Stones in a cage

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In the hills around Jerusalem I was used to seeing ancient agricultural terrace walls.
Farmers built them from stones they cleared from the field.
They placed one stone on another in just the right way that the terrace wall would last for thousands of years.
So now when I see this easy-to-make stone wall in an Austrian village I have to wonder (and giggle a bit too).

See posts about the ancient terraces near Jerusalem  here.
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Vineyards in the Jura

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The Psalms take on added power during times of danger and of fierce fighting, like  now.

For Psalm Challenge, here is Psalm 80.
(My beloved Swiss photos can be enlarged with a click or two.)

  For the leader; on shoshanim, eduth; of Asaph. A psalm.

¹Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock! You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth
²before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh. Stir up your might, and come to save us!
³Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved.
⁴O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers?
⁵You have fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in full measure.
⁶You make us the scorn of our neighbors; our enemies laugh among themselves.
⁷Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.

⁸You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.
⁹You cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land.
¹⁰The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches;
¹¹it sent out its branches to the sea, and its shoots to the River.

¹²Why then have you broken down its walls, so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit?
¹³The boar from the forest ravages it, and all that move in the field feed on it.

¹⁴Turn again, O God of hosts; look down from heaven, and see; 

have regard for this vine,
¹⁵the stock that your right hand planted.

¹⁶They have burned it with fire, they have cut it down; may they perish at the rebuke of your countenance.
¹⁷But let your hand be upon the one at your right hand, the one whom you made strong for yourself.
¹⁸Then we will never turn back from you; give us life, and we will call on your name.
¹⁹Restore us, O Lord God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.
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Translation: NRSV New Revised Standard Version, c. 1989

Photos:
Vines and vineyards on the Jura Mountains, near Lake Neuchatel, Switzerland.
Israel does have vineyards but I have not yet visited them. 
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Bent and bowed

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For Robert's PsalmChallenge at Daily Athens blog, here is Psalm 38.
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1. A Psalm. Of David. Lihazkir.

2. O LORD, do not reprove me in Your wrath, and do not chastise me in Your anger.

3. For Your arrows have fallen on me, and Your hand has fallen against me.

4. There is no whole place in my flesh because of Your rage; no wellbeing in my bones because of my sin.

5. For my iniquities have engulfed my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.

6. My wounds grow foul and fester because of my folly.

7. I am utterly bent and bowed; I go about in gloom all the day.

8. For my innards are full of fever; there is no whole place in my flesh.

9. I am utterly spent and crushed; I roar because of the turmoil in my heart.

10. My Lord, You are aware of all my entreaties, and my sighing is not hidden from You.

11. My heart reels; my strength forsakes me; the light of my eyes—that, too, not with me.

12. My friends and companions stand back from my plague, and my near ones stand far off.

13. Those who seek my life lay snares and those who wish me harm speak malice; they meditate treachery all the day.

14. But I am like a deaf man, unhearing, and like a dumb man who does not open his mouth.

15. I am like one who does not hear, and in whose mouth are no rebukes.

16. For in You, O LORD, I have hoped; You will answer, O Lord, my God.

17. For I thought, "Lest they rejoice over me; when my foot gives way, they will vaunt over me."

18. For I am on the verge of collapse, and my pain is ever with me.

19. For I acknowledge my iniquity; I am apprehensive due to my sin.

20. Yet my mortal enemies grow numerous; my treacherous foes are many.

21. Those who repay harm for good hate me for pursuing goodness.

22. Do not forsake me, O LORD, my God; be not far from me;

23. Hasten to my aid, my Lord, my deliverance.

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Translation by Rabbi Benjamin Segal.
Hebrew text and a more traditional translation at Mechon Mamre.
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Photos:
Outside the Rabbi Kook Museum, Jerusalem.
The wall around Hansen's Hospital, the former "leper colony" of Jerusalem.
At the tomb of Rabbi Akiva with Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee below.
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The separation fence

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The separation fence -- like a scar across the landscape.

Made necessary (many say) by the pre-wall all-too-easy access of suicide bombers into Israel's restaurants and buses during the painful intifada.

Enlarge the photo all the way for full effect.


Actually, some 95% of the barrier is not the concrete wall that the media likes to show, but rather chainlink fence with barbed wire and detection devices.
See the sketch in this link to understand how it works.

It is a temporary thing, until peace allows it to be taken down.
Meanwhile, a lack of budget money and some Supreme Court cases have stopped the completion of the barrier for now.

The Anti-Terrorist Fence goes through several hundred miles of the West Bank.
But the part around three sides of Jerusalem was euphemistically named the Jerusalem Envelope.

For more details see pro and con websites:
Ir Amim or
government sites
Anti-terrorist fence
Seam zone website
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Sorry folks, I looked for a pretty white picket fence for today's City Daily Photo fences Theme Day but couldn't find a one.
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Click here to view thumbnails for all participants where you will see many pretty fences.
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Life in the Old City

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I was shocked to see this in a narrow lane in the Christian Quarter of the Old City.
(Actually all the streets of the Old City are narrow.)

Once I showed you some of Jerusalem's wall anchors by which steel rods INSIDE the old buildings pull the walls together so they will not collapse.

But this in the photo above is the opposite. The buildings are being pushed apart from the outside.
Rather disconcerting to walk below. Or to live in.
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Floodlights on the Citadel

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We looked at this bridge in an earlier post for Louis' Sunday Bridges.
But that was in the daytime.

Take a look at night!!
The Tower of David (the Citadel) is even more glorious at night.
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On the right is the 16th century gatehouse.
The dry moat was built earlier, probably in Crusader times (12th C.).
The moat originally reached the entrance and was partly spanned by a wooden drawbridge.
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The people you see on the present wooden bridge were lined up waiting to go in to the sound and light show inside the courtyard.
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Here is the continuation of the bridge up to the big heavy entrance gate.

The Citadel has something nice for Hey Harriet's Shadow Shots Sunday too.

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Floodlit from below, the rusticated stones throw sharp shadows.

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Rustication (leaving the center of the stone rough and projecting) has a military purpose.
It protects the joints of the masonry and when struck by projectiles, it is more likely than smooth masonry to dissipate their force by fracturing harmlessly.
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Imagine yourself a Crusader attacking the Citadel, looking up at these tall walls with those fearsome arrow slits and machicolations!

That wall is on the left in this photo, the bridge and entrance are on the right, and in between, behind the low wall is a lovely garden with a bubbling fountain and benches and little trees.

The garden is my favorite secluded place for a picnic in Jerusalem's Old City.

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Wall anchors of Jerusalem

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Stars on Beit Tavor, 1889, built and lived in by architect Conrad Schick.

It is That's My World Tuesday, so let's take a walk through Jerusalem and search for wall anchors.

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"An anchor plate or wall washer is a large plate or washer connected to a tie rod or bolt. Anchor plates are used on exterior walls of masonry buildings, for structural reinforcement. Being visible, many anchor plates are made in a style that is decorative."

-- Wikipedia

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Here is an S-shaped one on a house. See it, on the left?

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BTW, the spire belongs to San Salvador, the monastery we saw in my Aug. 14 post.

This is the view of the steeple from inside the Christian Quarter of the Old City.
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Horseshoe-shaped anchors on the old Hansen's Hospital (Jesus Hilfe).

I think the technical name for these is patress plates.

Anybody know?

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Then there are the plain rectangular anchors, like these on a back building inside Notre Dame de Sion, the convent of the Sisters of Zion in Ein Kerem.

A house in Ein Kerem.

Oi!

The big medical equipment-lending volunteer organization called Yad Sarah had its humble beginnings in this old house.

The anchors are way up by the roof.

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Wall anchors hold together the old hotel just inside Jaffa Gate, inside the Old City.

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Reader Wil once blogged about wall anchors in Europe.

She asked if we had them in Jerusalem too.

This post is the answer for her.

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Soon--less wall, more sky

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Good news for SkyWatch Friday!
Beginning on Sunday, this wall will be torn down.
The residents living across the street in the south Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo will be able to see more sky.

The Gilo residents will also be able to see their neighbor village again, Beit Jala.

Beit Jala is a Christian Arab village in the West Bank.

I should also say that Gilo, built in 1972, is just over the Green Line.

The problem between them began in 2000, during the second intifada.

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Some Palestinian gunmen used a few buildings of the village to shoot into the windows of the Gilo houses on an on-going basis.

That is why the protective wall was put up, to protect those living in Gilo from shells and bullets flying into their bedrooms

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The snipers who came into and used the village hoped Israel would respond heavily to their gunfire and attack the Christian village, causing very bad press for Israel. Well, we didn't.

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To learn more about this you can see

IDF statement on how/why/when the wall will be dismantled

Pre-1948 history of Gilo

Photos of Gilo under siege

Briefing by then-mayor Ehud Olmert

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Happy SkyWatch, hopefully with many sightings of the Perseid meteor shower tonight.

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UPDATE: Haaretz just now (Aug. 13) published a slideshow of 8 photos of different sections of this small wall.

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Brave bird

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A brave bird for Camera-Critters Sunday.


It has been a bad week in the Mediterranean.
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A new song parody helps to understand; great satire. See the "Flotilla Choir" on YouTube.
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Waiting to become

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For That's My World, let's go just across the street in my moshav (village) and see what the neighbors are up to.

Stones waiting to become something useful and beautiful.

Slowly they came together . . .

and became a sturdy beautiful stone wall.

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Tancred's Tower (with bride and groom)

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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.

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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.

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Draped in black for mourning?

A blue sky (for SkyWatch) dawned this morning, the 17th day of Tamuz on our Hebrew calendar.
Devout Jews around the world fast on this day. Here in Jerusalem this "minor fast day" begins at 4:15 am and ends at 8:13 pm.
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All sorts of calamities befell the Jewish people on this date in history. For instance, Moses smashed the twin tablets of the Ten Commandments upon seeing the golden calf.

But Shiv'ah Asar bTamuz also commemorates the First Century breach of the walls of Jerusalem, the first step towards the destruction of the Second Temple on the 9th of Av ( another fast day in three weeks from now).
In this unusual scene, Jerusalem's Old City wall appears to be dressed in black robes of mourning.

But no! Just the opposite. The wall, rebuilt by the Ottoman Turks in 1535-1541, is being patched up and strengthened and beautified. And by whom? The Roman Legion? The Ottomans?

NO! By the ISRAEL Antiquities Authority.

Yes, we are still here, alive and well.

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In fact, here you see the happy crowds who came for the Jerusalem Light Festival a few weeks ago, along that same stretch of wall near Jaffa Gate. Full of life.

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I do not fast on this day. But I do think about the breakage of Moshe's stone tablets and the breaking of my beloved Jerusalem's walls. And about this, Rachel at her wonderful "Velveteen Rabbi" blog has a good message:

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"[If you are fasting today], I hope that your fast is meaningful. May we find a way today to be open to whatever may flow through the places in us which are broken, remembering that our brokenness can be a place where holiness is found."
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A salute

We raise our hand and lift our head and heart to those who march in protest today.

Cats for Camera-Critters Sunday.

Mending wall

A moshav is a collective agricultural village. Today, Israel's moshavim are largely privatized.
My moshav nestles in the Jerusalem Hills, also known as the Mountains of Judea.
The public buildings are on top of our hill. Then, in about 7 or 8 concentric circles, the houses and chicken coops of the moshavniks (members) cling to the sides of the hill.

Enlarging the photos will help to clarify the text.

Just like with the ancient agricultural terraces that fill the hills that surround Jerusalem, each terrace (or level) of houses in the village has to be supported by (modern) stone terrace walls above and below it.
The village was founded in 1949 so our terrace walls are only 60 years old.
In the wake of our winter rainy season, my next-door neighbor's wall collapsed into the street!

A few weeks later I saw several young men rebuilding the wall. To my surprise they were not speaking Arabic. I'm glad there are still a few Jews who retain the knowledge of terrace wall construction.

I would love to try it!

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This post was prompted by Petrea's post about a mysterious wall she found in her town, Pasadena, California. The lively comments there include Robert Frost's wonderful poem "Mending Wall."
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The skies above the village will be my contribution to SkyWatch Friday. Pay a visit to some other bloggers and their sky. Enjoy.

Walls of Jerusalem and of the hills

Welcome to the fun we bloggers have at ABC Wednesday. Today's letter is W.

Western Wall, formerly known as the Wailing Wall.
With the beginnings of the excavation where I worked last year.
Watchtower known as David's Tower and Jerusalem's Old City city wall.
One of the old terrace walls which dot the Jerusalem Hills. Some date from First Temple period.
Wedges in a wall: how to build a straight wall.