"A Jew, a blogger, and a nun go to pray together at Jerusalem's holy Western Wall . . . ."
The sweet donkey joins me in wishing all the Camera-Critters friends and all my readers a blessed and peaceful new year.
Bringing light to a sometimes dark world.
Look at all these Woodcraft model kits for sale at the Shuk Machane Yehuda market! 
It could be fun to try to put one together.
They start out as a light flat pack, easy to mail.
This is how chanukiot looked last night, after all 8 + 1 candles were kindled. 
And early this morning, this is what I saw in a street in Jerusalem!
And while we are on the subject of soofganiot/jelly donuts, take a look at the (approximate) statistics on how many of them soldiers ate this week of Chanuka!
In Tel Aviv, on one of the fancy streets, this shop was full of many varieties of traditional fried in oil soofganiot (jelly doughnuts).
But I much preferred these simple free ones because of the nice and friendly Chabad man who was offering them to everyone after they lit the Chanuka lights.
"Young Chabad" wishes you Happy Chanuka with their happy sign and joyful Jewish music.
Some of my family responded to the music and started dancing.
For one thing, they have the Mediterranean.
Together with Saturday's strong cold wind there was sunshine (enough to make Shadow Shot Sunday 2 shadows), and people were dancing!
The Sabbath dancing circle is here, along the promenade, below hotel row.
A tiny manger scene, made in Peru.
Strange clouds behind our neighbor mountain caught the last rays of the setting sun.
Hello? Did you order a cold drink?
A quite real-looking Santa with a hot sax at the entrance to a restaurant.
"Welcome to my shop, come in," they say.
A modern glass door to a new store in a very old building.
Not surprisingly, the Christian Information Center has a manger scene.
A huge Santa Claus!
A Catholic monk walks down St. Francis Street.
The sign for the Greek Colony in Hebrew, Arabic, and transliterated Hebrew.
In the previous post we started talking about Jerusalem's Greek Colony.
The writing above the lintel says 1937."The Christian initiatives in the field of construction stemmed from a mixture of religious and philanthropic motivations on the one hand, and business considerations on the other hand. Both types of enterprise drew mostly upon capital from abroad.
. . .
By contrast [to the Catholics, Russian Orthodox, and Protestants], during the nineteenth century the Greek Orthodox channeled most of their entrepreneurial efforts into acquiring agricultural land (in Nikoforiya), and into economic and commercial activity.
Thus they built hotels . . ., shops . . ., and markets . . . .
Near the turn of the century a number of Greek Orthodox residential neighborhoods began to develop outside the [Old City] walls, especially in the southern part of the city:
the Greek Colony, Katamon, and Abu Tor."
Wouldn't you say the poor tree is too near the street?
It is a tall old eucalyptus from the early days of Jerusalem's Greek Colony. 
4 ‘Lord, let me know my end,
11 ‘You chastise mortals in punishment for sin,
12 ‘Hear my prayer, O Lord,
One lamp that has two quite different-shaped shadows.
Here is another old hanging lamp in the same room of the small Ticho House museum in Jerusalem.
The candles at the organic raw food center look simple enough,
but the water in the vase does strange things to the reflected flames.
I'm so lucky to live close to nature, in the Jerusalem Hills.
Lately I noticed that some tree trunks there which burned in a small fire some eight years ago are starting to disintegrate. 
These trees reminded me of what Tatanga Mani, a Stoney Indian, said on page 106:". . . You know, if you take all your books, lay them out under the sun, and let the snow and rain and insects work on them for a while, there will be nothing left. But the Great Spirit has provided you and me with an opportunity for study in nature's university, the forests, the rivers, the mountains, and the animals which include us."
I got lost in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood a few years ago when many parts of Jerusalem were still new to me.
The sign warned not the enter the dangerous building which according to the drawing was liable to collapse. 
Even then the doors had anti-Arab sentiments scrawled on them.
A second old building was also locked up.
The third building really raised my curiosity!
I stuck the camera through the window bars and the flash revealed a neglected interior.The Nebi Akasha mosque, apparently built under the Ayyubid dynasty in the 12th century with additions made under the Mamluk dynasty in the 13th century. It is believed that the mosque was founded on the burial site of combatants in Saladin’s army, though an ancient tradition designates the site as the place where Akasha, a friend of the Prophet Muhammad, was buried.
