For ABC Wednesday--TIGHT TREES

I admire these trees who grow and thrive and continue to exist despite being between a rock and a hard place.

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A long way from home

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The weekend newspapers on sale today outside a shop near Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda shuk.
Hebrew, English, French, and one paper (I'm quite sure) in Thai language.
Thousands of citizens from Thailand are employed in Israel, mostly as agricultural workers.

Sad to say, one Thai man died yesterday while working in a greenhouse in Moshav Netiv Ha'asara. The Kassam that killed him was one of five rockets fired from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel within the last 24 hours.
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His name has not yet been released. I would like to be able to call him by name. Instead we keep hearing the generic "a Thai worker. . . ."
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His body will be returned to his family who live "in the provinces" somewhere in Thailand.
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His relatives are entitled to receive compensation benefits from Bituach Leumi (our Social Security administration) under Benefits for Victims of Hostilities Law, 1970.
The webpage about this is quite interesting.
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In legal language,
"A hostilities-related injury is a direct result of hostilities perpetrated by enemy forces, or an injury caused as a result of, or in connection with, hostilities (an injury sustained under circumstances that are reasonably presumed to be the result of hostilities, or an injury from a weapon that was intended to be used for hostilities by enemy forces, or to prevent such an action), or an injury resulting from an act of violence whose purpose was to harm people because of their national, ethnic origin, provided that it arises from the Israeli-Arab conflict or was committed by a terrorist organization."
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The Color Red siren sounded when the rocket was fired. I wish this young man had taken it seriously and had run for cover to the concrete shelters of the community.
The alert gives you 20 seconds of warning, that's all.
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No news is good news, but not for these

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This building is part of the Technology Park located in Jerusalem's Malcha neighborhood.
A while back I went there to snoop around for photos.
More interesting than anything I found inside the building was something I spied down below.

Look at all those television vans!
So that's where some of the foreign press have their offices!

These other parking spaces are marked REUTERS.

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Poor guys, they didn't have any bloody news to cover today.

Quiet returned to Jerusalem today, thank God.

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