Houses from Within, Jerusalem, list now online!

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The visitors standing in the narrow Ein Kerem lane were waiting for their chance to wind their way up through the fascinating old house and eventually emerge on the roof.
This was part of last year's annual  Jerusalem Houses from Within.

Above the front door was the event's poster.
That 2012 logo showed a bouquet of buildings.

The list of THIS year's Houses from Within guided tours just now went online--120 locations and the list is still growing!
If you are anywhere near Israel, mark your calendar for November 7-8-9.

A few venues require registration, which begins bright and early online on November 1.

Maybe your own city has a similar Open House event?
Check the date at http://www.openhouseworldwide.org/
In 2014  Athens,  Gdansk, San Diego, and Vienna will be joining this wonderful cultural tradition. 
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(Linking to Lesley's meme, Signs, signs.)

Sun for the garden

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A monastery  garden, tended by the Sisters of Sion, Ein Kerem.

Clouds over the Jerusalem Hills for Sky Watch Friday.

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A shiny black car draws a crowd

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Two black cars in Ein Kerem on a Sabbath day. 

Not the kind of car you normally see in Israel.
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Which one would be yours if you had to choose?
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If you enlarge the photo of the Pontiac Solstice you can find some curving reflections of the village buildings and the Israeli tourists who flock there on Shabbat--for Weekend Reflections. 
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Mary on a donkey en route to Ein Kerem

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Enlarge the photo (click once and then again)  and you will see Mary on the road from Nazareth to Ein Kerem, accompanied by walking and flying angels.
Said to be built over the home of John the Baptist's parents, Elizabeth and Zechariah, the Church of the Visitation stands high up on the hillside of Ein Kerem.

In Luke 1:39-55  the pregnant Mary visited her pregnant cousin Elizabeth and this "visitation" lasted for three months.
When Mary arrived, the unborn John  recognized the unborn Jesus and "leaped with joy" in Elizabeth's womb.
Elizabeth exclaimed, "Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!" and Mary sang a hymn of thanksgiving known as the Magnificat:

Behind the statues of Mary and Elizabeth are over 42 plaques of the Magnificat in different languages.

The modern (1955) church was designed by the prolific and gifted Italian architect Antonio Barluzzi.
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No room in the inn

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Photo of Pundak Ein Kerem from its own webpage

I'm getting the feeling that my humor in the previous post took a wrong turn.
I didn't mean to diss the restaurant that much.
Probably only a photo blogger's eye would even pay attention to the sign on the dusty car, because the Ein Kerem Inn is always full of people.

You can read a glowing review of the place here  and see a video on YouTube .
Next time I'm in the village of Ein Kerem I should go in and take a first-hand look.

Helen in Australia asked what an inn is in the Israeli context.
I think pundak, meaning inn, is nowadays just a cute name for an eatery.

In olden days it meant a caravanserai, a place on the trade routes where caravans could overnight in safety.    Also called khan.
I discovered that the pundak that we now use in Hebrew is like the  فندق funduq in Arabic (from the Greek, pandocheion, an inn).
Arabic has no p sound, so the Greek p here came into the Arabic as funduk, which went back into Hebrew as pundak.
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This way to the inn

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Would this sign, on this car, entice you to go eat at the restaurant it advertises?
It is parked next-door to Pundak Ein Kerem  (Ein Kerem Inn),  in the village which was annexed to Jerusalem.
The sign claims that eating there has been "a Jerusalem experience" already 25 years.
Who knows, maybe the car has been there that long, too.
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(A post for Lesley's fun meme, Signs Signs.)
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UPDATE:  Please see additional and more favorable information about the restaurant  in my new post. 
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Tractor as trellis

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I always wondered what the top of the old mosque looked like, the one built over Mary's Spring in Ein Kerem.
So I trudged up the steep winding narrow lanes to a vantage point way above.

You can enlarge the photo and find the Church of the Visitation and Gornensky Convent beyond the mosque. 

But the true treasure I discovered parked next to an ancient terrace wall, at the side of the narrow lane!
"Tractor as trellis" would be perfect for today's ABC Wednesday.

I sat on a rock near the tractor, ate my peanut butter sandwich, and tried to imagine the life the tractor had many decades ago.
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Birds enjoying the view

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These crows for Camera-Critters and clouds for SkyWatch Friday are from two weeks ago.
But this Friday, Saturday, Sunday  we are expecting some real rain for a change and temperatures falling down to 18, then 17, then 16 degrees C.
It has not been that cold in a long long time.

The photo is taken from the trail leading down into Ein Kerem village.
I walked there and back, several hours, because on the Sabbath there is no public transportation.
The big wall you see surrounds the convent of the Sisters of Sion.  Notre Dame de Sion was built back in 1861 and it is a beautiful quiet place.

And the farming terraces  are often from biblical times and are common in the Jerusalem Hills.
I love how they were built to last. 
They, too, are part of our built heritage.
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Where Mary visited Elisabeth

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E is for Ein Kerem, the beautiful village in the hill country of Judea, known as the birthplace of John the Baptist.
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In the photo, Antonio Barluzzi's Church of the Visitation.
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(For ABC Wednesday.)
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Shadows in the cemetery

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We're almost done with our walk in the Sisters of Sion convent in Ein Kerem, but you still have to see the cemetery.

I like how the tree shadow bends to walk up the stairs to a door to I know not where.
(For Shadow Shot Sunday, of course, and Monday Doorways too.)

The deceased and their visitors have a great view over the convent wall to several other churches and monasteries in the Jerusalem Hills.

The convent was built in 1860 and many of the Religious of Our Lady of Sion (and some of their friends) are buried here.
No worries, the ancient ossuary is just for decoration, not for the Sisters' bones.
It was discovered on a nearby hill.

Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne died in 1884 and is buried in this place that he built and where he lived for several decades.

His last words are engraved in French under Mary's feet:
" Oh Maria, remember thy son who was conquered by your love."

Ratisbonne was born to a French Jewish family but while visiting a small church in Rome he had a sudden conversion experience.
He said that Mary appeared to him and without words taught him everything he needed to know about the Catholic faith.
He went all the way and became a Jesuit priest and a missionary to the Holy Land.

His older brother had converted much earlier; Fr. Marie-Theodor Ratisbonne founded the monastic order and gave them a biblical verse as their foundational text.

You can read it here on Alphonse's grave:
"IN SION FIRMATA SUM" meaning "In Zion I will establish my dwelling."

Wikipedia says this about Theodor:

"In the 1820s, Ratisbonne joined a wave of apostasy in the French Jewish community triggered by a sense that the Jews could not achieve full integration in French society as long as they remained Jews. Ratisbonne reached the conclusion that there was a fundamental incompatibility between Judaism and French citizenship."

The rocks placed on Alphonse's grave in the traditional Jewish custom of showing respect always make me sad, thinking about these two ex-Jewish brothers.

Inside the walls, gardens and huge reservoirs

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I love the old roof tiles like these in the garden of the Notre Dame de Sion convent.
Many of them came all the way from Marseille in the 19th century to roof the houses around here.

Like this precious little outbuilding!

It sits next to one of the huge rain reservoirs that the Sisters of Sion have on the big walled property.
The white yardstick inside goes up to 5 meters.

It finally started to be winter today, cold and rainy; let's hope the pool will fill up this season.

Do you reckon the Rob Roy mixer from yesterday's post contributed some cement to these wall pillars a long time ago?

Just inside the big perimeter walls.
This photo from last spring shows how green the nuns' garden can be.
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Charming old doors in an Ein Kerem convent

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As you know from yesterday's post, I recently walked through the hill country over to the village of Ein Kerem.
Enlarge the photo and you will see the Sisters of Sion convent surrounded by a big white wall.
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For Monday Doorways I'll show you some of my favorite doors from the beautiful enclosed and peaceful place.


As the main entrance door says, Our Lady of Sion was built in 1861.
Back then Ein Kerem was an Arab village and we were all ruled by the Ottoman Turks.

This nice entrance is to one of the guesthouses.

Not sure what this door leads to . . . .

Near the cemetery, the nice old stones showing through.

A storage place with a heart carved in the shutters.

In the food garden, one of the few gateways through the thick outer wall.
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Two French brothers who converted to Catholicism founded the orders of the Sisters of Zion and the Fathers of Zion and built this convent in Moslem Ein Kerem.
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As the fine Jerusalem, Step by Step guidebook points out,

"The convent, built in surroundings hostile to Christians, looks like a fortress: high, thick walls, water reservoirs inside the grounds and a vegetable garden so that the nuns could grow their own food and withstand a siege."

I'll show you pictures of these elements in coming posts, inshallah.
This post is also for Our World Tuesday.
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Jerusalem stair shadows

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Thanks to Israel's strong sunlight, we have many crisp shadows.
Here are two stair-y shadows for Shadow Shot Sunday.

At the Israel Museum, the little inner courtyard next to the Shrine of the Book (of Dead Sea scrolls fame).
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Franciscan monastery "St. John BaHarim" (Hebrew for "in the hills") in Ein Kerem.
The sign next to the door says "Byzantine tombs used as olive press and warehouse during Early Arab Period."

Someday I'll have to find the monk who has the key to all these antiquities places that are under lock and key and beg to see them.
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Whirligig

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A weather vane whirling in the wind!
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You can't see it so well in the photo but the three colored circles were spinning.
In the garden of a private villa in Ein Kerem.
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Besides being revered as the birthplace of John the Baptist, the village is now also an artists' colony.
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The W words are for ABC Wednesday.
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Birthday and birthplace of John

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Come, join the tourists.
Come into the Church of St. John the Baptist (or St. John Ba Harim) in the Jerusalem suburb of Ein Kerem.


The Franciscans built the present church in 1674 over the remains of the Crusader and Byzantine era churches.
 Further work was done in the 19th century.

Walk forward in the basilica and turn left. Go down a few stairs.


The grotto--the most revered part of the church!

Not because of the marble altar donated by Queen Isabella II of Spain.
Not just because of the lit-up "Benedictus," the first words spoken by Zechariah after the birth of his son and today recited daily in the morning prayers of Catholics.

The crypt is holy . . .


. . . because this is considered to be the exact birthplace of John.

Here--enlarge the photo and read the declaration yourself.

I'm guessing at the Latin but I believe it means "The precursor of the Lord was born here."

There will be a big celebration here--June 24 is considered by the Church the birthday of John the Baptist.

Happy birthday, Yochanan!

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(Linking to inSPIRED Sunday.)

A "paned" look inside the walls

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For James' "Weekend Reflections"--part of the garden of the Sisters of Zion reflected in some waiting window panes.

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Inside Ein Kerem's big walled monastery, Notre Dame de Sion, are many lovingly-tended gardens and orchards.

A peaceful quiet place much prayed in.
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Lebanese Restaurant in Ein Kerem

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When I do paid work in archaeology my fellow laborers speak Arabic all day.
So I learned that foochara is what we say when nice potsherds are uncovered and have to be collected.
But when the restaurant chef recommended a meal of meat and vegetables and foochara, I said "What?!"
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When it came out of the oven and onto the table, I finally understood that foochara can also mean an unbroken clay pot.
Aha!

The waiter's T-shirt says (in Hebrew) "Abu Shukri's Lebanese Restaurant."
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Ein Kerem has plenty of fancy restaurants but this rustic one has the best food, and that is where I took my two visiting American friends.

This was my first time to have masachan, another great Lebanese dish made in the oven.

Two chicken legs and vegetables on a special brown pita and spiced, I think, with sumac.

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Note the special issue Coke cans for the World Cup.

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A funny T-shirt

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June 13 is the feast day of St. Anthony, "Doctor of the Church, Wonder Worker, Professor of Miracles."
That explains why I saw this small T-shirt for sale a few days ago at the gift shop of the big Franciscan church in Ein Kerem.

Apparently in the early 1200s Antonio had a vision of the child Jesus.

Since the 17th century he is most often portrayed in art holding the infant, but not quite like on this funny T-shirt, I'm sure.

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Pax et bonum, peace and all good, to you and all at That's My World.

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Pews and benches

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More scenes of the 1860s church we first saw in yesterday's post.
Notre Dame de Sion monastery in Ein Kerem is a holy oasis of quiet and green in an already-quiet village.

Unusual modern stations of the cross, simple and artistic.

Reminders of Jewish roots.

The Sisters of Zion teach these things.

Some pews have nice fold-down kneelers.

And just outside in the garden, a bench circle.

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