Our first stop was a vista point on Mount of Olives. This gave us a panoramic view of the old city where so much history and religions evolved. This is where Jesus hid for some days before crucifixion. From this spot, looking down we saw active Christian and Jewish cemetery where slots are very expensive to buy. It is said in the holy Bible that on Judgement Day, all bodies will roll towards Jerusalem where the God will decide their fate (similar references in the holy Quran too). So we guessed the people buried here would need to roll much lesser.... Beyond the Christian then Jewish then Muslim cemetery, stands the wall surrounding old city of Jerusalem. The old city divided into 4 quarters (Armenian, Jewish, Christian and Muslim) with limited intermingling.
From our vantage point, we could see the Dome of the rock in front of us surrounded by a rectangular platform. This is a holy place for all 3 religions. King Herod had flattened this out (what used to be Mount Moriah) to build the 2nd temple for Jews. Today it hosts the golden dome and the Al Aqsa mosque (also known as the 'far mosque', 'near mosque' being that in Mecca). From the rock inside the golden dome, Mohammad had ascended to heaven with Angel Gabriel according to the holy Quran.
The western wall of the platform is adjacent to the Jewish and Muslim quarters however only a small portion of the wall is actually accessible to the jews also known as 'the wailing wall'. Jews had cried at this wall remembering the destruction of the 2nd temple. Beyond the wall we saw the holy sepulchre, the tomb of King David where Jesus had his 'last supper'. Also saw a beautiful Russian church with golden domes and a church where Judas gave treason keys that led to capturing Jesus and killing him later on.
At the entrance to the Jewish quarter we saw lots of people dancing to the occasion of a 'Bar Mitzwah' ceremony (similar to 'thread ceremony in Hinduism) where a young Jewish boy should read scriptures in Hebrew. Then visited the western wailing wall where hundreds of people were praying. Later walked through narrow alleys full of shops towards the tomb of David (died 1000 BC). Jesus chose this site for the last supper and according to old Jewish traditions blessed bread and wine during the supper. The original structure got destroyed with fall of Jerusalem; but was later reconstructed when Muslims took over the city. They now have built a place facing towards Mecca for Muslim prayers at the same place.
We now proceeded to walk on 'Via Dolorosa', the path taken by Jesus during crucifixion. We proceeded along this holy alley towards the Holy Sepulchre. On the way there were the last 4 stations (1: where Jesus's clothes were taken off, next he was crucified, where his body was cleaned and finally buried). Different parts of the holy church are owned by different (a total of 6 churches) and we entered through the Ethiopian Monks church. This is the poorest of all 6 where monks live in destitute conditions. We saw the Golgoatha, the stone of Anointing and finally the tomb of Joseph of Aramethia where Jesus's body is buried. Our guide told us that Jesus was buried in a Jewish tradition - by digging a cave in the rock. Since the main burial place was very expensive Joseph of Aramethia gave up his own tomb for Jesus and later was buried close to Jesus. While Jesus's mausoleum was restored multiple times (during all the crusades in Jerusalem), Joseph's tomb was not and gave us a glimpse of how Jesus's tomb might have looked like.
Now our morning siteseeing was complete and we proceeded to get some falafel lunch.
After lunch we were planned to go to Bethlehem, on the Palestine side. We crossed the border on foot (quite an experience). Compared to Israel, Palestinian side was quite poorer and our organizers not so disciplined, so it took a while before we reached the Church of Nativity (birthplace of Jesus Christ). The Greek orthodox church holds the actual birthplace, the altar where the 3 kings came to see baby Jesus. Next to this was Roman catholic church, much richer! This is where they conduct midnight mass on Dec 25th that gets broad casted all over the world. Then we went to the Shepherd's field, where Shepherds saw the star (an Angel) and followed it to meet baby Jesus. We proceeded to our return to Israel, followed by overnight at Park Hotel. I absolutely hated the hotel for some weird smell inside the room and we both decided to change plans and go back to Tel Aviv the next day. Completely exhausted and sleepy we skipped the dinner and dozed off ...zzzzz..
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