July 2nd, 2014
Our next mini road trip in Israel was to the Dead Sea. En route we first stopped at the tank museum in
Latrun. Latrun is a strategic
hill on the road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem which saw fierce fighting
during the 1948 war after which it was occupied by Jordan until Israel
reclaimed it in the 6 day war of 1967. The
museum boasts one of the most diverse collection of tanks and it was hard to
argue with that with more than 100 of them on display around an old police
fortress built by the British. I’m a bit
of a war buff and enjoyed checking out all of the armoured vehicles but even I
have to admit that I got a bit “tanked out” by the end, so I can just imagine
how poor Naomi was feeling as she had stopped here just for me, what a sweetie.
I just had to get a pic with the teenage woman with a machine gun at the entrance to the museum...what guy wouldn't?!?
The start of the tanks...
A classic American:
Okay, seen one tank, you've seen them all...
Battle stations!
They just keep going and going...
One of these things is not like the others:
Tanks for the memories;
Naomi had booked us on a free tour of Old Jerusalem at noon
and some bad traffic on the way got us a bit stressed about making it there on
time but luckily we did arrive with ten minutes to spare. The two hour tour just gave us a taste of the
Old City but didn’t even include going to Western Wall, a sacred site for Jews,
the Dome of the Rock, important for Muslims, and to finish the religious trifecta
of sacred sites: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for the Christians. While we were up on a roof top peering over
to the Mount of Olives which is the site of a large Jewish cemetery but also is
important to Christians as the Bible mentions some key events in Jesus’ life
occurred there, the mosques kicked off with the chanting signalling one of the
five prayer times of the day. It was
interesting to be in the centre of an area where three major religions
co-exist, at least at the present.
Just into Old Jerusalem:
The Christian Quarter:
Knuffle Bunny with the Dome of the Rock in the background:
My turn:
In the market:
The mosques going off:
After the tour a young man from New York joined Naomi and me
and we backtracked through the labyrinth of narrow streets and pathways to the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre. As the
name suggests, it’s the supposed burial spot of Jesus Christ and also where he
was crucified. The interior was rather dark
and dismal and not a place that inspired hope and happiness. I was raised a Christian but am now atheist
and visiting a church like this just confirms and cements my decision. I find religion, all religions, strange.
Why do we humans feel that there needs to be a higher power
out there? Why, of all the species of
life on this Earth do we think that we’re the special ones? When I was a kid, like most kids in the
Western world, I was led to believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the
Easter Bunny. By whom? Well by the people I trusted most, my
parents. I later learned that these were
all fallacies. Now why is religion any
different? Millions, sorry billions, of
grown adults believe in some kind of god or gods that we have been told exist
by ancient scripts written by people who didn’t even know that the Earth is
round and that it is not the centre of the universe. So why do so many accept what they wrote
thousands of years ago as true? I do like
that the generally common credo of most religions is to treat each other as you
would like to be treated however it’s tough not to wonder whether more people
have been killed in religiously motivated wars and conflicts than have been
“saved” by their beliefs. And one of the
crazy things to me is that if three of the major religions of the world have
their epicentres basically in the same place, how different can they be? Okay, granted Islam’s main epicentre is Mecca
but you get the drift. Many of the concepts
and ideals of Christianity, Judaism and Islam aren’t that dissimilar, so why
all this conflict? Having spent a number
of years in India recently I learned a bit about Hinduism, which is quite a
different religion than these three but again, in the end, they all teach
similar concepts in how to act as human beings...but why can’t we seem to follow
them? Okay, enough of my religious
rambling. Here endeth the lesson…
Naomi outside the Church of Holy Sepulchre:
Just inside:
The stone of anointing:
Where Jesus was buried:
Taking it in:
Next we walked through the market for a few minutes to
arrive at the the Western
Wall, the most sacred site for Judaism, which happens to ironically
be only a stone’s throw from Islam’s Dome of the Rock. Not surprisingly, everyone had to go through
a metal detector and have bags x-rayed before entering but it made me think
about how easy it was to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I do feel for the Jews and how many enemies
they seem to have and I don’t quite understand where this hatred comes
from. The wall is the only remaining
part of the Temple Mount or perhaps the Temple Complex. It rises about four storeys high and
stretches 57 meters in length with one section for men and another for
women. As I approached the wall I
noticed a number of Jews touching the wall with one hand while reading prayers
from the Torah in their other. Naomi had
told me that a tradition was to right a wish on a small piece of paper, roll it
up and stuff it into a crack in the wall.
As I tried to stuff my little parchment into the overstuffed fissures I
ended up knocking four or five others out.
Whoops, I hope I haven’t wrecked the efficacy of these previously placed
hopes. You’re not supposed to tell
anyone your wish but I’ll let you in on mine “A world without religion.” I think that would simplify things and hopefully
lead us to more sustainable peace on this planet.
Now the Western Wall:
The Wall in action:
The Western Wall:
We finished off our afternoon in Jerusalem with an ice cream
just outside the Old City. As we enjoyed
our treats we noticed a large plume of smoke rising to the west. Yet another fire like the one that made the
news on the day I arrived in Israel? We
later found out that there was some rioting in East Jerusalem which was in
response to the murder of a sixteen year old Palestinian boy which seemed to be
a retaliatory act from the death of the three Israeli hitchhikers. This was just another one of the early steps
which has led to a nasty conflict in Gaza which has claimed over 2000 lives at
the time of writing this. Luckily we
quickly got out of town, heading southeast towards the Dead Sea but Naomi was
nervous until we were well clear of Ramallah, the main Palestinian settlement
near Jerusalem. The terrain quickly
changed from the hills of Jerusalem with their sparse pine and cypress trees to
barren desert mounds spotted with the odd Bedouin enclave. We reached a roadside pullout on the divided
highway that signified sea level. The
Dead Sea sits around 400 meters below sea level so we still had a ways to go.
Smoke on the horizon:
Desert hills:
A Bedouin settlement:
At sea level:
Closer to our destination in Ein Gedi, we stopped at a gas
station, not to get any petrol but for a photo op of me sitting on a
camel! When in Rome...
Chewing...
Giddy up!
Naomi with a new friend:
That's the Dead Sea in the background:
Tomorrow, floating in the Dead Sea!
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