In Jerusalem: Tuesday and Wednesday ... by Hannah

On Tuesday June 14th, we slept in later than usual, and left the house around 10 or 11am. We took the bus to the main station with Cathrin and Yunis, and then separated, since Tommy and I had a meeting with someone. We tried to take the bus to the Ben Yehuda street area, but after sitting in traffic for quite awhile ... and realizing that we were running late anyway ... we decided to get out and walk! We passed dozens of buses :)

This is near the Mahane Yehuda area - the Jerusalem shuk

So many people were getting on and off the buses ... most (or at least a lot) of the buses go through this area ... and they all stop about every quarter mile :)  That may be an exaggeration, but not much!

We finally reached office of Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum, who we were meeting with. Reb Avraham has an organization called Azamra. This website "is dedicated to global outreach to people of all backgrounds and beliefs through Internet, quality publications and educational programs promoting the study and practice of Torah, healthy lifestyle, environmental responsibility and the pursuit of peace."

We met Reb Avraham at the Prayer and Action for Israel event, hosted by PJTN at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention. My father and most of us children volunteered at this event at Opryland in Nashville this past February. Reb Avraham approached my father with some questions about what we believed and my father shared how we believe in Yeshua as the Messiah and observe the Torah and have a love for the people and land of Israel. We children were very privileged when Reb Avraham blessed each of us ... such beautiful blessings they were!

When Tommy and I were preparing to go to Israel, Reb Avraham invited us to go and visit him while we were in Jerusalem. We accepted the invitation and spent a wonderful couple of hours in discussion ... getting to know each other better and sharing what was on our hearts. Reb Avraham shared that he knows of people across the world (through his organization) that were not raised Jewish, but whose hearts are being turned to the Torah and the land of Israel and they believe they are a part of Israel.

After leaving his office, we walked to the old city and met up with Cathrin and Yunis. We made our way to the City of David area where we were able to visit Hezekiah's Tunnel! I will share pictures of that later.

As we were walking in that area, the call for prayers began in all of the surrounding mosques ... and there are a lot of them. It is such an eerie sound.

These pictures were taken from the west side of the Kidron Valley, looking at the Arab villages on the east side of the valley. 

I'm not sure if this is considered Silwan or Ras El-Amud.

The Kidron Valley

A horse in Jerusalem!

You can see the cemetery on the Mount of Olives in the left side of the photo.

On Tuesday evening, we joined Avi and Dina's tour group at the Grand Court Hotel to listen to Bruce Brill and his son Oren play some "Jewgrass" music. Below is one of the videos that we took.





After the concert was over, we got a taxi with Avi and Dina and went back to their house. It was pretty late by the time we went to bed!

The following morning (Wednesday, the 15th) we took a bus back into the city and went to the Israel Museum. This was another place that we had not visited during our family's stay in Israel.

This is the Supreme Court building - we walked past it to get to the museum.

This is the Knesset - Israel's parliament building. It is also near the museum.

Tommy and Yunis in front of the Knesset.

We took quite a few pictures at the museum, but we will publish them on a different post. After leaving the museum around noon, we went to the old city and did some shopping. We also took the Western Wall tour, which we had done as a family but Cathrin had not seen it. Once again, there are quite a few pictures, so we will post those separately.

In the evening, we went to see the Yemin Moshe neighborhood area and the Montefiore windmill. Our family has a historical fiction book series called Promise Of Zion by Robert Elmer and we have read them through several times. They are written for a fairly young audience (maybe 8-14) but are very good and we all enjoyed them. Anyway, part of the story took place in this area and we wanted to see it.

It is such a beautiful peaceful area.

The western view of the old city.

The old city again ... across the Hinnom Valley.

The Montefiore Windmill!

The roof of a building near the windmill plaza.

I don't know that you can see it in this picture, but the border fence is behind Tommy off in the distance. He was intentionally showing the orange flagging on his backpack (orange is the color of the settlers who believe that all of Israel should belong to Israel. Makes sense, huh?!)

I had orange flagging on my backpack too :)

That night was the first night of big light show in Jerusalem. We had seen people setting up all types of exhibits throughout the old city area and wanted to see what it looked like once the lights were on. Since we had a little time to kill, we decided to try and find Succat Hallel - a 24/7 prayer house. Abba had visited it when he was in Jerusalem by himself, but we had never been there. We knew it was in the basement of the Mount Zion hotel, and thought it would be fairly easy to find.

A beautiful moon!

The Hinnom Valley with the old city in the background.

The trolley car ... this was another part of the story in Promise of Zion. Can you imagine riding across the valley in this thing?!

The line for the trolley car.

We walked around the Mount Zion hotel a little bit, trying to find the prayer house! I ended up calling Abba back here in the States to ask him where it was :)  He was at work and when he answered his phone I said, "Umm ... we're at the Mount Zion hotel, trying to find Succat Hallel. Can you tell us where it is?!"

He began explaining how to get there, while at the same time Cathrin went and asked someone in the hotel. Eventually, we went through a gate and walked down some steps to the front part of the hotel, and there was the entrance!

We went in and there was a man playing a guitar. He had two children with him and there were one or two other people in the room. It felt like we were walking into an oasis after traveling through a desert! There was a grand piano there and I wondered if I ought to start playing it. I was debating it in my mind when Tommy walked over to me and said, "You ought to go play that piano!"

I hemmed and hawed a little and then he said, "Just go do it. You know you want to!"

I did want to, so I went up and starting playing along with the man on the guitar (we later found out his name is Adam). Tommy checked out the electric bass that was there, but it wasn't working so he started banging on a bongo drum instead :)  We had such a nice time of praise and worship and stayed much longer than we expected to.

It was about nine o'clock when we left and started walking back toward the Jaffa gate area. It was so crowded from everyone wanting to see the lights and it was getting late, so we decided to just catch a bus and go back to Avi and Dina's.

While we waited for the bus, we saw that there was a lunar eclipse and took a few pictures.

When the bus that we needed to take to central station came along, it was jam-packed! The bus driver started to stop, but must have decided it was too full to take any more passengers and started to drive on again. Some of the other people that were also waiting for that bus ran out in front of it so that the driver couldn't go anywhere! Others started banging on the doors and windows. Finally he opened up and we squeezed in. It was TIGHT! Kinda reminded us of the pictures you see of Japanese commuter trains :)

When we got back to the central station, we took a few more pictures of the moon which was nearly dark by that point.

The bus ride back to Mevaseret Zion was uneventful. Tommy went for a walk after we got back to the house and took a few more pictures of the moon coming out of the eclipse (if that's the right terminology!)

The name of the street where we stayed!

Those were the last pictures from that night in Jerusalem. We have a couple more posts with the Hezekiah's Tunnel and Israel museum pictures, as well as the Western Wall tour and old city photos. I'm going to see if Tommy will take care of at least one of those posts :)