Geography Field Trip

We went on a field trip the other day to learn about the geography of Israel and of Jerusalem in particular. In this field trip we went to:

The Agusta-Victoria Tower, on the Agusta-Victoria hospital and church. This is one of three towers on top of the Mount of Olives. From the top of the tower we could see all around - we saw Jerusalem, east and west, we saw the walls around the Old City, we saw the Judean Wilderness (also known as a desert) and we could even see the Dead Sea! It was a little hazy and off in the distance, but you could see it! While waiting for the other group to look from the tower (it was a small tower) we sang in the church's chapel. The acoustics were out of control and it was very exciting.

The Seven Arches Hotel Overlook. From here we were just to the east of the Old City, right on top of the Mount of Olives. We got a good grasp of the geography of just Jerusalem. Now, looking at the skyline of Jerusalem, I can identify most of the prominent things. We could see the Garden of Gethsemane just down the hill, as well as several churches in that vicinity. The overlook was located just above the Jewish cemetery. This cemetery is quite extensive; my pictures didn't do it justice. Interestingly, they don't put flowers or notes on the tombs here. They put rocks on the tombs. (For a myriad of reasons; use your imagination to explore why, and you'll probably figure out a reason.) So lots of tombs had rocks on them. They're on the Mount of Olives because the Messiah will come to the Mount of Olives and bring to pass the Resurrection, so they're optimumly placed.

Elias Monastary. Actually, a hill behind the monastary. We could see south from the city and not the city at all, actually. We saw Bethlehem - it was so close you could probably walk there in under half an hour. Unfortunately, there is a wall between you and Bethlehem. It's around the West bank, and is called the Wall of Speration (or some extremists call it the Wall of Apartheid). It was constructed about 4 years ago, and it pretty much says, from the Israelis to the Palistinians, "Fine. You don't like us? You'll have your own state. But you can't come into ours." Most Jews can go outside the wall (there are Jewish settlements on the other side, randomly dotted in the West Bank) but Palistinians pretty much can't come through it. For example: our Islam teacher, even though he has a special permit to come through, couldn't come to class this week because the wall was closed. It's hundreds of miles long, and is made of concrete, and was funded by the U.S. Well, sort of. The US gives more money to Israel than it does to the rest of the world combined (so they aren't terrorists to us), and Israel made the wall, so presumably that's our tax dollars at work. The wall made terrorism in Jerusalem drop dramatically, though, so that's good.

Haas Promenade. This is to the south of Jerusalem. We read Genesis 22, about when Abraham is commanded to sacrifice Isaac. He came up from the south, and was told to get to the land of Moriah - Jerusalem is built on Mount Moriah, this IS that land. Then when he got there, on the third day, he looked up and it was the place. It was so neat to look up where he would have cast his eyes up from, and to read about the story. It was a very, very neat experience.

Nebi Samwil. This is where they think the prophet (nebi) Samuel (Samwil) is buried. It's the closest Richard the Lionheart ever got to Jerusalem and you can't even see the Old City from the top. Poor Richard. (Maybe he has an almanac now?) It was a Christian church, then destroyed, then rebuilt: it is now a mosque on top of a synagogue. We looked around and it turns out 70% of the Bible took place on the land we could see from the roof of Nebi Samwil. We saw the lands Abraham was given for his progeny. Off in the distance behind the Separation Wall (but not too far away, actually) were the Hills of Ephraim; most of us are Ephraim, so that was neat, to see the land that was promised to us. Our teacher said, after pointing these hills out to us, "Okay. Your next assignment is to go and claim your inheritance."