3. Jaffa on a Sunny Day

I arrived in Tel Aviv this Sunday morning to be greeted by warm sunny weather and a lot of friendly people.  The hotel is well situated, right on the Mediterranean Sea and right in the center of the city. Tel Aviv is relatively modern, lots of high rise buildings.

Jaffa, called Joppa in the Bible, is an old city located a few kilometers south of Tel Aviv,  an ancient harbor referred to in the Bible as the place where the ceders of Lebanon were brought by sea to build the temple.  Today there is not much left of the ancient city.  Much of what is there was built in the period of the Ottoman empire or later or is an historic district being renovated with modern shops and living quarters.


Tourists here are pretty much on their own.  I walked all over Jaffa looking for the home of Simon the Tanner where, according to Acts, Peter stayed for while in a house by the sea.  The visitor center was closed, the police did not know where it was, the cab drivers, locals, no one could tell me.  I had a map but it was not very clear.  I think I may have walked right by it.

Here is seen how the relatively new (St. Peters Cathedral) is fused with the older (though not ancient) part of the old site.  All around this square in the renovated hostels connected with the cathedral is restaurants and souvenir shops...not quite vigorous preservation in action.


Jaffa is largely Palestinian.  Virtually no Palestinians live in Tel Aviv, where housing is extremely expensive, so the Israeli Palestinians live in the less costly outskirts, of which Jaffa is one.


My first impression of the people is that no one is agnostic or ambivelent   about their religion or their heritage.  The Jews are expremely dedicated to the Jewish cause, the Muslims are  passionate, the Christians are ardent believers.  My best sources so far are cab drivers and I have  already talked with a Russian Jew, an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian Arab Christian...who lives in Israel.  They may not see eye to eye on things, but ambivelent they are not.


Everyone knows the political situation, and keeps up with the news.  About one fourth of the private passenger cars on the street are flying Israeli flags.  They may have trouble with locating and preserving Biblical sites, but they know who they are, who they like and who they don't.


Well, there is a first impression of Israel.


Dick

2. The Reading List 4/30/11

If one is visiting a new part of the world, preparation is complete when one packs a T-shirt and toothbrush.  If one is visiting as part of an academic pursuit, preparation involves a lot of reading to better understand the lay of the land before arriving on scene.  Though one still needs the T-shirt and the toothbrush.

My mentor suggested some of these books and I found some of these on my own to help get a better sense of the land and people where we are going.

Langfur, Stephen, Ph.D., Confession from A Jerico Jail. Langfur is the guide for our twelve days touring the important Biblical landmarks.  He is an American born Jew, educated at Cornell who emigrated to Israel where he now acts as a guide for Biblical studies tours.  He joined the Israeli Defense Force but balked at being asked to serve in the West Bank because he did not agree with the IDF abusing Palestinians already suffering as refugees from the portions of Palestine awarded to Israel in 1948.  His refusal to serve in the West Bank landed him in jail and he wrote memoirs of his contact with other Israelis who were Palestinian sympathizers.

Tolan, Sandy, The Lemon Tree.  Bashir, a Palestinian forced from his home in al-Ramla in 1948 when the Jews were awarded the portions of Palestine that became the state of Israel meets Dalia, a Jewish immigrant from Bulgaria, whose family, upon arrival in Israel were assigned Bashir’s house.   The poignancy of Bashir and Dalia forced to discuss and deal with their respective deep seated attachment to their religion and their heritage gives Tolan an opportunity to explain why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may never be resolved.  This is a fascinating and short read available on Kindle.

Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome, OP, The Holy Land, An Oxford Archaeological Guide from Earliest times to 1700.  Murphy-O’Connor was for many years a professor at Ecole Biblique et Archélogique Français, Jerusalem, where, incidentally, my program mentor studied, and authored many books on the Bible and Bible lands.  This work is a thorough travel guide of all Biblical landmarks in Jerusalem and old Palestine.   It is worth having along as reference during the tour.  Thank goodness it is on Kindle.

Caplan, Neil, Ph.D. The Israel—Palestine Conflict, Contested Histories.   This is a recent publication by a knowledgeable student of the affairs in the Middle-east.  His very objective analysis of the histories of the conflict, separately from the Israeli and the Palestinian perspective, helps to truly better understand the background for the tension in the region and gives context to the events unfolding even this week.

Several atlases illustrate events and make the written history more graphic.  Harper Collins Concise Atlas and Martin Gilbert’s atlases, one of Jewish History and one of the Arab-Israeli Conflict have been very helpful.

So, off I go to align what I will see with what I have read (and still am reading).

Please come back often and check out this site.

Dick

1. My trip to Israel 4/27/11

Thanks for joining me on this trip of a lifetime.  I depart Anchorage, Friday, May 6 for Newark and on to Tel Aviv.

I have been pursuing an academic degree in Bible Studies for about three years.  The degree, Masters of Arts Program (MAP) at Alaska Pacific University, is a self-directed pursuit at the graduate level under the direction of a professor serving as program advisor and mentors serving as academic support and resources as needed.

This trip, the second trip taken as part of the academic program, is being arranged by my advisor, Dr. Regina Boisclair, Ph.D., the theology professor at APU.  The first trip was two years ago tracing St. Paul's second journey through Greece and Turkey.  The portion of this travel related to Bible studies will be a twelve day tour through northern Israel and Jerusalem led by an interesting scholar, Dr. Stephen Langfur, Ph.D., a graduate of Cornell.  He is an American born Jew, living in Israel, but with some very strong sympathies for the Palestinian people.  He served some time in an Israeli jail for refusing to serve as a member of the Israeli Defense Force in the West Bank.

I have also arranged a private tour of Palestinian Jerusalem, the West Bank, including Hebron and other Palestinian communities and visits with Palestinian refugees, Israeli settlors and others.  Hopefully this will offer an opportunity for a better and balanced understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in that region.

I will be carrying my Canon 35 mm SLR camera and several lenses to create a photo documentary of this trip. I hope to use this blog as a means of sharing some glimpses of this trip with you.  Please visit often.