PIZZA!!!!!!!!

So... today we went into the Old City to self indulge. It was my idea... I just really wanted some PIZZA. You may think this is a weird craving. And... "in theory" [camila always says that] it is. But truly, we eat lots of meat [sometimes unidentifiable stuff], potatoes and rice. Every meal there is potatoes and rice. Doesn't this sound a little like Wisconsin? I just needed a little break.

Juan, me, Heather, Camila

We thought to go to this place because on our first tour of the Old City [when we were brand new to this place] the owner came out and "Mormons, beautiful Mormons! Eat Pizza Here! This is where Jesus ate his first Pizza!"[haha the propaganda here is priceless] So... we tried it out, it was SO good. Of course the shop owner gave us the student discount and a frozen lemonade with mint leaves in it... mmmm... so GOOD!

MJ with her pizza and lemonade

On our way home we stopped by the shuk... mmmm... look at how amazing this bread is! It's everywhere, just stacked up like this. 

Best part of today? We rode the bus home! It was SO hot, so we bought 5 shekel bus tickets and didn't have to climb up the Mt. of Olives again! :) worth it. 

Valley of Elah

Early Morning

Camila, Steph, me

This morning we left the Jerusalem Center on foot at 4:30am to go to the Western Wall to observe the Jewish Celebration of Shavuot. It is the Jewish holiday that commemorates the anniversary of the day that God gave the Torah to the entire nation of Israel who were assembled at Mount Sinai. Jews stay up all night reading the Torah.

Shavuot is directly related to Passover... as Wikipedia says, "On Passover, the people of Israel were freed from their enslavement to Pharaoh; on Shavuot they were given the Torah and became a nation committed to serving God." Our professor told us to go to the wall and see the celebration... rumor had it at sunrise there would be singing/wailing/shouting to celebrate that the passover "passed".

When we got to the wall there were thousands of people there reading the Torah. They were near the wall, underneath on the men's side reading the Torah, in the big space on the other side of the partition, on balconies overlooking the wall... everywhere. We waited until about 6am... nothing happened. We asked a Jewish girl what was going to happen and she said, "Now we go home and eat and sleep!" hahaha

Needless to say we were a little angry that we got up so early, because NOTHING was going on! :) thus... the faces.

It was really great to see so many people there, though. I love the Jewish culture.

Israel Museum & Zuni's

One of the assignments for our Ancient Near Eastern Studies class is to visit the Israel Museum and see a four page checklist worth of artifacts. I was thinking it was going to be a dreadful assignment, but we made a day of it and it was really, really fun. The Israel Museum is cool, it's organized perfectly.

We saw a large, to scale, model of Jerusalem during the second temple period, the Dead Sea scrolls, a piece of one of the Lachish letters, swords, silver hoards that would have been used for buying and selling during the time of Lehi, in-scripted stones from the time of David, artifacts from the time of Herod and Christ, stone altars with four horns... etc.

We then moved on and saw more European, contemporary and modern things: Rembrandt, Monet, Van Gogh and Pollock and Warhol and many many others.

I liked both. It was refreshing to see these paintings after looking at artifact after artifact. BUT... I tried to soak it all in and realize how AmAzing it is to lay eyes on everything I was looking at. Seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls was definitely a highlight. We already plan to come back when we've learned about a lot more of things we saw.

When we had exhausted ourselves, and of course... taken a photo on the Hebrew LOVE statue in the Art Garden...

We headed to ZUNI'S in West J-ru for a CHEESEBURGER! In Turkey, Bro. Harper told us that it was the best place... the Ludlow's had also mentioned it. After eating the food that made me feel so miserable in Turkey, a cheeseburger was on the top of my list. It was SO good! It was worth all twenty dollars. Made my day, it's amazing what a little taste of home can do to satisfy a person!

Church of Mary Magdalene

Isn't this place beautiful? It is only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays for a small window of time so we rushed to get there after class. You can see this church from almost anywhere in the Kidron Valley or on the Mt. of Olives... where we live. :) [I sometimes call it the Aladin Church, it looks like the castle!]

This is what Wikipedia has to say about it...

"The Church of Mary Magdalene is a Russian Orthodox church located on the Mount of Olives, near the Garden of Gethsemane in East Jerusalem.The church was built in 1886 by Tsar Alexander III to honor his mother, Empress Maria Alexandrovna of Russia. It was constructed to David Grimm's design in the traditional tented roof style popular in 16th and 17th century Russia, and includes seven distinctive, gilded onion domes. The convent is located directly across the Kidron Valley from the Temple Mount."

We stopped for [3 shekel] mini magnum bars on the way home and Camila & Mary also got their "Coca Colas" ... which were a PERFECT compliment to our pizza lunch, which is the best lunch we have here at the JC! Today was a good day.

Arab Culture Night

QUICK LESSON:

The adhan is the Islamic call to prayer which happens 5 times a day. It is recited by the muezzin [a chosen person at the mosque who leads the call to prayer] and projected through minarets all over the city. A minaret is often seen as a symbol of Islam and adorn most mosques. They’re tall and pointy with speakers in them… the Blue Mosque in Turkey has 6.

A part of our Arab Culture Night included a visit from 2 of the muezzin, a father and son,  from the Al-Aqsa Mosque or the Haram al-Sharif as the Muslims call it.  The mosque sits on the temple mount along with the Dome of the Rock. Muslims consider this the third most holy place in the world to Medina[Saudi Arabia], the second holiest place and Mecca [Saudi Arabia], the holiest city in the religion of Islam. It's considered very prestigious to call for prayer at the temple mount.

These men were pretty amazing. They have the entire Qur’an memorized and can recite it beginning anywhere in the text. The son, who is probably in his 30’s now, had it memorized when he was really young. They recite the Qur’an in the mosques at certain times or whenever asked to. They “sing” it by our standard… but don’t like it to be called singing, they recite it. Singing the Koran is not allowed. Today when we went to the temple mount I heard a man reciting the Qur’an to a group of men that were surrounding him in chairs under a shady tree outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The muezzin have trained their voices and recite the Koran very beautifully and can kind of make it their own [pausing and emphasizing where they choose]. They do the same with the call to prayer, they don’t ever really recite it the same way twice. I am very familiar with the call because I used to hear it ALL FIVE times a day… including waking up to it at 4:30 am. Now I can sleep through it, usually. Some muezzin are better than others, this I can testify of! Sometimes it sounds like killing cats! Haha However, most of  the time the minarets around here project beautiful sound.

This is a translation of the Call to Prayer:

4X God is Greatest

2X I bear witness that there is no God except the One God

2X I bear witness that Muhammed is God’s Messenger

2X Come to Salat (prayer, worship)

2X Come to Success

2X Salat is better than sleep [only said for the first prayers of the day @ dawn]

2X God is greatest

1X There is no god except the One God

It was really interesting. I asked why, if the call is so short, are there sometimes really long pauses and sometimes the call stretches for a whole hour. [this used to REALLY bug me] He said because it’s beautiful! Why rush it?

What I really want to know is… Is every minaret connected to a mosque? Or are some minarets free standing and just broadcast the call from elsewhere? If you know the answer… tell me.

The rest of the night included an elaborate, traditional Arabic dinner prepared by our chef Achmed in the very well decorated Oasis… lots of photo taking … and learning a traditional Arabic dance by some local high school students [which actually turned in to a big dance party by DJ AJ, we’re good at those!]. It was a really fun night. The shop keeper, Shabon, in the Old City let me borrow this traditional dress too. Great night.