Coming to Israel from Egypt felt like the promised land in many ways. First, we waited a long time to come. Then temperatures in Israel were 20-30 degrees cooler. And we could eat fresh fruit and vegetables and drink tap water, all of which we had avoided in Egypt.
We started our day Friday by driving to Beit Lehi, an archaeological site about an hour's drive southwest of Jerusalem. We drove to the site and then transferred to an old military bus when the road got rough.
The back seat of this bus was less posh than our regular bus.
At the site we listened to an archaeologist explain a little of the history of the location. Archaeologists were uncovering the remains of a village that dates back to 800 BC. The earliest settlers were displaced by the Babylonian conquest. Then pagan Idumeans occupied the land until they converted to Judaism through the Hasmoneans. Herod the Great is the most famous Idumean/Hasmonean. Christians built a community in 300 AD which lasted until they were overrun by Muslins in the 800s AD. The Muslim village was abandoned by the 1400s, leaving a hillside composed of layers of history. Readers of the Book of Mormon might get excited by the name Lehi, but Lehi is a perfectly ordinary Hebrew word that means "jawbone."
This is a photo of the archaeologist who led the tour accompanied by his young son.
We visited a couple of underground buildings. Nearly all of Israel is composed of a soft kind of limestone which is relatively easy to dig in and carve.
The first place was an underground olive press. People built underground to save space on the surface. If you wanted to expand your business, you could dig underground your house instead of buying more land to expand on the surface. The niches in this photo were used to squeeze oil out of the olives. A millstone would fit in the bowl, weight would be applied to the press and the oil would flow out the notch cut out in the front of the press.
Next we visited the columbarium, also called a dovecot.
There was space for hundreds of pigeons in this room. Early settlers farmed pigeons for meat, fertilizer and temple sacrfiices. The temperature in the underground rooms was lovely year round.
The third building we saw was the remains of a Byzantine Church, built in the 500s AD. Most of the church has fallen down, but the rich mosaic floor remains.
Here's another portion of the floor. As the Muslim invaders advanced in the 800s, the inhabitants of the church heard that the Muslims would destroy any depiction of humans or animals. Someone rearranged the tiles to save the church, resulting in abstract patterns in vaguely recognizable animal shapes like these.
A few human depictions survived like this face. It's possible this portion of the floor was hidden under a rug.
The hills surrounding Beit Lehi were covered in wildflowers.
Jesus could have been talking about these red flowers when he said, "Consider the lilies of the field" or he could have been referring to all kinds of wildflowers blooming together.
From Beit Lehi we drove to the Valley of Elah, the place where David fought Goliath. The Israelites would have camped along the hilltop and Goliath would have come into the valley every day to challenge them. The dry bed of the creek where David chose 5 smooth stones runs along the base of the hill. The creek bed has been picked clean of all smooth stones by tourists wanting a souvenir of the site. This site is the real deal.
The valley is a wheat field today, although we found weeds growing alongside the wheat. Perhaps tares?
Our next stop was Old Jerusalem. Our buses parked outside the city wall and we walked through the narrow streets.
We visited the Upper Room where Jesus held the Last Supper. This is a traditional, not historical site. The room was rebuilt by the Crusaders in the 1100s and is quite lovely and simple.
This is a courtyard outside the Upper Room.
Next we walked a short distance to a spot identified as the former location of Caiaphus' palace. We had lessons at each of the Biblical sites we visited on Friday: the Valley of Elah, the Upper Room and this location which is now called Saint Peter in Galli Cantu. This unusual mix of English and Latin refers to the spot where Peter denied Christ three times before the cock crowed.
Here's a statue depicting Peter, the three people he talked to and the inscription " Non novi illum" which means "I don't know him."
A church was built on this spot in the 1930s on top of the remains of other churches and presumably Caiaphus' palace. The interior is decorated with beautiful tilework.
Some of our tour members found giant millipedes climbing on the walls of the church.
After visiting the church, our tour guides were finished for the day. This was unusual for our tour to finish before dinner time or even later, but starting a day early had given them a head start on the sites they wanted to show us. Most of the people in the tour were eager to go back to the hotel and rest, but a few of us were interested in visiting the Western Wall before the Jewish Sabbath began at sundown. The buses dropped us off at Jaffa Gate. We planned to visit the Western Wall and then walk back to the hotel. Brandan, Becky, Helen and Emma all got dropped off while Sofi and Gibson went back to the hotel. This is a photo of Brandan at the Jaffa gate.
Our route to the Western Wall took us past the Muslim quarter which was full of shops lining the narrow streets.
The Western Wall is the holiest site in the world to Jews. The temple was completely destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, but the retaining wall that surrounded the Temple Mount remains. The temple was closer to the Western Wall than the other retaining walls so this is as close as many Jews will ever get to the temple. Couldn't they go up on top of the Temple Mount and get closer? Yes, but it's controversial. Some rabbis say Jews should not go up on the mount since they might accidentally step in the place that used to be the holy of holies, where only the high priest was allowed to enter. Some Muslims think it's a provocation for Jews to walk on the Temple Mount since it is home to the Dome of the Rock, the 3rd holiest site for Muslims. So Jews who play it safe will only come to the wall to pray. The wall is divided into separate sections for men and women. The men's side is larger, with tables and chairs and Torahs for studying. We learned later that women weren't even allowed to pray at the wall until 2002 and even now they are supposed to pray silently. The Western Wall gets its nickname, the Wailing Wall from the men who weep loudly as they pray at the wall.
Becky, Helen and Emma met up with Brandan after visiting the wall. When Brandan learned that some of the women in our group, including Becky, had written prayers to place in the cracks of the wall, he also wanted to leave a prayer. Helen and Emma returned to the hotel with our tour group while Becky waited for Brandan. Becky had to wait outside the men's area and took this photo of Brandan writing his prayer. Men must cover their heads near the wall and Brandan borrowed one of the skull caps the site provides for visitors.
Twice a year the Rabbi of the Western Wall supervises a team who clears out all the prayers from the wall and buries them in a Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives. Millions of people visit the wall every year and even with regular clean outs, it is usually hard to find a spot to squeeze in another slip of paper. Another sign of covid was it was very easy to leave a prayer in the wall. This is a photo of Brandan with his prayer folded up.
We now had to find our way back to the hotel by ourselves. It was straightforward to go back to the Jaffa Gate and leave the Old City. From there we just needed to follow the train tracks back to the hotel. We found this cute "I heart Jerusalem" sign outside the Jaffa Gate.
Although the Sabbath starts at sundown, shops start closing in early afternoon and the streets were empty long before the sun went down. Trains and buses stopped service as well. We felt like we were walking alone in a town of over 800,000 people. Sometime after 6 pm, a long, loud sound of a horn blowing sounded over loudspeakers, announcing the arrival of the Sabbath. We walked for about an hour looking for our hotel that should have been a short walk away. We finally stopped a dad who was walking his daughter in a stroller and asked for help. He checked his phone for directions and we learned we had been following the train tracks in the wrong direction. He recommended we get a taxi (taxis run on the Sabbath) to get back in a timely manner. We were enjoying being out and about in Jerusalem so we decided to retrace our steps and try again.
As we walked past the Old City on our way back, the sound of bagpipes playing traditional Scottish music drew us in. We followed the sound and found a group of Palestinian youth practicing in a bagpipe marching band. We asked some girls what the practice was for, and while their English was much, much better than our Arabic, they couldn't tell us. We were left with an improbable and unexplainable experience of listening to bagpipes in Old Jerusalem.
As promised, our hotel was only a short walk from the Old City if you headed the right direction! By now it was beginning to get dark and we were glad to find the cross street our hotel was on.
Here is our hotel. We were happy to make it back and happy for our adventures exploring Jerusalem on our own.
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