Do not take your cloths off and walk naked in public!

.

It is a sad day in Israel and no one feels like laughing.

But City Daily Photo bloggers are asked to contribute a funny sign for our monthly Theme Day, so here is one from a monastery in the Jerusalem area. I whited out its name to protect the innocent. The sign was intended to be very serious.
.
Click here to view thumbnails for all participants from all over the world.

.

Machal and American Memorial Day

.

Photo from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahal_(Israel)

.
This weekend the United States observes Memorial Day, remembering her war dead.
With this post Jerusalem Hills Daily Photo seeks to honor the Americans who died in battle HERE, helping Israel in our War of Independence.
.

The Burma Road in this picture was besieged Jerusalem's lifeline during the war.
.

In the forest near both the old Burma Road and the modern Tel Aviv-Jerusalem Highway, near Sha'ar Hagai, you will find (if you look hard enough) the Machal memorial bearing this simple plaque:

The names of the four women and 117 men Machalniks who gave their life for Israel.
Machal stands for Mitnadvay Chutz LaAretz, meaning Volunteers from outside Israel.

.
Between 1947 and 1949, when Israel came under attack from every surrounding Arab country, some 3,500 Jewish and non-Jewish volunteers came to help.
.
Those who needed it were given some quick training and then sent to fight together with Israel's fledgling army and air force.
Some were already veterans of World War II and some had just come out of concentration camps.
.
These are the estimated numbers of foreign volunteers who came:
U.S.A. 1,000 and some 250 from Canada. South Africa 700. The UK 600. North Africa 250. Latin America 250.
Smaller numbers came from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Holland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Turkey, Australia, the Belgian Congo, Rhodesia, and Russia.
.
Machal volunteers also played a central role in facilitating Aliya Bet, the "illegal" immigration of 32,000 immigrants, many of them Holocaust survivors, who were not allowed to disembark on pre-state Israel's shores by the British when the British Mandate was still in force.
.
After serving Israel in her hour of greatest need 3,000 Machal members returned to their home countries, but 500 stayed or returned soon after to make Israel their home.
.
Dr. Jason Fenton, who wrote the book on Machal, came as a 16-year-old (see more here) and tells it like this:

"Our motives for going to Israel were diverse and not always clear to ourselves. Many had fought in Word War II and found it hard to settle down. Some were imbued by Zionist ideology, others suddenly discovered their commonality with the Jewish people. Some were genuine idealists, others came to escape personal problems. Almost all, I think, were drawn by the chance to take part in a truly epochal event, for which generations of Jews had yearned for close to 2,000 years. "
.

Bridge to Education

.
Jerusalem has a new little bridge that was put up last summer.
I was happy to discover it a few weeks ago--perfect for Louis la Vache's Sunday Bridges meme.
.
It is useful, pretty, and what's more . . . it is a Bridge to Education!
.

The Gesher la-haskala creates a unified urban college campus, connecting the Esther Gottesman Center for Technology with Hadassah College Jerusalem’s traditional home in the building that originally housed the Rothschild Hospital on HaNeviim Street.
.

The website says "The Gottesman Bridge is a physical statement and visible affirmation that Hadassah College Jerusalem is a seminal, cohesive institution of higher education."
.
Most interesting for us bloggers, the 4-year, B.A.-granting institution has a Department of Photographic Communications!

Their web page promises that "Graduates will specialize in business/advertising photography as well as news/documentary photography. The program will provide students with tools to gain a unique perspective of the complex nature of the world in which we live; courses will offer students insight into the inherent complexities of representing society and the individual. Materials will be complemented by the study of the ethical issues in the world of communications."
.

For dramatic time-lapse photography of how the bridge was hoisted and installed by a dancing crane, see the lively little video at
http://www.hadassah.ac.il/site/NewsImages/Bridge/base.html .

.

"Tolerance and good vibes"

.
In A Bunch of Benches VP posted a different view of the benches in a new sitting place in Jerusalem's old and cramped neighborhood of Nachlaot.

This is the other end of the little park.
I thought the shadows of the still-empty pergola would be fun for Hey Harriet's Shadows on Sunday.
.
Sitting in the shade with your laptop might be more pleasant than inside some of the old little houses.

Interesting how the long and narrow square is higher than the sidewalks on either side.

.

Nachlaot has been undergoing gentrification and is getting to be a popular (and more expensive) neighborhood. Their website, http://www.nachlaot.com/, says that "tolerance and good vibes" would best describe the population mixture.

.
Wherever you are sitting or walking today, have a nice weekend.

.

Trouble at sea

.
For James' Weekend Reflections -- a quiet corner of Israel's national military cemetery on Mount Herzl reflected in the water.

On May 1, 1943 the British troopship Erinpura, en route from Egypt to Malta, was sunk by a German air attack with the loss of 943 lives.

Aboard were 334 Palestinian Jewish soldiers who had volunteered and were serving in the 462nd transport company of the British army.

This memorial is for the 140 Jewish young men who went down with the ship to their death.

.

Photo from http://www.merchantnavyofficers.com/Troopships.html

.

Most of the men were below decks when the Erinpura was hit.

She sank in just four minutes.

.

Up until the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 and the accompanying birth of Israel's own navy, Jews knew nothing about sailing or fighting at sea. The prophet Jonah was the only famous sea-faring man in our history.

.

As I write, a new confrontation at sea is brewing. A so-called Freedom Flotilla of 8 or 9 ships from Europe is approaching Gaza and will try to land and unload 10,000 tons of supplies and thus break the Israeli closure which began when Hamas took over in the Gaza Strip several years ago.

Israel's navy will intercept them and "invite" them to dock in our port of Ashdod instead.

Let us hope and pray that no one is hurt.

It will be a big "media event" for the pro-Palestinian activists on the boats for sure.

.

Please remember that tons of food and fuel and supplies cross from Israel overland through the checkpoints into Gaza every day, but not by sea.
.

If you need more background, try http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-gaza-aid-convoy-can-unload-cargo-in-ashdod-for-inspection-1.292560.

.

Evening descends on our hill

.
For SkyWatch Friday, the evening shadow has creeped halfway up our little mountain and is about to envelope our village.

Soon it will be night in the Jerusalem Hills.

Families of jackals will start calling to one another across the valleys. .

On the horizon, on the higher hill, are two other moshavim / villages.
.
Just across that far ridge, down in the Emek Refa'im Valley, starts the West Bank.
On a quiet night when the wind is right you can just about hear the muezzin's call from the mosques of Batir village.
Bethlehem is also quite close.
.

Chefets chashood

.
We in Jerusalem are often delayed and prevented from going where we want to go by the discovery of a suspicious object.
See those bags strapped to the trash bin?

Very soon traffic was at a standstill, backed up for blocks.

Before doubling back and walking a different route, I stood there for a while, soaking up the atmosphere.

The Christian Ethiopian lady in white continued sitting and waiting for her bus. (Ethiopia Street and their church and monastery are right around the corner from HaNeviim Street.)

Soon came two ultra-Orthodox haredi men in black.

Then an Arab family.

We, representing the different populaton "sectors," all stood there, equally curious if something would explode, wondering when the police sappers and/or robot would arrive, and annoyed by the delay and detour.

But no one was afraid.

It is just a common fact of life in Israel, these suspicious objects.
.

A shomera in the valley

.
Let's continue our discussion from the previous post and look at a different example of a shomera.
Thanks to Vogon Poet who found photos of similar structures in Italy, where they call it caciara.
But VP's is beautifully built and preserved!
He has seen them in the Italian countryside.

Two friends from Arkansas.
The spring down in the valley next to our hill, the shomerot, and the canyon-like wadi are must-sees for visitors.

Dr. M commented yesterday that "watchtower" is as good a translation as any for shomera.

He says, "Some of those are leftovers from the Iron I original settlement of the Hill Country....a great legacy."

And Dr. M knows. He teaches Biblical things like this in a Texas college.

.

Iron Age I was over 3,000 years ago!
.

Looking up at the dome-like ceiling.

I think this can be called a corbeled vault, defined as "a masonry roof constructed from opposite walls, or from a circular base, by shifting courses slightly and regularly inward until they meet."
.

The ancient agricultural system here in the hills surrounding Jerusalem was to build terraces.

That meant gathering the stones from the rocky ground and using them to build terrace walls and shomerot.

The patches of cleared flat land that were created became the farm fields.

.

In the days of the First and Second Temples thousands of pilgrims came up to Jerusalem at least three times a year, and they had to be fed!

.

The last sojourners in this shomera surely never dreamed that someday the view from their window would be of the chicken coops and houses of my village.
.

Shomera saved!

.
Some S words for ABC Wednesday

Such heavy rains we had for four consecutive days in February that the shomera collapsed!
Such a sorry sight.
.
The shomera stood for who knows how many years or centuries, but the unusual force and amount of rain water brought it down.
It is on the main street of my moshav (agricultural village), right next to the Founders Museum (atop which you saw the sirens in yesterdays post).

But the shomera was salvaged! See?

.

Two no-longer-young Arab men, who still know the old ways of building with fieldstones, came and worked hard for several days.

This time, just to be sure, they enclosed the whole structure in chicken wire, the better to hold it together during whatever disaster comes next.
.

All around us in the Hills of Jerusalem/Mountains of Judea you find remains of shomerot.

Most are corbelled stone huts with a dome roof.

Some are ancient, but they are hard to date.

Apparently farmers would use them to store their tools and their harvested produce and they would sleep there to guard everything before taking stuff home or to the market.

.

In our village, founded in 1950, the shomera was used as a watchtower.

I've heard that at least three of the pioneering new immigrant residents were killed by infiltrators in the early days of our isolated moshav.

.

I am still searching for a name in English for shomera.

Maybe you know?

.

Today I found a reference and will try to find this publication:
Z. Ron, The Watchman’s Hut as an Expression of Hilltop Farming in the Mountains of Judea and Samaria, Tel Aviv, 1976.

Perhaps this "watchman's hut" is the English term for shomera.

.

Shalom!

.

This is a drill

.
We are in the middle of a 5-day targil. The exercise, code-named Turning Point Four, is Israel's largest civil defense operation since it first launched the annual drill four years ago in the wake of the Lebanon war, during which Hizbullah fired thousands of rockets into northern Israel.


.
Let's look at how the Jerusalem Post describes the practice scenario, beginning last Sunday:
-
"Israel came under heavy simulated missile fire in what would be the 15th day of a mock all-out regional war with Hizbullah [who are in Lebanon], Syria, Hamas [i.e. Gaza Strip], and Iran.
. . . close to 200 rockets and missiles, included ones with chemical warheads launched from Syria, landed in the center of the country.
The focus of the drill is on 38 local councils, mostly from the center of the country, which are undergoing a series of simulations to test their ability to continue providing basic services [e.g. water supply] for their residents at a time of war.
Under the scenario, most of the missiles were landing in the Gush Dan region in the center of the country, from which about 200,000 residents decided to flee south. The Eilat Municipality was asked, in the drill, to prepare a plan to absorb some of the refugees."
.

Just a few months ago these sirens were installed one block from my house.

This Wednesday at 11:00 we will get to hear them.

.

The whole country will have a siren wailing then, and we are supposed to go immediately to whatever our bomb shelter or safe place is and to stay there about ten minutes.

.

Is that a little solar power source I see? Good idea.

.

In all this seriousness I had to laugh to read this at the Israel Defense Force blog:

"The exercise will also examine warning systems on cellular phones, and civilians in certain areas may therefore receive text messages that read “Have a nice day” signed by the IDF Home Front Command."

.

The IDF Spokesman put up some photos of yesterday's search and rescue practice operation. So many girl soldiers!

.

You can also see previous posts:

http://jerusalemhillsdailyphoto.blogspot.com/2009/06/time-factor-and-turning-point-three.html and

http://jerusalemhillsdailyphoto.blogspot.com/2009/09/special-report-on-todays-targil.html

.

For more about the incoming missiles warning on cell phone and computers, do see my

http://jerusalemhillsdailyphoto.blogspot.com/2009/06/facts-of-israeli-life.html

.

Let us hope that none of this ever really happens!

But, such as it is, that is my world for That's My World Tuesday.

.

Waiting for the train

.
It's hard to find proper bridges here for Louis la Vache's "Sunday Bridges," just because Jerusalem has no body of water.


Seems like most of Israel's bridges are over dry land, like this one seen from the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway.
I think it is meant for the future high speed train between the cities. The railroad might be completed, if ever, in the very distant future.
.

Taking wing

.
For Camera-Critters

After the ANZAC Day commemoration (posted here and here) at the Jerusalem War Cemetery, Bird and I were just about the only living souls left out there in the noonday sun.
.
Bird left the tombstone and ascended.

Bird came to rest atop the Cross of Sacrifice, a symbol that stands in all the British military cemeteries throughout the world.

.

Stretch out your hands

.
Grandson Dean at the Bloomfield Science Museum Jerusalem, 2007, (and me), reflected for James' Weekend Reflections.

Abba Macarius was asked, "How should one pray?"

The old man said, "There is no need at all to make long discourses. It is enough to stretch out one’s hands and say, 'Lord, as you will, and as you know, have mercy.'

And if the conflict grows fiercer say, 'Lord, help!'
He knows very well what we need and He shows us His mercy."
.
-- from the April 19 Word from the Desert, Meditations on the Orthodox Life from the Early Church Fathers, Ascetics, Saints and Righteous
.

To hell in a handbasket

.
.
I snapped this picture from a moving bus, so I couldn't stick around to see if the workman at Hadassah hospital was going to be rising heavenward or if he was to be lowered over the side of the hill, "going to hell in a handbasket."
This strange American saying describes a situation headed for disaster without effort or in great haste.
.
I think the frenzy of construction, year after year, sometimes 24 hours a day, at the Ein Kerem campus of Hadassah Medical Organization is heading for disaster.
The constant noise, dust, density, and congestion caused by the construction there can make a healthy person sick. And the poor patients . . .
.
Only a big wooded valley separates that monster on the hill from my village on the next hill.
If it ever starts biting into the Jerusalem Hills and encroaching on the forest and spreading in our direction . . . oi veh's mir!
.
But at least it makes a good sky picture for SkyWatch Friday, right?
.

The picture that couldn't die

.
(Inspired by artist Pasadena Adjacent's fascinating weekly blog post called "Trash Tuesday: where getting it cheap is part of the esthetic.")
.
There's a lonely place over on the western edge of our mountain where I often walk to watch the sun set behind the far ridges.
The resident jackals always seem startled to see a human.
.
Well, one evening last January I was startled--to see this propped up against a rock.
Someone must have driven up, thinking to dump the slightly damaged pictures over the cliff, and then couldn't go through with it.
.
I had pity on the two Jews, the old man and the boy, and rescued them.

Sure enough, this was the fate of the other, the boat picture, two months later.
.
"Mine" turned out to be a numbered and signed sketch by well-known Israeli artist Yossi Stern, who died in 1992. Not that that matters. I simply became fond of the two souls he portrayed.
I thought Pasadena Adjacent would approve.
.

Revelation and response

.
Happy Shavuot! The holiday begins tonight.
And so does ABC Wednesday R Day.

One name of the Shavuot holiday is The Time of the Giving of Our Torah.
Moshe Rabbenu, Moses our Teacher, received the revelation from God on Mt. Sinai.
.

"Boaz and Ruth" by William Hole, 1607-1624, British

.

In the synagogue the Book of Ruth is read.

Converts like Ruth the Moabite, who followed Naomi, are appreciated especially on this day.

Ruth was gleaning in the field when she met Boaz. They married and became ancestors of King David.

.

Shavuot is indeed The Festival of the Harvest.

Last week, from the bus window, going up north to the Galilee, I could see that the grain had just been cut.
.

Pilgrimage section at the Tower of David Museum

.

It is also the Festival of the First Fruits.
Specific agricultural offerings were brought to the Temple on Shavuot, which is one of the Slosh Regalim, the three pilgrimage festivals when Jews went up to Jerusalem.


Not part of the ritual, but really important as a custom, is to eat cheese and dairy food on Shavuot.
.
Then there is Tikkun Lel Shavuot, the all-night study session of Torah.
And wearing white.
And decorating the house with greenery.
.
Every year on this holiday we renew our acceptance of God's gift and God "re-gives" the Torah!
.

Dig fun

.
Thanks to veteran volunteer Gretchen C., we finally have some photo proof that I really do dig.
.
And Gretchen made a fine 7-minute video called "Digging Rocks" about archeology volunteers' life. You can watch it at her Facebook group, Tiberias-Excavation.

When you dig in the earth long enough, you eventually find something.

.

But we are not allowed to reveal any new discoveries. The archaeologists in charge have the right to first publication, of course.

Every dig season (2 seasons per year at Tiberias) we get a new T shirt.

This newest one's theme is "Get hooked on Tiberias!!!"

If several dozen of us are walking around with this on our back, I take that as a sign that posting a picture of the find is now OK.

.

Ta-daa!

Here is Area Supervisor Yuli modeling the original chain when it emerged from the dirt last autumn!

It is part of the metal chain on which hung the mosque lamps over a thousand years ago.

It is, after all, an Early Islamic Period mosque that we are excavating.

.

You can see a picture of a newer, simpler mosque lamp for sale at Christies' here. But it shows how the chains are attached to loops in the lamp.
.
That's my sometimes-dig-world for That's My World Tuesday.

.

The Herodian Mamilla Pool

.
The previous post talked about the ancient Lower Aqueduct system.
Today let's look at a huge reservoir that received the water that flowed through the Upper Aqueduct.
.
In April I was so surprised to see some water in Mamilla Pool!
Our heavy rains of February must have produced this rare phenomenon.
.
And what's more, a group of kids was wading around, searching the water!
Their teacher was there too. Maybe looking for tadpoles?
Please enlarge the photo; you will enjoy it!
.
Normally it looks like this, dry as a bone.

Mamilla Pool is one of three reservoirs constructed by Herod the Great during the 1st century BCE.
Water passed slightly downward, through a channel 750 meters long, from the pool to another reservoir inside the Jaffa Gate.

Mamilla Pool still served as a municipal reservoir during the British Mandate period.
It can store 32,000 cubic meters of water.
.
When the British left, in 1948, and the War of Independence broke out, the Jewish inhabitants had to use this water while the city was under siege. The Arabs had cut off Jerusalem's normal water supply.
.

Photo from Wikipedia

This photo, probably from 1854, shows the pool with water, the city wall of the Old City, and the Jaffa Gate before a breach was made in the wall for Kaiser Wilhelm's entry.
.
Strange to see no buildings in the area.
The pool is in the middle of the Mamilla Muslim cemetery, which was in use from the 7th century until 1927.
.
Independence Park is just across the street.
.

The bridge that carried water over Gehennom

.
Last week the big news broke of the discovery of this aqueduct bridge that crosses Jerusalem's Hinnom Valley (Gei Hinnom).
.
This photo from the 1880s shows the arches already partly covered.
(The Citadel/Tower of David and Jaffa Gate are in the background.)
Sometime in the early 20th century the area was filled and the beautiful stone bridge was totally covered and eventually forgotten.
.

April 27 photograph by Assaf Peretz, courtesy of the IAA

.

The Gihon waterworks company was digging, doing work on sewers, when they stumbled upon the old bridge.
The Israel Antiquities Authority stepped in and started excavating.
.

Photo by Assaf Peretz, courtesy of IAA
.

This is part of the Lower Aqueduct, first built in the Hasmonean period.

Miles of channels, tunnels, and aqueducts carried water to Jerusalem and to the Temple Mount from Solomon’s Pools, south of Bethlehem.

The ingenious system kept on working till the start of the 20th century.

.

The bridge was built in 1320 CE (in the Mamluk period) by Sultan Nasser al-Din Muhammed Ibn Qalawun, as evidenced by the dedicatory inscription set in it (visible in the historic photo above).

However, it was apparently constructed to replace an earlier bridge dating to the time of the Second Temple period that was part of the original aqueduct.

.
The IAA website says, "The Israel Antiquities Authority, in cooperation with the Nature and Parks Authority, is working to expose the entire length of the arched bridge, conserve it and integrate it in the framework of the overall development of the Sultan’s Pool, as part of underscoring the importance of the water supply to Jerusalem in ancient times."

.

So far, two of the original nine arches have been excavated to their full height of about three meters.

.
UPDATE Jan. 5, 2014: 
See also  http://www.israeldailypicture.com/2014/01/funny-it-doesnt-look-like-mountain-or.html
.