Making merry in the shuk

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Purim is on Sunday, and Shushan Purim will be celebrated in Jerusalem on Monday. 

But the entire Hebrew month of Adar is meant to have extra joy in our lives.
So these religious boys came singing and dancing in the middle of the the market, Shuk Machane Yehuda, a few days ago, to everyone's delight.

For more about the holiday please see my previous Purim posts.

Shabbat shalom and chag sameach! 
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The fig tree waits

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 In contrast to the wild almond trees that are currently full of white blossoms, the old fig tree stands, branches exposed.

Not even one fig leaf to cover its winter nakedness.

It has been growing next to our underground spring for who knows how long. 
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F is for flotilla

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For fun, enlarge the photo and guess what the flotilla is fashioned from.
(Yes, it's  ABC Wednesday F-Day.)

I saw this at the Israel Museum and found it fascinating.
Materials?  Ready? --
Fishing wire, dental floss, aluminum, and ram's horn!

Israeli Uri Nir, born in 1976, made these ships in 2000.
He calls them  Yom Kippur Flotilla.

Here is how the museum explains:

Ram's horns (shofars) make up the core of Yom Kippur Flotilla.  The shofar, symbolizing the ram that was sacrificed in place of Isaac, is blown on the Jewish Day of Atonement to evoke the Lord's mercy and forgiveness.
In the olden days, the sounding of the shofar would signal entry into war--and, indeed, the title of the work alludes to the Yom Kippur War that broke out in October 1973.
Nir's depiction of the fleet is reminiscent of naval battle scenes from European genre paintings of the 17th to the 19th centuries.
The curvature of the horns resembles the rolling waves, forming an intimate bond between a solid from the realm of terrestrial animals and the flow of the liquid sea.
Finally the shofar constitutes an ancient musical instrument whose sound is produced by blowing it.  Here the carved horns refer to a different type of wind: the marine wind blowing the ships to an unknown destination.
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Fleeting beauty

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I wish the white almond blossoms in our Jerusalem Hills would stay forever. 

You can enlarge the pictures with a click and then another click.
Only the fragrance I can't share with you.
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(For OurWorld Tuesday.)

Bound by the people of the book

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Which strikes your fancy more--the refined style of artistic leather binding or the back-to-nature earthy binding?

Both were displayed at last week's Jerusalem International Book Fair. 
On the tables of the oversized artistic books white gloves were available; on the other hand, the signs said "Do not touch." 
So I "touched" the gorgeous books only with my camera. 

The top photo is of books from the Jerusalem Leather Studio.
A short video on their website shows the artisans selecting ostrich skin or full-grain leather and then hand-tooling 22K gold.  
Fascinating!
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Terracotta under glass

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The window is reflected in the showcase and also on the glass floor.
In the display case are Roman roof tiles stamped LXFRE. 

The tiles and many other ceramic elements were manufactured here, under the floor of the Jerusalem convention center, in a Roman kiln, some 1,900 years ago. 
LXFRE  stands for Legio X Frentensis,  the famous Tenth Legion of the Roman Empire. 

The kilns were discovered I think in the 1950s, when the foundations were being dug for the huge Binyanei HaUma convention hall. 
Two of the kilns were left in situ and the building was built over them. 
Sometimes (rarely), the basement room is unlocked and you can go in and observe the antiquities up close instead of through glass. 
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See a Roman soldier's sandal print in one tile in an earlier post and in this one too.
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(Linking to Weekend Reflections and Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.)
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Paradise of books and trees

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In  winter season Israel's trees are either green (those who do not shed leaves) or they are bare (like the fig) or they have no leaves but are in glorious full blossom (like the almond is now).

 Many decorative cardboard trees mimicked Nature's situation at this week's 26th Jerusalem International Book Fair. 
It was pleasant to be browsing books beneath a variety of trees. 

Some bare trees even sprouted WORDS! 
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A crowded sky

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Our skies were grey this week.

As I waited for the tram on Jaffa Street, near the Central Bus Station, I looked up and realized that all those mechanical things above me did not even exist when I moved to the Jerusalem area in 2006.
Not the electric lines for the light rail (not even the tracks existed yet).
Not the huge cranes building a station deep underground (for a high speed Tel Aviv-Jerusalem railway that may never be finished).
Not the sloping mast of Calatrava's Bridge of Strings.

The city I have known these six years is in a perpetual state of construction. 

Here is the top of the bridge as seen from Binyanei HaUma, the convention center, where the International Book Fair is going on.
(A click, than another click, will enlarge it nicely.) 
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Happy SkyWatch Friday  and happy Valentine's Day!
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Two cupids fighting over a heart

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Two cupids fighting over a heart 

ca. 1780

Jean-Baptiste Pigalle,  French 1714-1785

Marble

Israel Museum

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Oi, is that heart about to be stomped on?!

Getting a head start on Valentine's Day, I'm hoping that all you blog-friends will get and give lots of love tomorrow and every other day.
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Ethiopian Jews at Jerusalem International Book Fair

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 There was some lively singing and Ethiopian shoulder-shaking dancing going on this afternoon at the Jerusalem International Book Fair!

The traditional Ethiopian music came before and after talks by young Rabbi Sharon Shalom, author of From Sinai to Ethiopia, and Shira Shatu, a Mandel Fellow writing her thesis on the aliyah of Ethiopian Jews to Israel.

The event was to honor the 20th anniversary of the Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews.
Refreshments were compliments of the Canadian Embassy.

I love the International Book Fair, held every two years!
You never know what you are going to discover there.
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(For ABC Wednesday, E is for Ethiopian Jews.)
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Shalom, Pope Benedict, thanks for your visit to Israel

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So! Pope Benedict XVI is leaving the Chair of Peter!

Here in my photo he is leaving the gold and red chair on stage after celebrating an outdoor  Mass in Jerusalem's Kidron Valley.
That was is 2009.
It took me five blog posts to show you all the interesting things from that once-in-a-lifetime happening.
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Tonight the Franciscan Media Center in Jerusalem released a very moving short video of the Pope's historic visit to Israel (and other places), together with his reading of his letter of resignation before the Cardinals.
In several versions of the video, his Latin is translated on screen:
 to English here and to Italian here,  while French is here.
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(Linked to Our World Tuesday.)

On Mount Tabor

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 From the top of Mount Tabor you can see in all four directions.
The fertile Jezreel Valley lies below. 

In Christian tradition Tabor is identified as the Mount of Transfiguration, on top of which Jesus was transfigured.
In Israel the Feast of the Transfiguration is celebrated in the summer, in August I think.
But for some (so I hear from Christian friends in the USA), today is the day.
So happy Transfiguration Sunday to those denominations which  mark it today. 
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(More about the holiday and Mt. Tabor in my earlier posts.)
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Here kitty-kitty

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 The cheetah and the child, face to face.
The fearless girl is my granddaughter, Libby.
At Jerusalem's wonderful Biblical Zoo, February 2012.

More about the cat:  http://www.jerusalemzoo.org.il/len/aecommerce/c1952/14025.php

(A post for today's Camera Critters meme.)
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Zoo doo

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"Ask me about composting at the Zoo" his sign says.
I think most of us would gladly ask this nice young man.

Hint: enlarge the photo. See anything funny?

This article about  the Green Team at Jerusalem's Biblical Zoo says
"We make our own organic compost by mixing organic matter (Zoo Doo) from our animals, mixed with plant material producing an excellent fertilizer, great for gardening."
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(Linking to Lesley's meme, Signs, signs.)
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Divan decorations, 8th century

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D is for decorations below the dome of the divan. 
Definitions:  a divan is a public audience room in Muslim cultures.
These reconstructed partridges and windows are from the 8th century bathhouse at Khirbet al-Mafjar in Jericho.
The site is also known as Hisham's Palace. 
You can enlarge the photo to enjoy them better.

The explanation at the Israel Museum, where they are displayed, says

Eighty partridges decorated the area below the dome of the divan (reception room) of the palace bathhouse, one of the palace's most spectacular rooms.
The room was embellished with mosaic floors and carved stucco (plaster), which covered most of the walls and the ceiling.
The choice of motifs reveals a strong Persian-Sassanian influence. 

(A post for ABC Wednesday D-Day and Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.)
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Happy Waitangi Day to New Zealand

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City Daily Photo bloggers are helping our New Zealand members celebrate their national day, Waitangi Day.
You can see what connections different bloggers have to New Zealand at the CDP portal. 
My own fondness for NZ is based on Middle-earth and Hobbits and such . . . .

 But Jerusalem's big link to New Zealand is, sadly, in the [British] Jerusalem War Cemetery on Mt. Scopus.
Every April I attend the ANZAC Day Commemoration Service there.

(The photos here can be much enlarged with two clicks.) 

The World War I Australian and New Zealand Army Corps soldiers were welcomed by the Jewish population as liberators in Jerusalem in 1917, having fought their way from Egypt, through the Sinai, Gaza,  Beersheva, up to Jerusalem.

The Memorial Chapel was erected by men of the Egyptian Expeditionary Forces "to the honoured memory of their comrades who fell in the Palestine Campaign 1914-1918.

Above the lintel quoting the Apocrapha Book of Maccabees, it says "The interior has been decorated by NEW ZEALAND in honour of the members of the NEW ZEALAND EXPEDITIONARY FORCE who took part in the operations in Sinai and Palestine 1916-1918."

"From the uttermost ends of the earth" -- yes, how true.
Represented are Hope, Humanity, Faith, and Patriotism.
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Happy Waitangi Day, Kiwi friends.
We thank your ancestors who died fighting here in the Holy Land.   May you never know war again.
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To learn more about ANZAC Day in Jerusalem and about the lovingly-tended big  cemetery of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission on Mt. Scopus, please see my posts here, here, here, and here.
Or click on my label ANZAC Day. 
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Two brothers now in one school

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A big day in our wide-spread family!
My grandson Eyal started kindergarten! 

Here he is, full of smiles,  with his big brother, Dean, on the right side making funny faces. 
How well I remember accompanying Dean to HIS first day there at Bondi Public School (in Sydney, Australia).
How the years fly by. 

Congratulations, Eyal.  May you enjoy school, learn a lot and teach a lot.
God bless you, dear grandson. 
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Snow followed by almond blossoms

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Those puffs of white and pink?   
Yes!--they are almond blossoms!
The trees on the mountain are starting to bloom.
Click once or twice on the photo and feast your eyes. 

And to think, just 25 days ago that same view across the valley looked like this.
Covered in snow. 

You can't help but love the Jerusalem Hills. 
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(A post for Our World Tuesday.)

Just go over!

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Today the blessed sun returned after our six straight days of rain.

The unusual heavy wetness  was too much for this ancient agricultural terrace wall, and the stones collapsed onto  a section of  green-and-white-marked hiking trail in our valley.

I prayed the heavy rocks would not start falling again as I was climbing over.

It reminded me that the Rebbe Maharash (of Chabad) had this saying:
"The whole world says, if you can't go under, go over.   
I say, forget going under, just go over!"
 
Meaning that often there is no time or energy or need for painstakingly working through a problem, so we should  jump to the most direct, simple, and powerful solution and just DO it.
Usually this is the most outrageous solution to the challenge, but that's OK. 

Just start by stepping right over it, as though there were no obstacle to begin with.

Maybe that’s why obstacles are there in the first place--so we will go higher. 

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A parrot near Ecce Homo

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A bird cage on the Via Dolorosa?
Enlarge the photo with a click or two and see the parrot's tongue.

 

Someone is giving him a hand--encouraging escape?

Jesus too was held in a cell right near this place.
The arch you see spanning the Way of the Cross is the Ecce Homo Arch.
In the Praetorium prison Roman procurator Pontius Pilate said the words "Ecce homo!"
John 19:5 reads "Then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, 'Behold the man!'"
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(A post for Camera Critters.)
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