Raw

An artist friend lives just down the mountain. He has started playing around with "carving" light-weight cast stone blocks, 128, commonly known in Israeli Hebrew as "Etung" blocks. Apartment buildings are built with them.

So far there is the little sheep and these Biblical figures.

A work in progress.
Ahh, talent and time, the perfect combination . . . . Must be nice.

.

For little corners of other bloggers' worlds please visit That's My World Tuesday.

Sidecar and all

.
You're right, it's not a Hog; it is a BSA.
So how does it qualify as an animal for admission to our friendly weekend Camera-Critters meme?

The sign reads "Veterinary ambulance. House calls. Dr. Ariel S..."

The license is for a "collectors' vehicle."
 The rucksack looks as old as the motorcycle.

I like this. I would call this doctor, if I had a pet, and if I lived in Tel Aviv.
.

Below in the darkness, but shielded

A dark flower (that appears, briefly, in the secret places of our woods always around Holy Week). For the Orthodox Christians, now under the heaviness of "Good" Friday and Holy Saturday.
.

Eyes in the sky

Regular readers might be fed up already with three days of "Mifletset" / Monster posts this week, but this photo was taken specially for today's SkyWatch Friday group.
.
Eyes in the sky?
No, it is not some new secret Israeli radar.
It's just a giant slide dedicated to the children of Jerusalem.
.

.

A campus of their own

Welcome to the Safra (Givat Ram) Campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
While my daughter and her family are back in Israel (from their new home, Australia) for an academic visit, they are living on campus.

This fiddler greets the guests of Belgium House Faculty Club. Except that this week of Passover almost all of the guests and staff went on vacation. Naomi and Guy were given the key to the little hotel and unlock this front door by themselves!

Hmm, I wonder if my little Dean will want to take up violin. At his age (5), his mother began her violin study, with Suzuki lessons.

For this Pesach week when the campus is deserted, Dean has to settle for the company of "Draped Seated Figure" by Henry Moore.

.

Matza week at the Mifletset-Monster

.
We are still in the week-long holiday of Passover, still eating matza instead of bread.
Kids on Pesach vacation love to play on, in, and under the Mifletset (meaning Monster) in Jerusalem.
My picture of little Eyal posted yesterday was shot from the cavernous inside (bottom) of the sculpture.
An earlier post has more information about the Mifletset (aka The Golem).
.
Here's my visiting daughter and grandsons, with a profile view of the sculpture.
.

First you climb up to the top
.

and then slide down one of the three tongues.
.

Pesach week is when many religious Jewish families can come to this park.
Everybody gets into the act.
Even somebody's bearded grandfather!

.

Go over to ABC Wednesday to enjoy other bloggers' M-Day posts.
.

"He is not here"

"When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint his body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, 'Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?' But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away."

Mark 16:1-4

.

Entering into the mystery

Entering into the mystery as night falls.

For those who contemplate the darkness and the tomb, who wait for light or an opening, this Easter Vigil night is for you.

.

Monks in the market

Orthodox Christians will be observing Holy Week starting tomorrow, their Palm Sunday.
So yesterday these monks still had time to visit our Mahane Yehuda market.
Almost all of them carried a camera. But I was the only one photographing them. I guess Jerusalemites are so used to the diversity in our city, and the Jewish shoppers were so anxious to finish their Passover Week food purchases before Shabbat, that no one even looked twice at the rather unusual sight of monks in the market.
.

Good Friday. Polish art on the Via Dolorosa

Blessing of the Sun

The Blessing of the Sun (Birkat HaChama) is prayed only once in 28 years. Yesterday morning Jews all over the world gathered together to recite the blessings and Psalms that thank and praise God for his work of creation, both then and now.
Apparently this is a tradition from the Talmud. But who knew? I didn't. This time around, word spread quickly, thanks to the Internet and publicity from Chabad.
Over 50,000 people (!) did the ritual Wednesday at Jerusalem's Western Wall.
New Zealand saw the sunrise first and some of her 7,500 Jews said the prayers before any of us.
I myself stood alone in my back yard and prayed after I saw the sun come up over Jerusalem on the horizon.
.
According to ancient rabbinical calculations, every 28 years the sun returns to its original alignment with other heavenly bodies, the same place it was on the fourth day of creation as told in the Book of Genesis.

If you'd like to read the short service, click on the special Chabad website. Other how-to information at BlessTheSun.org.
.
My photo is of the sun rising over the Golan Heights above the Sea of Galilee.
.
Now let's go over to SkyWatch Friday and see what skies other bloggers have shared.

Seder Pesach together

Chag sameach--happy Pesach! I just got home from our nice family Passover seder in Yavne, on the other side of the country.

Even the youngest, my 17-month-old grandson Eyal, was holding and trying to read the Haggadah.

"Mah nishtana . . . Why is this night different from all other nights?" the children sing.

Well, for one reason, an added bonus this year, my son-in-law's parents (who hosted us at their house) had the rare pleasure of having all their eight young grandchildren together under one roof. A real blessing and lots of nachat (pride and joy) for them.

Let my people go . . .

"Let my people go"--everyone knows those words that God told Moses to say to Pharaoh.
In Hebrew, "Shalach ami veya'avduni."
Hey, look, there is a second part in that sentence:
"Let my people go, that they may serve me."
.

From a Greek Psalter, 9th century, Yetsiat Mitsraim

.

ABC Wednesday is celebrating the letter L today.

Passover prep: That's My World

.
Some of the kids of my moshav got together today to learn and teach how to make matzot.
Matza is the unleavened bread that we will eat instead of fluffy regular bread for the next week, remembering our quick-exit exodus from Egypt.

The flat hot bread that came off the taboon was really tasty.

Meticulous house-cleaning, grocery shopping, and preparing food for the seder meal of Erev Pesach--most Jewish Israelis can currently say That's My World, pretty much ALL of it.

.

For more about mountains of store-bought matza you might see my last year's post.
.

Palm Sunday in Jerusalem

Today is Palm Sunday. Christians around the world mark Jesus' "triumphal entry into Jerusalem."

And Jerusalem is THE place to celebrate this first day of Holy Week!

.

However, today my one-year-old grandson Eyal made his triumphal entry into my house and we had a great day together, just the two of us. So I could not cover the prayer services and the procession for you. But things don't change much from year to year, only the faces of new pilgrims from abroad; so I offer you my photos of Palm Sunday 2007.

.

On Palm Sunday morning, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the traditional place of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus, each of the various Christian communities has a time for their public worship. I hope you can feel the spirit (or Spirit) of the joyful throngs in the church through my photos in the Picasa album.

.

In the afternoon everyone gathers on the Mount of Olives to begin a joyful procession all the way down to the Old City, entering the city walls through the Lions (St. Stephan's) Gate, and gathering again at the old Crusader church of St. Anne's. En route there is singing and dancing and waving of palm fronds and olive branches. (And lots of security.) Click here to zip through a slideshow of the colorful scenes of pilgrims, monastics, clergy, and mounted police.

.
If you still have time, you might enjoy my story about a donkey in the Garden of Gethsemane.

.

Happy Palm Sunday to all the Christian friends (except for the Greek Orthodox who celebrate it one week from today).
.

"Alte Sachen," Tel Aviv style

"Alte Sachen!"--the familiar recording was coming out of a loudspeaker. Old stuff, junk, furniture, appliances--anything you want to get out of the house--that's what the alte Sachen men cruise the neighborhoods looking for.
I turned and looked for an old pick-up truck as the noise got closer. What?? A horse and wagon?! Still, in 2009? In the middle of Tel Aviv? On Ben-Gurion Boulevard?
I was delighted! You don't see that much anymore.
.
Back when I made aliyah to Israel in 1968, you could still see a horse and cart used for deliveries in Tel Aviv, or the neft (kerosene) man ringing a bell from his wagon, or Arab kids coming past your door selling their wagonful of watermelons. In the Old City of Jerusalem, Arab men would still ride donkeys down the narrow lanes or lead them as pack animals.
Even camels worked when the first houses of Tel Aviv began to be built exactly 100 years ago.
.
The Camera-Critters meme is celebrating its first anniversary today. We bloggers have been sharing our animal pics every weekend for a whole year now. Come on over.

Pomelo surprise

Erev Shabbat dinner at the friends' house.

  A perfectly normal-looking oval-shaped pomelo was sitting on a plate. Imagine our surprise when the hostess pulled the [secretly pre-cut] peel upward into a delightful spiral, revealing a cup full of ready-to-eat bite-sized fruit.

 

Some of the segments were left whole for us to work on.

Peeling the thick skin of a big pomelo, getting the segments out unbroken, separating them, removing the membrane around each, and getting a few seeds out is hard work. But oh so worth it! Great taste, unusual texture--a fun fruit.

Each section is made up of juice-filled "little bottles." Well, at least in Hebrew that's what they are called: bakbookon (the diminutive of bakbook, bottle).

They grow in Israel. A few neighbors have a pomelo tree in their yards right here in the village.

.

Shabbat shalom!

.

Twilight time

Evening descends later now; last Friday Israel switched to Daylight Saving Time. Here the sun had just set behind the hills, across the valley, outside my neighbor-friends' window.
Shabbat shalom.
.
Sky Watch Friday bloggers are sharing their skies today and you are invited.

Jerusalem on American TV tonight!

At the end of the highway, at the entrance to Jerusalem, this sign welcomes you.
Bruchim ha-baim. Literally the Hebrew means "Blessed are those who come."

But if you are in the other lane, leaving Jerusalem, you will see the other blessing:
Tsetchem leshalom, "Go toward peace."

.

North Americans, tonight you can see a PBS special on TV called "Jerusalem: Center of the World"!

From their website (where you can also check the broadcast time for your city):

"Host Ray Suarez of The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, together with an outstanding roster of scholars, explores the founding of the city, and the birth and convergence of the world's three major monotheistic religions. He lends voice to the key events in the city's history as described in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, the Talmud, the Hagaddah, the Koran, and the Hadith."

.