A hole in the wall

I guess this old building on Jaffa Road, across from shuk Mahaneh Yehuda market, needed a new opening. If you click on the picture you can see the man inside is working with a sledge hammer. But the poor guy with the heavy drill--his long drill bit was stuck in the old cement and stone! He tried and tried but saw no way out.
I snapped the picture in stealth mode and hurried off to my bus stop, not wanting to add to his embarrassment. Pirke Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers in the Talmud, wisely said a long time ago: "Do not seek to see your friend in the time of his humiliation."

Trees of life

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On this day many Christians celebrate what is called in Greek Ὕψωσις τοῦ Τιμίου Σταυροῦ (literally, "Raising Aloft of the Precious Cross"). I've also heard it called The Exaltation of the Life-Giving Cross. It is all too much for me, as a Jew, to understand.
But I must admit I was surprised and pleased to see this first cross pictured below as a tree of life, blossoming and rooted in the earth! Life-giving.

In Judaism, the Torah is our tree of life. In the synagogue service we hold the Torah scroll and sing "Ets chaim hee..., It is a tree of life to those that hold fast to her."

Khachkars, or cross-stones, have been made in Armenia for over a thousand years. The cross-tree khachkar is a model of the of the Armenians' concept of the world during the Middle Ages.
The idea is explained well at the Khachkar website.


The khachkars above are in the wall outside St. James church in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.

This cross-stone is in the courtyard of the Armenian Catholic church on the other side of the Old City. It recalls the Armenian genocide, a painful and complex chapter of history still waiting for recognition.
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UPDATE Aug. 2016: More about khachkars and other things Armenian here:
https://auroraprize.com/en/armenia/detail/7447/10-ways-to-recognize-armenia-when-you-see-it
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UPDATE June 2017: About a medieval cemetery in Armenia:  https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/06/21/armenian-cemetery-has-worlds-largest-collection-of-khachkars-stone-crosses-that-protect-the-soul/
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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/.

Mist in the morning light

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The wonderful SkyWatch offers celestial beauty from around the globe from over 300 bloggers. Visit http://skyley.blogspot.com/ to follow the links.

For several mornings now the Soreq Valley below our little mountain village has been full of lovely soft mist. This was my view to the west at 6:15 a.m.
Now it is night, Erev Shabbat. Wishing you all Shabbat shalom, Sabbath peace.

Remembering the fallen

This was a day of sad thoughts about death from the skies.

I thought back to THE September 11, how I had sat in the Visitors Center of Heifer Ranch in Arkansas with my fellow volunteers watching the dreadful events occur on the TV screen.
We watched in shocked silence.
At first there was only visual, no audio from the scene. Suddenly the audio was added.
Hearing the sirens and hearing people on the street screaming and sobbing--it transported me to the all-too-familiar sounds and scenes of terror strikes in Israel and especially Jerusalem, then in the throes of the second intifada.
I burst out crying and got up to leave, to go cry on my donkeys' necks, murmuring to no one in particular, "I'm so sorry, Americans, that it takes this for you to feel what Israel has felt so often."

Their . . . our, world would never be the same.

Last night was also the end of the world as they knew it for two families in Israel.
Major (reserves) Yuval Holtzman, 40, father of three, and Major (res.) Shai Danor, father of five, were piloting a helicopter when apparently its rotor flew off and the body of the Cobra crashed to the ground and burned.
All our Cobras were today grounded.
They are in use in the Israel Air Force since the 1970s and before that, the Americans used these same gunships in Vietnam. They are getting old.


Now for some nice words about helicopters. This is the new helipad nearing completion at Hadassah Hospital.

The wounded and injured will be taken on the elevator directly down to the Emergency Medicine Department.

That will be an improvement over this. Here two choppers are landing on the outside landing place.
From here the stretcher cases have to be transported across the street and through several buildings.

Our moshav is just on the next hill. My house is under the flight pattern to Hadassah.
I see the helping helicopters almost everyday and say a little prayer each time.
But today all Israel says a prayer for the pilots we lost last night who themselves became victims.

Here and there in the Holy Land

The letter for this ABC Wednesday group fun is H.

H is for hand.

The sound of one hand clapping.

Hands holding three pieces of a Canaanite's head. Humerus arm bone still in the ground.

Hands as a link of the generations.

H is also for hamburgers in the food court of Jerusalem's Central Bus Station.

Halva, the deliciously sweet confection made of ground sesame seeds, in Shuk Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem.

Heavily-armed horse on duty in the Palm Sunday pilgrim procession from Mount of Olives to the Old City.

Hanging blogger, sloth-like, showing grandson how. In Australia.

Happy H Day to all!
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Break time at the dig

We archaeology fieldworkers start at 6:30 and finish work at 2:30.
Meal time is half an hour, at 10:30. A little break comes at 1:00.

Especially for the men who have been curled up excavating a small burial cave or for those of us who have been kneeling or bent over all day, the 15-minute break is a chance to stretch out our own old bones.

About a dozen of the forty Muslim workers go down to wash up and then have public prayer while the rest of us stay up on the site and rest.


At meal time we set up civilized tables and chairs.

A few weeks ago (before Ramadan!) I brought little pastries and the friends clapped hands and sang Happy Birthday to me in Arabic.

One spokesman stood up and addressed me, articulating one blessing after another for my new year of life.
We looked eye to eye, I listened attentively, then we shook hands. I was very moved.

This year's birthday celebration was unusual and very happy.
I mean, how often do you have forty nice men at your party?

Dig and ye shall find

Back by popular demand--archaeology.
Our latest dig, at a Canaanite burial ground in what is today Jerusalem, has turned out to be rich in finds, mainly clay vessels, human and animal bones and teeth, and a few artifacts (posted earlier here).
Here are some of the most interesting examples of the Middle Bronze Age pottery.

Yes, sometimes you just have to carefully poke with Phillips screwdrivers. And patience.



You feel pride and excitement in succeeding to bring out a perfect, unbroken 4,000-year-old juglet.

Whatever was placed in the pithos (food, for example) when it was buried along with the dead, as provisions for the journey, is gone now. Replaced by earth usually.

I got to empty one pithos, like this man is doing above, very carefully and slowly.
Finally I had to stick my arm in to reach the last of the dirt. A funny feeling, not seeing or knowing what might be hidden in there--something that bites maybe?!
I had to search each handful and found tiny little bones, of a mouse probably.

Two emptied, brushed, tagged pithoi and one happy young excavator.

Computer bug!

Oh, gross! I returned from a walk in nature in the cool of evening only to discover a myriad of winged ants dancing frenetically on my warm notebook computer and mouse.
Talk about computer bugs!
I even shot a video of their rapid movement but I will spare you. The photo is bad enough!

Please go enjoy some bigger and prettier animals over at our Sunday meme at http://camera-critters.blogspot.com/.

Shabbat

As the sign in my young neighbor's car window says, "A smile works magic."
I smile as we welcome our Friday night to Saturday night Sabbath, a day of rest and peace.
Shabbat has a certain magic all its own.
Shabbat shalom to you all. . :-D

My home on the hill

The sky goes on and on above the Jerusalem Hills (also called the Judean Hills). Here is my moshav (village) on top of one of those hills, as seen from Hadassah Hospital and Hebrew University Medical School, looking west. My house is on the right, two terraces down from the top. From my window I am blessed to see Jerusalem across the valley to the east!


Other skies in other hemispheres are on display starting tonight at SkyWatch Friday.

Golem

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G is for Golem.
No, not the famous Golem of Prague (but DO see a fascinating summary of the legend here).
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Jerusalem's "Golem" was created in 1973 in the Kiryat Hayovel neighborhood by sculptress Niki de Saint Phalle as a gift to the children of Jerusalem.
A UC San Diego website says that de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) "is best known for her oversized figures which embrace contradictory qualities such as good and evil, modern and primitive, sacred and profane, play and terror."

But no one calls it Golem.
We call it HaMifletset, Hebrew for "the monster."
It is a landmark.
So you can hear "Driver, does this bus reach the monster?" or "Go straight-straight then turn right at the monster."
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A certain guide would always quip to his tourists that, because of its many frightening tongues, it is nicknamed "The Mother-in-Law."
Not true.
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The sheer size of the cavernous slide can be frightening the first time a little boy sees it.
But a few weeks into his visit in Israel my brave grandson asked to stop at this park again and to go up the stairs you see here above and then slide down the steep slide.
Yay Dean!
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In July signs go up in the neighborhood inviting folks to a birthday party for the Mifletset.
Don't you love that idea?!

Hope you will visit other bloggers showing off their Gs today at ABC Wednesday
and especially my friend at her wondrous From a Thin Place.
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Twin forests in Germany and Israel

Ramadan kareem to all the Muslims beginning their fast and their observance of the special month of Ramadan today.

It's also the first day of September and that means the members of City Daily Photo are posting for their monthly theme day. Their theme today is Sister Cities. Well, I must have spent too long living as a volunteer in a monastery because my first reaction was "Cool--whole cities full of nuns!"
I had to Google to find out that Jerusalem is, no big surprise, twinned with New York City. But more interestingly, I learned that Israel and Germany have twin forests! The Jewish National Fund/Keren Kayemet website reported this:

"There are already several Israel-Germany twin towns and now, there will also be twin forests. Although 'Thüringen Forest' in the Northern Negev will certainly never number as many trees as there are in the wooded State of Thuringia, an extra 5,000 trees in the 'Forest of German States' will make a significant difference to the life quality and recreational opportunities of residents of Beer Sheva, Lahav, Lehavim, Rahat and many smaller communities."
(full article here)

The forest that I see everyday on the mountain right across the valley from my village has 20,000 trees that were donated by German citizens in the year 2000.
"The Peace and Reconciliation Forest 2000" was planted by an organization in Wetzlar, Germany called Christians for Israel. While hiking there in Sataf, I was saddened to see the sign on the stone. Someone had scratched out the German word Christen and the words in Hebrew for Christians and Germany. Someone without peace in his heart.
Feelings, painful memories, always remembering--nothing is simple or easy in the Jewish State.

From carobs to teshuva, repentance

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Please click on the photos to get the big picture.

The new moon set last night, ushering in Rosh Chodesh Elul.
 (To understand how the Hebrew lunar calendar works, please see my post New moon, new month.)

Elul is the month for intense spiritual preparation for the coming year and the High Holy Days (Rosh HaShana, New Year Day, falling on September 30 this year).
 Today Sephardi Jews (like in my village) already began their daily pre-dawn shofar-sounding and penitential prayers, Slichot, in the synagogue that will go on for the next forty days.
 It's all about confession, repentance, and both seeking and granting forgiveness.

I passed an old boxer tree near the spring, many of its carob pods already on the ground.
 And today "by chance" I came across this appropriate midrash in the wonderful book, Food at the Time of the Bible:

"A little known translation of Isaiah 1:19-20 brings us from carob as poor people's fare to carob as a symbol of privation.
The usual translation reads 'If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel you will be devoured by the sword.'
A more accurate reading of the verse results in the translation 'you will devour the carob.'
The words for 'sword' and 'carob' are almost identical in Hebrew, perhaps because of the scimitar-shape of the carob's seedpod.
The association between the carob and privation is also noted in an ancient Midrash, or homily, written in the wake of the Temple's destruction and the period of ensuing want in the land. 'A Jew has to suffer anguish and privation to the point of a menu exclusively of carobs, and only then does he accept the rule of God and repent...'"
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Like a bird on the wire

Numerous animals will be appearing today at the weekend meme at http://camera-critters.blogspot.com/.

(Photos can be enlarged by clicking.)

Leonard Cohen wrote "Bird on the Wire" in 1968, the year I flew away from America to make my home in Israel. Cohen came to sing in Israel in 1980 and made a nice variation in the first verse:

Like a bird on the wire,

Like a drunk in a midnight choir

I have tried in my way to be free.

Like a worm on a hook,

Like a monk bending (down) over the Book . . .

I have tried in my way to be free.

Shalom Abie, go in peace

Today, August 29, two deaths are being marked. For many Christians this is the day of The Beheading of St. John the Forerunner.

In Hebrew John is Yochanan HaMatbil, meaning John the baptiser. But, as I heard one professor say, he could also be called Yochanan HaMakbil, meaning John the parallel one. The lives of John and Jesus are woven together from birth to death and beyond, as this icon shows.
John said of himself, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord."

Today Israel buried Abie Nathan, dead at age 81. Parallels here also. His voice, too, was of one crying out in the wilderness. Before there was peace with Egypt and Jordan, before Israel had a peace movement, Abie was a peace seeker. Like John the Precursor, Abie followed his heart and did bold and daring new things. He flew a little plane solo to Cairo in 1966, he talked with Arafat when it was still against the law, and he served time in jail for it. He almost died from a hunger strike. As today's Ha'aretz article says, "He earned a reputation as a maverick peace activist who often took diplomacy into his own hands." Like John, he was prepared to put his head on a platter if need be.
Nathan launched a pirate radio station in 1973 with news in Hebrew and Arabic and good music and talk. For twenty years we listened to what came from the Peace Ship. Who doesn't remember the opening "From somewhere in the Mediterranean, this is the Voice of Peace. . ."
More about Abie and his humanitarian work around the world is here, in the Jerusalem Post.

When asked what he would want engraved on his tombstone, Abie Nathan said, "Nisiti." It means, "I tried."

Archaeologist in the sky

Way up on the scaffold, see the man with the camera?
That's our boss, fearless Zvi.
What won't an archaeologist do for a good photo of his excavation site!

Many other angles on the sky over at Sky Watch Friday.

Go over and crane your neck with us.

Number One Son

Birthday blessings to you, dear Edo, my firstborn, my beloved son!

A blogger has to brag from time to time and August 27 is one of those days. A mother could not ask for a finer son. Edo has a heart of gold for all--for his parents, his own wife and son, friends, and strangers too. An encourager, a helper, a blessing.

Edo began his compulsory service in the Israel Defense Force just as the first intifada was starting. Luckily, he was assigned to a unit in the southern desert, away from the violence. He lived in a big tent for most of his three years of service.
In 1991 the Gulf War hit Israel. Those were days of terror for us, our family living then near Tel Aviv, as we sat in our sealed room ("sealed" with masking tape), wearing those horrible gas masks, air raid sirens almost every night, feeling the apartment shake as Saddam Hussein's Scud missiles exploded around us, and we waited to know if the warheads really contained the threatened poison gas. Edo received his discharge from the army just then. I was relieved when he flew away to Los Angeles for a little respite from all the craziness, out of harm's way.

The war ended but, like so many Israelis, Edo got stuck in America. He started a little business of his own, met a wife, started a family, settled down. You know how it is. So no, he has not come back yet.

But Edo is great at sending me videos of little sweet Kai and tons of great pictures of his family. In fact, Edo has reinforced his natural artistic eye with college courses on photography and has become a professional photographer! Yay!

If you hear of someone in southern California needing a fine and friendly creative photographer please refer them to EdoPhotographer (website here). Thanks!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR SON, from your proud Mom!

Femur, fibula, and frontal bones

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Hope this won't make anyone freak out, but my F words for today are femur, fibula, frontal bones, and funerary practices. Of Canaanites who were buried here on the outskirts of Jerusalem some 4,000 years ago.

Last week, to the excitement of all, we uncovered a skeleton in the burial cave I and three others were digging in. Here you can see the skull, arm bones, and ribs.

Eventually four skulls were discovered.

Can you imagine holding a Canaanite child's head in your hands and poking at the earth that filled it?
At first the bones are left in situ to be photographed, measured and sketched. Then the bones go to the lab to be weighed, measured, photographed, documented, etc.

Funerary objects came next. After removing the fragile bones we could start digging to look for funerary objects like pottery or the person's personal possessions such as jewelry or weapons.
At the time of burial, the clay vessels would have been full of food, drink, and perfumes.
All these the Canaanites believed were necessary for the journey to the netherworld.

The 100+ participants in ABC Wednesday have dug up different F words for their photos. Check out a few here.