Keeper of the gate

.

Feline gatekeeper at Segula Cemetery,  February 10, 2015.

The gate rolls open promptly at 6:00 a.m.

The Bible verse quoted on white is Ecclesiastes/Koheleth 12:5,
"Then man goes to his eternal home." 

1 Remember then thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say: 'I have no pleasure in them';
 2 Before the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars, are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain;
 3 In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out shall be darkened in the windows,
 4 And the doors shall be shut in the street, when the sound of the grinding is low; and one shall start up at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low;
 5 Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and terrors shall be in the way; and the almond-tree shall blossom, and the grasshopper shall drag itself along, and the caperberry shall fail; because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets;
 6 Before the silver cord is snapped asunder, and the golden bowl is shattered, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel falleth shattered, into the pit;
 7 And the dust returneth to the earth as it was, and the spirit returneth unto God who gave it.
. . . 

(Linking to Camera Critters.)
.

Jerusalem of gold and blue

.

For SkyWatch Friday here is our clear blue sky, typical for Israel's long hot dry season.

We are looking up at the Temple Mount from the foot of the Mount of Olives.
The top of the Dome of the Rock is visible.
In the Old City wall is the Mercy Gate.
Outside the blocked gate is a Muslim cemetery and below that is a Franciscan cemetery.

You can enlarge the photo twice and see the graves among the olive trees.

Shabbat shalom to Jerusalem and to you all.
.

The Italian Hospital

.
Judging from this reflection for Weekend Reflections, you might think I had jumped over to Italy to get the shot.

Jerusalem's Italian Hospital is strikingly similar to the Medici family palace in the Piazza della Signioria in Florence (known as the Palazzo Vecchio) or to the town hall in Siena.

Italian architect Antonio Barluzzi built or restored dozens of churches, hospitals, and schools in the Holy Land.
His Italian Hospital was built from 1912 to 1919.

The gates have the Capitoline she-wolf with Romulus and Remus.

And here is the winged lion familiar to Jerusalemites from the statue atop the Generali Building.

The church, with a beautiful octagonal dome, stood at the center of the 100-bed hospital compound.
The church has been deconsecrated and now a huge mezuzah is affixed to the right side of the door (for Monday Doorways).
Enlarge the photo and see remnants of a mosaic above the door.

Today the complex houses offices of Israel's Ministry of Education.

Click on this photo to see the bare rectangles along the walls which once held the emblems of fifty Italian families that are descended from Crusader warriors. .
Unfortunately for the outstanding building, its location (Shivtei Yisrael St. corner of HaNevi'im St.) is right next to Mea Shearim.
The very ultra Orthodox Jews living there pressured the Municipality to remove all crosses and symbols of "irrelevant" history.
.
During World War I the Ottoman Turks expropriated the hospital from the Italians (who were fighting against them and the Germans) and it suffered damage.
After the war Barluzzi saw to its rebuilding.
.
During World War II the British seized the building from their enemies, the Italians, and made it the HQ of the Royal Air Force.

To quote Aviva Bar-Am, "Three years later [1948], when the British began pulling out of Palestine, both the Arabs and the Hagana hoped to get their hands on this strategic property near the border with east Jerusalem. Fortunately for the Hagana, it discovered the exact time of the British exit and the Jews got in first."

The tower and hospital were good observation and firing posts for Israel during the War of Independence, but Jordan's Arab Legion shelled the structure.
In the early 1950s, Italy demanded that Israel repair it.
Israel replied that it was Jordan that damaged it.
Eventually Italy and Israel agreed to a sale of the building.

Since 1963 the Ministry of Education has been in the former Italian Hospital.
What a history, eh?
.

Whose God is taller?

.
Robert at Daily Athens is restarting our PsalmChallenge after a summer break.
We are up to Psalm 24. You are welcome to join in and try your hand at illustrating a verse (or all the verses) every Sunday.
I repost mine from last June (before I knew we were out on vacation), but it's OK--this great Psalm deserves repetition.
.
P S A L M 24
1 A Psalm of David.

The earth is the LORD's and the fulness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein; 2 for he has founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the rivers.
.3 Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false, and does not swear deceitfully. 5 He will receive blessing from the LORD, and vindication from the God of his salvation. 6 Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. [Selah]
.
7 Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O everlasting doors! that the King of glory may come in.
8 Who is the King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle! 9 Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O everlasting doors! that the King of glory may come in. 10 Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory! [Selah] .
.
Photo (more beautiful when enlarged):
The bottom of the stained glass window says, in Hebrew, "Lift up your heads, O gates."
The window is one of many in Jerusalem's Great Synagogue that are based on verses in the Book of Psalms.
.
I cannot read these verses without hearing the cantor singing them half a century ago in the synagogue of my youth in Chicago. The whole congregation would sing the stirring words in Hebrew as the doors of the Holy Ark were opened, revealing the Torah scrolls.
.
UPDATE: Dr. Ray Vander Laan explains why the Hebrew gate heads had to be lifted up in a short but great video filmed in Egypt. Recommended!
.

The world behind the gate

.
A rare photo of the gate open. ( A car had just driven out and the automatic gate was sliding shut.)
.
The people door is to the right.
You must press the button on the pillar and hope a Sister will answer on the intercom.
Then you must hope that the Russian-speaking nun will understand that you want to come in and walk around.
If you are answered with a buzzer, lean on that heavy door fast!
.
Suddenly you will be quite alone in another world that feels like a 19th century Russian village.
But it is the huge monastic grounds of the Russian Orthodox Gornensky Convent on the edge of Ein Kerem.
.

At Louis la Vache's new Monday Doorways meme you can see all kinds of entrances, and you are welcome to contribute a photo of a favorite door of yours too.
.

A pretend gate

.
A little paint does wonders.

For Monday Doorways hosted by Louis la Vache.
.
UPDATE: This was one of several doors painted during a street festival on Shushan Street.
See another example, with the artist at work, in an earlier post.
.

A semi-secret passageway

.
Outside, on the Old City's Christian Quarter Road, are the souvenir T-shirts and all the hustle and bustle of the Arab bazaar and of passing tourist groups.
But if you pay attention to this door within a gate, and if you have the courage to step through, you will be entering a secret other world.
The quiet courtyard feels ancient, quiet, and mysterious.
.
It is the Greek Orthodox monastery and Church of Prodromos [the Forerunner], also called the Church of St. John the Baptist.
Its 5th century crypt is the oldest surviving church building in Jerusalem.
.The upper story was destroyed by the Persians in 614.
It was rebuilt by St. John the Almoner, Patriarch of Alexandria, and later, in the 11th century, by Italian merchants from Amalfi.
Only the the small bell tower and the present facade of the upper story are modern.
.
In 1099 many Crusader knights who were wounded during the siege of Jerusalem were cared for in this church.
After their recovery some of the grateful knights dedicated themselves to helping the sick and protecting pilgrims to the Holy Land.
Calling themselves the Knights of the Hospital of St. John, they later developed into the military order of the Hospitallers.
.
More information at Sacred Destinations.
.
This post is for inSPIREd Sunday and That's MyWorld.
.
I'm glad you came through the doorway!
.

The ramparts walk

.
The Old City of Jerusalem is enclosed by a 16th century wall that has seven gates.
.

Map is from Wikitravel

For our That's My World tour let's walk on top of the ramparts.

Like this little group is doing.

.

You might have to enlarge the photo to see them.

I zoomed in on the people from the roof of St. Louis Hospital, which is across the street from the Old City.
.

Here, the Turkish sultan invites you to his wall!

.

The Hebrew poster bids you, "Walk through layers of time."

.

The old sign tells us that an Arabic inscription on the Jaffa Gate reads thus:

"In the name of Allah, the merciful and compassionate, our lord the great sultan, monarch of the Byzantines, Arabs and Persians, Suleyman son of Selim Khan, may Allah perpetuate his kingdom, commanded that this blessed wall be constructed. In the year 945"

[ 945 of the Muslim Hejira calender, i.e. 1538 C.E.].
.

Just climb the spiral staircase, push through the turnstyle (which is actually on the roof of the Kishle police station), and start walking along and above the Armenian Quarter.

Then at the Jewish Quarter, you have to come down.

.

The other Ramparts Walk segment starts below the Damascus Gate and goes along the Muslim Quarter up to St. Stephen's Gate.

Sixteen shekels will buy you a ticket for both sides.

.

The length of the entire city wall is about 4 km or 2.5 miles.

But it is not possible to walk around the entire Old City atop the wall.

.

Yalla, are you coming up? This is one walk I don't wish to do alone.

I'll wait for you.

.

Split down the middle

Enlarge the photo to see the two halves!
.

Seen on the other side of the village, on the gate to a private driveway.
.

Koresh, Hammurabi at the gates of Jerusalem?!

.
Just a few more beautiful things to show you from the Supreme Court Building.
OK?
The foyer of the courtroom area expresses all the architectural contrasts of the building--inside and outside, old and new, lines and circles.
The natural stone wall is a continuation of the wall that begins at the building's entrance.
.
Opposite it, in stark contrast, is a modern white wall with 14 tall niches containing windows and lovely curving benches for the public.

Natural light enters these niches through pyramid-shaped skylights, creating shadows on the white wall that change throughout the day.

As we mentioned a few days ago, courts in biblical times were situated at the gates of the city.

Deuteronomy 16:18 says "You will appoint judges and officers in all your gates . . . and they will judge people with a just judgment."

.

Here in the foyer there is a gate for each of the five Supreme Court courtrooms.

The three-tiered design of the entrances represents these gates and is also meant to remind us of the three-tiered design that was used for entrances to many public buildings in the ancient Near East. Our guide mentioned Mesopotamia, for example.

.

I am wondering if this could be a form of tribute to the Babylonian King Hammurabi.

Around 1790 B.C.E. he enacted the famous Code of Hammurabi in ancient Babylon.

Our modern law systems in the world are still indebted to this ancient law code.

.

Or perhaps it is a hat-tip to Koresh, a.k.a. Cyrus the Great, king of Persia?

After all, following his conquest of Babylon in 539 B.C.E. he did free the Jews, captives of the Babylonian exile.

We were finally allowed to return and to rebuild the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem.

And indeed, in the Supreme Court Building's Judicial Heritage Museum, I found a written tribute to Koresh.

Well, actually it is a thank you letter from Chaim Weizmann to British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour, dated November 19, 1917, thanking him for the Balfour Declaration .

But it says

"Since Koresh the Great, history has never know a declaration that inspired a greater understanding of political wisdom or far reaching diplomacy and justice toward the Jewish People than this declaration, may it be remembered for all time."
.

Tancred's Tower (with bride and groom)

.
Recently I learned that at the recently completed Kikar Tsahal (IDF Square) there are remains of something called TANCRED'S TOWER.

I wanted to photograph it yesterday, before the sun set completely.
But to my surprise I ended up doing a wedding shot instead!
If you don't believe me, click on the photos.

A bride and groom!

At one point the video photograph had the young man jump off the wall and shout with joy, wave his arms and click his heels.

I rather doubt that the young couple was aware of the history of the spot.

If you are up to it, here is the story as told in Jerusalem, a walk through time, Yad Ben-Zvi's Walking-Tour Guide, Vol. 1, p 162:

"The northwest corner of the city wall . . . was one of the points where the Crusaders concentrated their forces for the assault upon the city, in the first phases of the siege in the sweltering summer of 1099.

At the foot of the city wall we see the remains of a moat and above it are particularly large stones that protrude from the wall. These are the remains of the base of a fortified tower, the continuation of which is situated in the basement of the Christian College des Freres within the city walls. . . . The tower (which was built during or after the Crusader period) . . . is known as Tancred's Tower, after the Norman Crusader commander from Sicily, who bivouacked here with his forces during the siege.

In the north the Crusader forces breached the walls near Damascus Gate. Using battering rams and siege towers several stories high, they rained arrows upon the defenders on the wall."

Damascus Gate

William of Tyre, a contemporary Crusader historian, wrote of this "It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of slain without horror . . . . Still more dreadful it was to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them."

After breaking through, the Crusaders rushed in to seize the Temple Mount where water from the cisterns quenched their thirst, following their weeks of shortage of water.

In the evening, after they already controlled the whole city, they proceeded to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to offer prayers of thanksgiving.

.

.

For That's My World Tuesday this was a glimpse of my wedding-couple-world of just yesterday and of the bloody slaughter of 910 years ago. Same place but so very different.

.

Romancing the stones

Several hundred Jerusalem-lovers congregated along the outside of the Old City wall yesterday, joined hands, and gave the city a big hug.
I missed the event, but I was at the first annual Jerusalem Hug in 2007 so here you have those photos.

(All photos can be enlarged with a click)

The warm-up started at a park across from the Jaffa Gate. Dancing in the drum circle.
Hmm, yesterday was the summer solstice too, wasn't it.
It was hippie heaven.
You heard many languages, but not much Hebrew or Arabic.
One lone didgeridoo attracted the camera people.

This nice donkey and his owner ply the tourist route every day. Here, at the New Gate, a happy blond lady sat on the donkey and sang the Christian hymn "Jerusalem, Jerusalem."

As the fife and drums played, folks joined hands and made their way down to the Damascus Gate.

A few of the peacenik organizers gave some words of blessing.

Here's the top of the beautiful Damascus Gate (missing in the previous shot).

Then it was over. But many lingered for just a bit more of the drum beat and to savor a few more minutes of a feeling of solidarity, brotherhood, and peace. Until next May. . .
.

To see an article with pictures of this year's Jerusalem Hug, please see Ynet.

.

Other bloggers are posting views of their world today at That's My World Tuesday. You are welcome to participate or to visit.

Old City vehicles

.
The walled Old City is to the east of the new city.
The Christian Quarter (about 4,000 people) in the upper left, Armenian Quarter (2,000) in lower left, Jewish Quarter (3,000) bottom center.
The Muslim Quarter (26,000) is all the rest, including the large rectangle of the Temple Mount.

Aerial photo borrowed from the Internet.

The bustling bazaar streets that we saw in yesterday's post are still asleep at 6:00 a.m.
 I used to walk this street every morning to my dig at the Western Wall Plaza.
More cats than people just before sunrise.

The steps and the narrowness of the major shuk/market streets make them impassable for cars.

When I moved to Israel in 1968 donkeys still transported goods and sometimes people inside the Old City.
Now only this tourist donkey is left, and he works just outside the Old City.
Here he is seen at the New Gate.

These carts are the "modern" way to go.
The only brakes are the tire chained to the cart. Just step on it to slow down.
The stone steps and ramps you saw in photo #2 are slippery when wet.
Whenever I hear a young driver coming down the crowded lane fast behind me, I stand aside, out of both respect and caution.

Photo by friend Kristine S.

Garbage collection is done with little tractors and wagons.

.

Little Donkeys of God

A funny thing happened on the way to Bethphage . . .

My two Sister friends were taking me to see, for my first time, the Palm Sunday procession. The walk up the Mount of Olives to the pilgrims' starting point at Bethphage is very steep. Near the Garden of Gethsemane the sisters and I stopped to rest and admire the wildflowers.
We were quite alone among the olive trees and the goats. Silence and peace all around.

Then I caught sight of a sleeping donkey (!) and could not help but be reminded of the story in Mark 11:

And when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, he sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it you will find an ass tied, on which no one has ever sat; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' say, 'The Lord has need of it,' and he will send it back here immediately."
.

Suddenly the donkey awoke as if out of a dream. He quickly got up and began walking. And he was headed straight toward the double arches in the city wall! This is none other than the Gate of Mercy, which Christians call the Golden Gate, the Gate Beautiful.

In Jewish tradition this is the gate by which the messiah, mounted on a white donkey, will enter Jerusalem. To prevent this, the Turkish Sultan Suleiman blocked up the gate some five centuries ago.

But sealed gate or not, our donkey must have heard his marching orders and nothing was going to stop him.
.