Thoughts…

The Western (Wailing) Wall, an ancient limestone wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, the wall was originally erected as part of the expansion of the Second Jewish Temple begun by Herod the Great, which resulted in the encasement of the natural, steep hill known to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount. The Western Wall’s holiness in Judaism […]

As the Israel visit nears the end, more beautiful architecture and a stroll through the Armenian Quarter in the Old City, one of the four sectors of the walled Old City of Jerusalem. The Armenian presence in Jerusalem dates back to the 4th century AD, when Armenia adopted Christianity as a national religion and Armenian […]

Jerusalem’s Old City houses the site of The Last Supper, the final meal shared by Jesus and his disciples in an upper room in Jerusalem. The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and the early traditions of the church affirm that the Last Supper occurred on Passover. According to the biblical account, Jesus sent two disciples […]

Israeli National Museum Part 2: International model synagogue donations, including from India, with the beautiful art of my favorite holiday, Passover. Passover is a major Jewish holiday celebrating the Biblical story of the Israelite’s escape from slavery in Egypt.  It occurs on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, the first month of Aviv, […]

The Israeli National Museum (Part 1) is Jerusalem’s art and archaeological museum. It was established in 1965 as Israel’s largest and foremost cultural institution. Bringing us the illuminated Dead Sea Scrolls in the round, ancient manuscripts discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves near Khirbet Qumran, on the northwestern shores of the Dead Sea. Mentioned in Rabbinic […]

Jerusalem is a city in Western Asia. Situated on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, it is one of the oldest cities in the world and is considered to be a holy city for the three major Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Israelis and Palestinians claim Jerusalem […]

Thinking of and thanking our Veterans, not only in the U.S. but also our staunch allies in the Holy Land.   Where the late afternoon sun gives us a message over the Judea Desert, the site of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered in 1946/7 at the Qumran Caves in […]

Underneath the Wailing Wall in the Holy Land- actually a continuation of the same, the original version brilliantly excavated! Some of the largest rocks weigh several tons! The Western Wall, known in the West as the Wailing Wall and in Islam as the Buraq Wall, is an ancient limestone wall in the Old City of […]