Welcome to Jerusalem

We are here! But it's taken us so long to update the previous Tel Aviv page, we just want to go back to the Ilans' and head to bed, so we promise more text later; in the meantime, here is a teaser of photos we took this evening.

A view from the taxi on the way to Jerusalem.

Akiva Ilan and Adam Hertzman; enjoy the photo, Granny! More to come...

The Old City at night.

The Old City at night, redux.

Monica at the PC at Netcafe in Jerusalem.

The view of the PC area upstairs at Netcafe.

The sign for the Netcafe.

Niv Goldberg (the brunette in the background) and his hirsute colleague, Sasha Shekhtman.

News from Sunday, March 21

The image below is of Monica at the "eemka" (the way Yerushalmis pronounce YMCA); we went to Le Tsriff at the Y at the recommendation of Susan Ellenberg (we think; we haven't been able to access Hotmail much lately. Thanks a lot, Bill Gates). The restaurant in the YMCA was great and the setting highly unusual. The YMCA was apparently built in the 1930s by Americans to foster peace and brotherhood in Jerusalem.

The Old City Ramparts Walk

Here Adam stands on the ramparts of the Old City. We took the (shorter than expected) walk and saw some fairly good overhead views of the city.

Both of us thought the juxtaposition of ancient holy sites and modern technology was kind of funny.

Monica, in particular, was amazed by the interplay between the rooftops. We both thought that somebody should film an action movie in which the main character is chased (or chases) over the rooftops of the old city.

Below, another shot at the Dome of the Rock (closer up).

Those of you who have been following our adventures will have noted a shot of the Souk some time ago in which the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) poised on the ramparts looking over the scene. Below, you can see the same folks from above. The post is just inside the Damascus Gate.

And here, two photos of the IDF with the Dome of the Rock in the background. Monica thought this shot a fitting tribute to the current state of affairs in the Old City--peaceful, but still a bit tense.

The Hasmonean Tunnel Tour

Adam writes...

Akiva Ilan (whom most of you will remember--in part because of the photo above--was our host in Jerusalem) made reservations for us to take the Kotel Tunnel (also known as the Hasmonean or Herodian Tunnel) tour. Apparently, you have to make reservations in advance because the tours cannot be over-crowded given the enclosed spaces in the tunnel. The Kotel, or Western Wall, apparently once stretched far, far down into what is now the Arab Quarter, so the tunnel is the excavation along that wall.

There was not inconsiderable controversy surrounding the dig. The Israeli government didn't tell the Arab community about the dig, and the Arabs thought that the project might undermine the foundations of the Dome of the Rock, the third holiest site in Islam. (When the government began giving the tour, the Palestinians rioted and several people died.) So, the tour was loaded with political feeling from the get-go.

The archway above is at current ground level...actually, several feet above the exposed base of the Western Wall. It is amazing that the structure remains so intact after centuries of neglect.

The passageway leads to an exposed area with a large ceiling. This anteroom is slightly below current ground level.

Here, we were shown an amazing interactive model of the tour on which we were about to embark. I can't really reconstruct most of the details, but I'll give a shot at what I remember. First, as I mentioned earlier, the wall in the photo is a continuation of the Western Wall, which itself was a part of the outer enclosure of Herod's great temple. We learned that, contrary to popular belief, the Western Wall is not actually part of the Second Temple itself, but rather a part of the retaining wall of the Herodian temple enclosure.

Herod was quite the visionary and had many smart engineers. The retaining wall of his temple also served as a staging point for bridges that spanned the walkway along the wall. This design enabled the entries to the temple mount enclosure to be more restricted. It also solved the problem of getting water across the bridge to the temple mount area.

Our fearless guide/leader stands before a tremendous stone that is actually one huge brick in the Western Wall. I don't remember what he said it weighs, but it was something like 30 tons.

The tour took us along the Western Wall and down toward its base. At one point, the guide pointed to a spot in the rock. Scholars agree that this part of the Wall is about 30 feet from the likely resting place of the Ark of the Covenant, containing the Ten Commandments. (Move over Indiana Jones... the Holy of Holies was right next to us.) Our guide said, "Many people take this time to pray, for it is said that, although G-d listens to prayers anywhere in the world, from here it's a local call."

The reason archaeologists have not been able to dig further toward the goal of finding the Ark, of course, is because of the fairly obtuse way the Israeli government went about digging (in secret instead of with the Arab community's consent). Here our guide revealed his prejudice (which he did many times with phrases like "our religious tradition dictates that..."--emphasis added, slightly) by implying that it was the Arab community's fault that digging was halted and the passageway cemented shut.

You can't see it very well in this photo, but the dig uncovered the remains of a Roman column on a street that went under an archway...the street spanning Herod's bridges that entered the Temple Mount.

Sorry to say that's all the pictures we took from the tour. It was an unbelievable experience, but like most underground tours, pictures don't do it justice.

One last comment: we exited the tour through an unmarked door that empties right into the Arab quarter, on the Via Dolorosa. From this point, we were accompanied by armed security guards. I can understand why--it was a two-minute walk from the passageway's exit to the entrance to the Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock. The Arab community must still not be very happy about the whole project.

After the tunnel tour, we passed back through the Kotel plaza. Monica took this beautiful picture of the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock together. I think it captures well the grandeur of that acre.

The next morning (March 22), we took one last visit to the NetCafe in Jerusalem to check email and make a few web updates. (We would have put these photos up then, but the internet connection was slow at the time.) On a positive note, we finally met Janice Chaim, the owner of the NetCafe (pictured here next to the ever-helpful Niv Goldberg). She was a bit offhand at first, but she warmed up when she realized we were "the ones with the Web site." Apparently, business has been good, and the NetCafe is expanding into the space next door. Perhaps when we next visit, it will be a big chain.

Thanks for tuning in to another episode, so to speak; sorry if we confused you by putting it here, but it seemed appropriate at the time.

Click here to read about and view our exploits that afternoon and the following day (March 23), in Ein Gedi.

Or click below to see what we did in the following places, or click here to see what we did on March 17, in the Old City ...

Last updated March 28, 1999.