Tuesday 23 December 2014 Bethlehem clothes distribution with PCRF, Eran, and Tawfic

 



We invited Gaye Strathern and her company to come with us tp Mahane Yehuda market.  We got there about 9 a.m. and the delivery trucks were in the streets making their morning deliveries.  Becky is a food specialist and loved all the different kinds of foods.

 



Becky, Gaye,  Linda, Sharee, and Dorie at the shouk.



That afternoon, Eran, Tawfic, Blaine and I went to a Christmas party at a hospital in Bethlehem.  LDS Charities had purchased winter clothing for the children in the hospital.  We took it to an oncology ward for children that was established by Steve Sosoby (Palestine Childrens Relief Fund) in memory of his wife who died from cancer.

 

Tawfic Alawi, Linda, and Eran Hayet

We helped pass out the presents.

 

There was singing, dancing, and balloons.

 

The children were all so sweet.

 

Steve Sosoee is in the maroon shirt

 

The moms were there with their children.

The children were all masked so as not to get any germs.

 

Tawfic, Eran, Steve Sosobee and Linda

 

Later, Gaye Strathern and her company and Linda went to Michael's for falafels in the Old City.  One of the sisters that run the restaurant is sitting with us.  They make fresh falafels while we wait.

Monday 22 December 2014 Crash Corner IDF and Monastery with Yael

 



Blaine walked over to the Mt. of Olives Pharmacy which is east and south of the JC.  Some of the homes in the area have horses so it is not uncommon to see someone galloping down the street.

Today the security was heavy at what we affectionately call Crash Corner.  It is a busy intersection with no stop signs or light and lots of traffic.



To put this into perspective, the soldiers are as young as 18 and carry uzis.



The police cars are prepared for rock throwing.



Blaine doing a selfie with Crash Corner behind.
 

Later we met Yael Cohen, a friend from the concerts.  She took classes at BYU in linguistics and has a lot of Mormon friends, including Chris Kirschbaum and Anne  Madsen.  She is pointing to her grandfather in a painting of the dedication of Hebrew University in the 1925. 



The painting is down the hall from the book store on the third floor.

 

The back side of Hebrew University looks out over Issawiya, a Palestinian area that has grown a lot in recent years and is an area of unrest. It is off limits to Jerusalem Center faculty and volunteers.



Yael then took us to a Christmas Mass at a monastery in South Jerusalem near Talpiyot.  She teaches the nuns Hebrew.  The mass honored one of the nuns who was making her vows.  They live at the Monastery for 3 years.  If they pass this trial run, they make more vows including never to leave the monastery again.  They are cloistered.



There was a partition separating the nuns from the Franciscan Monks during the mass.

 

After Mass, the nun that had taken vows greeted her friends in another room.



Yael visited the nuns she works with and introduced us to them.



They were delightful, happy, and very animated.  It added to my love for them.



After mass we went to Kari and CJ Baltz for a Christmas party.  The American food was delicious.



CJ Baltz works for the State Department.  They live near the Teddy Kolleck Stadium.



The kids acted out the Nativity.

 

Sunday 21 December 2014 Ophir Yarden, Maher El Haltah, Good Samaritan National Park, Sunset, concert at St. Anne's

 

 Ophir Yarden's class on Jewish history with the Jordan students. Students who study Arabic with BYU in Amman live at the Jerusalem Center for a week before they return to the United States

That afternoon, Blaine and I went Home Teaching to Maher Haltah in Jericho. 

His wife, Amahl, son Fatie, Linda, and Maher.  They live in a beautiful home they built 3 years ago.  The inside as well as the outside are lovely and well kept.

Maher has a lot of fruit trees in his yard.  This one is a pumello tree which is like a big grapefruit with a thick skin.  He also has orange and lemon trees.  Maher and Amal sent us home with fresh basil, lemons, and roses, all from their garden. 


The lemons and roses in our apartment.



 On the way home we stopped at the Good Samaritan National Park.  It is just off Highway #1, the main road between Jerusalem and Jericho. The park is a museum of mosaics from the Byzantine period, many from Roman Fortresses. They were beautiful and well preserved.

 



Coming home to the Jerusalem Center

 

there was a beautiful sunset.

 

In the evening we went to a concert at St. Anne's Church inside Lion's Gate.  The  Pools of Bethesada are there behind the church.  This is the south east corner of the pools.

 

The music was from the opera King Arthur by Purcell. Gaye Strathern and friends,  Ron Anderson and friends, and Blaine and I attended the concert. 

 

Saturday 20 December 2014 Bethlehem

 

We had church in the morning at the Jerusalem Center.  We invited the Chadwicks and 2 Hebrew University students for lunch - Tamara ? and Alyssa Beck.  We went to Bethlehem that afternoon.  This is part of the border crossing from Jerusalem into Bethlehem.

 

Dima, Martina, and Saliba came to church.  It was just their family, Mohammad, Odeh, Yara, Nadeem, Blaine and me in attendance.  Our attendance ranges from 4-12 people.

 

Leaving Bethlehem, Blaine took a picture of the Christmas decorations in front of a military compound.  IDF immediately came out and asked him what he had just taken a picture of.  He explained, but they still insisted on seeing his camera.  They said it was for security purposes. 



Thursdy - Friday 18-19 December 2014 Lifta and Mea Shearim with Jordan students

Blaine or I went with the BYU Jordan students who are staying at the Jerusalem Center for a week.  I went with them on Thursday and Blaine Friday while the other stayed at the center to give tours.  I went on a tour of Silwan/ City of David settlements.  This area is Palestinian but over the years, the Jewish people have taken control of the City of David for archeological reasons and have bought  property in Silwan.  It is often through a 3rd party and there are 2 points of view how this has been accomplished.  Our tour guide was an American Jew who is sympathetic to the Palestinian point of view.  He showed us a home just inside the City of David that is still occupied by a Palestinian family and other homes that were once Palestinian.  Our guide pointed out homes in Silwan with Israeli flags that have been purchased by Jewish settlement groups.  The guide is involved with the Wadi Hilweh Information Center that is about 3 buildings south of the City of David entrance. To quote, "Since the occupation of Jerusalem, the valley has transformed into an excavation site for artifacts as tunnels have eaten away at the foundations of its homes and streets.  Settlements have spread through-out the valley as has violence and hostility towards its residents while hundreds of buildings are threatened with demolition under the pretext of lacking permits."  That afternoon we went into the Old City where we met a Jewish woman that identifies herself to the settlement cause.  She gave a completely different perspective of the settlement homes in Palestinian areas of the Old City. Her logic was rational as well.  The old adage, it doesn't matter how thin the pancake is, there is still two sides, is still true. It was an interesting day hearing two Jewish people with such opposing views.  It was a last minute decision to go with the Jordan students and I didn't even have time to grab the camera. On Friday, Blaine went on a tour of Lifta and Mea Shearim.

 

This is the remaining village of Lifta. According to our Palestinian guide, the Palestinian village of Lifta, before the 1948 war, was about 12,000 times the physical size of Jerusalem.  This is where the houses in the main village were located. Most of the area, which stretched to French Hill and the current police headquarters building, was agricultural land.  You can tell a Palestinian village was here because they often used cactus for the fence.

A few of the houses are occupied by Israeli settlers.  After the 1948 war, the Israeli government passed the Absentee Property Laws which allowed the government to claim the Palestinian property. It prohibited the previous Palestinian owners from returning to claim it.  Our guide said his father returned several times during the war to check on his property.  He kept his key, expecting to return

after the ward ended. Even though he still has a legal deed to his property, he could not and cannot claim it under Israeli law. The home in this picture is occupied by an Israeli. Our guide said if he tried to occupy his father's home, the Israeli police would escort him off the property within a few hours.

This is the entrance to one of the Israeli occupied homes in Lifta.

These are the remains of some of the homes.

The government is building a train bridge across the Lifta valley which will run through this tunnel to the Central Bus Station

This is another Lifta home occupied by an Israeli.

 

Gil Parkinson put a map of Mea Shearim on the screen for the students to put on their phones so they wouldn't get lost in the neighborhood. 

I walked through Mea Shearim with the Jordan students. I walked with 2 of the professors, Quinn and Josh. This is a sign in Mea Shearim asking for our cooperation to respect the residents.  We broke into small groups of 3, separated by several minutes, to try to comply with this request.

Josh said the posters on the wall are notices of someone's death in the community, like an newspaper obituary but posted on the street.

Before we left the Jerusalem Center in the morning, Dil Parkinson asked the students to dress modestly.  Dil is the director of the Jordan intensive Arabic program.

We stopped at the overlook by Seven Arches Hotel.  This workers were doing something in the Jewish cemetery - it looked like they were either repairing an old or preparing a new burial place.