Tour of Israel and Jordan

Mike and Judy Henderson
November 14-27, 2017

I'm going to leave this map up so that you can see where we are.

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11/21/2017 (Tuesday)  Today we go to Bethlehem.  It's rainy and cold this morning.  It's the first decent rain of the season in Jerusalem.  We boarded the bus at 7am this morning so that we could be one of the first groups to get to the Church of the Nativity, which is located, by tradition, where Jesus was born.

Israel is a very small country and Bethlehem is not very far from Jerusalem. We arrived at the security line between Israel and the West Bank very quickly.  Israel had quite a few suicide bombings in the 2005 - 2008 time frame, especially where a suicide bomber would board a bus and set off the bomb, killing and maiming large numbers of people.  In response, Israel built a wall between itself and the West Bank.  Here's a view of the wall near Bethlehem, as we approached it.

The wall, apparently, along with other security measures, have worked because there hasn't been a suicide bombing in quite a while.

We passed through the security checkpoints quickly and met our Palestinian guide, Ramzi Savi, who will take us through the church.

The wall, on the West Bank side, has a lot of graffiti.  I took some pictures through the bus window which had a lot of water on it so the pictures are not the greatest.  Here are some of the more creative graffiti.

It was a short ride to the parking area close to the church, and we walked a short distance in the rain.

An old marker to the church.

Here we are walking in the rain.  The stone pavement was slippery.

We arrived at Manger Square, which is across from the church.

Here's the view of the church from the Manger Square area.

Entrance to the church, for us, is through a small opening on the side of the church.  I didn't get a picture but I found this one on the web. You can tell it's not us because the people are wearing shorts and it's dry.

There's an ornate altar in the church, Greek Orthodox, I believe.

We had an opening between services that are held in the grotto, so we had to hustle through.  I missed taking some pictures because of the time constraints and the number of people in the grotto.  Here's the entrance we went into (taken from the web).  There are two entrances and we went into one and came out the other.

This is the altar over the spot were Jesus was born (picture from the web - the grotto was jammed).

And a picture of the 14 point star that marks the spot.

We came out the other entrance.  The church is going through a lot of renovation right now.

As we were walking through the church, Ramzi pointed out some of the ancient mosaics from a previous church that was at this site before the current church was built.

There were mosaics on the walls that were discovered during the present renovation.

Here are the main doors to the church.

There's a Catholic church, Church of St. Catherine, next to the Church of the Nativity and we went there next.

Saint Jerome lived in a cave under the church for 35 years.  Here's a statue of him in the courtyard.

After we left the Church of the Nativity we went to the Chapel of the Milk Grotto.  The story here is that the Holy Family took refuge in this grotto as they began their trip to Egypt.  While they were there, and Mary was nursing, she spilled a drop of her milk and the rocks in the grotto changed from a red color to white.  The monks scrape the efflorescence from the rocks and sell it as an aid to conceiving a baby.  (Mike's note: I tried to buy a packet for Judy and me but Judy wouldn't go for it. She said I'd be too old to play catch with the child:-) But we did buy a packet for  friends, at their request.

A statue of Mary nursing baby Jesus.

The place where, by tradition, Mary spilled the drop of milk and changed the color of the rocks.

There's also a modern shrine to Mary in the facility.

After this, Judy and I walked back to Manger Square, then the group walked back to the bus and we started our trip back to Jerusalem.  Here's the city of Bethlehem.

After we got back to the area of Jerusalem, we went to the Israeli Museum where there's a large model of Jerusalem just prior to the destruction of the Second Temple.  But by now, it was raining fairly hard so the guide had to cut things short.

We ran to the Museum of the Shrine of the Book which houses portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls, where we saw some of the scrolls and the story of their discovery and analysis.

Here's a view of the exterior.

And of the interior.

After that visit, Judy and I, and our two friends, took a taxi to the Hadassah Medical Center to see the Chagall Windows. There are twelve windows in the synagogue in the medical center.  The twelve windows represent the twelve tribes of Israel.  They had an audio narration describing the windows.  Since there were three windows to a side, the audience got up and moved after each three on a side were described.  It was kind of funny to see everyone shift, but the narration was outstanding.

Here are some pictures of the windows.  You can see more pictures and an explanation of each window at the link above.

Here's the group at the Chagall Windows.

We had lunch in the hospital food court and then Judy and I went back to the hotel and took a nap.  Later in the evening, we met our friends at an Italian restaurant, Cielo, which was in easy walking distance from the hotel.

Then it was off to bed to prepare for another early departure.

Our adventure continues here