Farewell Jerusalem

View of Old City Jerusalem from the Mt. of Olives.

After two and a half weeks, we’re departing Jerusalem for Amman this morning.  Although we were getting restless last week, over the last couple of days many group members have expressed their fondness for the city and their desire to stay longer.  A part of that feeling due to the generosity and kindness of the staff at the Legacy Hotel – it was an invaluable place of escape and comfort at the end of our long days in the city.

Today, on our trip to Amman, we’ll stop at the ancient Greco-Roman ruins in Jerash after we cross the checkpoints at the King Hussein Bridge.

More Jerusalem photos:

Olive grove in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jerusalem at night.

Above the market just inside Damascus Gate.

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Ramallah

The central square in Ramallah.

Last week the group spent three days in Ramallah to visit Birzeit University, the Ramallah Friends School, the Ramallah Friends Meetinghouse, and to meet with Earlham alumni living in Ramallah.   Thanks to Charmaine Seitz (a local journalist and Earlham Alum) who organized and coordinated many of our activities in Ramallah.  Charmaine helped to start bitter lemons and currently blogs here.

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Day Trip: Masada, Qumran, and Jericho

On Saturday we traveled along the Dead Sea to sites at Masada and Qumran, and ended our long day with a quick drive through Jericho.

The Dead Sea and the mountains of the Jordan Rift Valley.

We spent most of the day at Masada, where a Roman siege suppressed a Jewish rebel group in 66 CE.  The ancient fortress – originally built by King Herod – is set on a large, flat mountaintop.  Despite it’s modern discovery nearly a century earlier, the site at Masada wasn’t excavated until 1963 – however, the excavation was made easier by the accounts of Josephus, who documented the stories of the only two women to survive the siege.  In lieu of Roman defeat, the rebel group decided to kill themselves, and the two women, along with five of their children, managed to hide in a cistern until they were discovered by the Romans.

The cable car we took up to the mountaintop settlement. To the right of the car is one of four Roman camps established for the siege.

Storage rooms in the first palace, originally constructed by King Herod in 32 BCE.

An early sauna, of sorts, where Roman soldiers would relax after working out and bossing around slaves.

After an extensive tour of Masada, we traveled to Qumran – where Bedouins discovered the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947.  To date, nearly 900 scrolls (in three languages) have been found in a series of caves outside the settlement of the Essenes – a Jewish sect group – at Qumran.  The scrolls can currently be seen at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

The caves of Qumran

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Our first encounter with checkpoints

The separation wall near a check point just outside of Jerusalem.

After a wonderful day in Ramallah (more on that later), we experienced our first checkpoint delay on our way back to Jerusalem.  A drive that took 20 minutes from Jerusalem to Ramallah neared two hours on our return from Ramallah to Jerusalem.

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Journey to Yad Vashem

On Sunday a group of us set out to visit Yad Vashem (The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Memorial) – and to get to the memorial, we decided to walk across the central part of the city from our hotel just north of the Old City in East Jerusalem all of the way to the western edge of Jerusalem – we estimated it would take us an hour and a half to make our one way trip.  Two hours later we found ourselves here:

Not lost, but not in the right place.

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Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock

This morning we woke up early to receive a tour of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in the Haram al-Sharif of Old City Jerusalem.  Al-Aqsa is considered the third holiest Islamic site – Muslims believe that Muhammad traveled from Mecca to Al-Aqsa on the Night Journey in 621.  The Dome of the Rock is built around the Foundation Stone in 691, and is the oldest remaining Islamic building in the world.

Dome of the Rock

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First Day in Jerusalem

Here are a few photos from our first day in Jerusalem, which included our first foray into the Old City.

The Damascus Gate - Our Entrance to the Old City

A street in the Old City lined with shops. This one was relatively tourist-free.

Mosaic from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where some Christians believe Jesus was crucified and resurrected.

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