TRAVELING TO POLAND SATURDAY JULY 11TH

Saturday July 11th

Today we got picked up at our hotel at 2am to make a 530 flight to Warsaw with a change of planes in Frankfort, Germany.  We were pretty tired throught the whole experience.

We arrived in Warsaw and found a taxi quickly to a nice hotel, probably the nicest I ever stayed in, the La Regina .  If you ever come to Warsaw, I highly recommend it.

  We got settled and went out to find a restaurant.  The hotel recommend a few right in the area and we ended up in a traditional Polish restaurant (there are numerous Italian restaurants in Poland plus more pizza than you can imagine).  The restaurant did not disappoint.  The food was excellent, we had four different kinds of sauerkraut and the prices here are embarrasingly low, and they give you way too much food.

Near the restaurant was a plaque on a building that commemorated 30 citizens of Warsaw who were murdered by the Nazis in 1942 at that very location.  World War II is still in the conscience of the people of Europe.  The War started when Germany attacked Poland and Poland was occupied the longest of any country.  Although the Polish Army surrendered in a few days, the Polish people resisted however they could.  Many are honored in Israel at Yad Vashem.

After dinner we walked around the old area of Warsaw and saw many nice old buildings.  My Sister speaks Russian so we got along okay in Poland so far as Russian has a lot in common with Polish.  I was happy to see that Poland is not overrun with McDonalds and Starbucks and that every sign is not translated into English.  

This was a nice day even though we got in a taxi at 2AM in Jerusalem and we're still conscious in the evening in Warsaw.  Tomorrow the Jewish genealogy begins.

Vic

FRIDAY JULY 1OTH, OUR LAST DAY IN ISRAEL

Hi,

Sadly, today is our last day in Israel.  Our Cousins from Tel Aviv picked us up and took us to a museum that they like.  It's the Museum of Islamic Art.  We were a little puzzled at first, but there's nothing political about this museum and it contains some priceless items you may not have heard about.  Besides the art works going back to almost to the time of Mohammed, the museum is the permanent home of what appears to be the most valuable collection of timepieces (yes, clocks and watches) in the world, including the most famous timepiece in the world.  My guess would have been Big Ben, but the watch made for Marie Antoinette by her secret boyfriend will blow your mind.  It took 50 years to make, has transparent quartz crystals on the front and back,  and was completed many years after Marie had her head seperated from her body by Henry VIII (I think).  Here are pictures of Marie's watch and some of the clocks on display followed by some of the very beautiful pieces of Islamic art.

  


After the museum our Cousins showed us where the dividing line between Jordan and Israel was before the 6 Day War in 1967.  The Old City was in Jordan and the buildings around the Old City still have bullet marks in them from the battles right in the City of Jerusalem.  From there we went to an area of shopping and restaurants at the site of Israel's oldest railroad station, now a national monument (It's the bottom picture above).  We had an early dinner and said our goodbyes and went off to pack for a 2AM taxi to a  530AM flight to Warsaw, Poland with a change of planes in Frankfort, Germany.

It will be hard to say goodbye to Israel....there's so much more to see....

Vic

THERE WON'T BE ANY MIRACLES TODAY

Wednesday, July 8th

Today I spent the day at Yad Vashem, Israel's Museum of the Holocaust.  It was a lot of exhibits with video presentations beginning with the start of Nazism in the late 1920's through the settlement of the survivors in pre-statehood Israel.  They had everything in great detail and it felt like a regular museum until I walked into a room and had to walk under the arched gate of a death camp.  The gate had a sign that said "arbeit macht frei" meaning "work will make you free" in German.  Before I walked under the arch I realized the floor felt strange under my feet.  I looked down and I was walking on a brick street and I was in the middle of a  set of railroad tracks.  The effect was both dramatic and frightening.  That was the point in the exhibits where you saw pictures and videos from survivors of the death camp experience, many of the video testimonies were collected by Steven Spielbergs Shoah Foundation.  The attached pictures were all taken at Yad Vashem.   Outside, the German cattle car on the tracks that ended abruptly was a very moving sight.

 No photographs were allowed in the museum.  The following photo is of a placque in the Garden of Remembrance honoring some 31,000 non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust.  It is a pleasant surprise to see that The Ford Foundation is a supporter of Yad Vashem.

Peace,

Vic

July 7th Tuesday-another day another miracle

Greetings blog readers,

I made a special visit today.  I went to the place where Prince Philip of England's Mother is buried on the Mount of Olives at the Church of Mary Magdalene which is within 1/2 mile of the Old City.    She is known as Princesse Andrew of Greece or Alice of Battenberg.  She was an amazing woman.  She was born deaf and lived in Greece at the time of WWII.  When the Nazis occupied Greece and were rounding up Jews to send to the death camps, she was contacted by a Jewish family she had previously know, and they asked if she could help them in any way.  She hid them in the royal palace in Athens for the duration of the war, and several times the Nazis came to search the palace and she kept them out by using her deafness and claiming not to understand them.  The truth is that she spoke five languages and was a skilled lip reader and risked her own life to save her friends.  Had her Jewish friends been discovered she would have been taken away with them.

When I went to the Church of Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives I climed up the stairs to the church only to be told by an nun to take off my hat and that Princess Andrew of Greece was at the Greek church downstairs.  I had already tried that door and it was locked.  She said to see the nun in the gift shop who had the key.  I went to the gift shop and asked if I could see the place where Princesse Andrew was buried.  Without hesitation she asked "are you a friend of the Royal Family?"  At that moment I figured that I wasn't getting in.  I immediately responded "I'm haven't met the Royal Family but I did write to Prince Philip(a true statment) about my visit.  I told her what I knew about the heroic acts of Princess Andrew during World War II.  Something I said changed her mind and she got up and said I should follow her.  She took me to what I expected was the door of the church.  She opened it and I was faced with a tiny room no bigger than 8 by 10 feet.  Right in the middle of the room, two feet inside the door was a  platform with the coffin of Princess Andrew on it.  She closed the door behind us and we spent fifteen or twenty minutes talking about the Princess and I learned a lot more about her.  She showed me pictures of Prince Philip (who visits privately every once in a while).  I was standing right where Prince Philip was standing in the pictures.  I then remembered I had the stone in my pocket I was given at my Synagogue on Holocaust Remembrance Day.  The stone was to leave at the gravesite of one we remember.   I explained the Jewish tradition to her and asked if there was a place I could leave it.  I expected her to reject the idea.  Without hesitation she pointed to a place on a ledge on the wall at the foot of Princess Andrew's coffin and I placed the stone there.  By then I was in tears.  Even though I kept thanking the nun, she kept bowing to me.  I went back to the gift shop with her and bought a $2 refrigerator magnet.  They took dollars or Israeli Sheckels.  I gave her a $10 bill and told her to keep the change as a donation to the church.  She refused and I had to fight her to get her to take it.  She snuck five postcards into the bag with the magnet.  That was an incredible event for me and I hope you get some enjoyment about my telling it to you and I think I owe Prince Philip a letter of thanks.  The following are pictures of the Church and the door behind which lies the remains of Alice of Battenberg.  I think I experienced back to back miracles, yesterday and today.

From there I walked down the Mount of Olives to the Garden of Gesthemene and viewed the gardens.  Then I walked to the City of David and archeological dig of what is believed to be the home of King David.  The visit includes walks through a pitch dark (I was a Boy Scout and I had a flashlight) wet tunnel or a dry lighted one.  Some tourists said the dark one was exciting if you can get in there alone.  There were some incredibly noisy school groups in the wet tunnel so I went down the dry one.  I was the only one in the tunnel. 

The bottom two photos were taken from a lookout post at the City of David and the bottom photo is of murals on the road that runs along the South Wall of the Old City.

I think I experienced back to back small miracles today and yesterday.

Enjoy,

Vic

The Holy Site marathon Monday, July 6th

This was a day I was waiting for....Up early for breakfast and a taxi to the Western Wall.  We joined our tour of the Kotel Tunnels, an amazing archeological project under the Wall.  The length of the Wall that you see on TV with all the religious Jews praying is only about 400 feet long.  The tour takes you under another 1000 feet of the wall.  I hope my pictures do it justice because we saw huge sisterns to hold rain water, a single carved stone 43 feet long and about 6 feet high weighing over 500 tons.  There were lots of narrow passages, but all are well lit and with a knowledgable guide.  Here are the tunnel pictures.

After the Tunnel Tour I went to the Wall itself and joined the men praying at the Wall.  I left a folded up note with a prayer written on it in a space between the stones where there were thousands and thousands of other notes (I later learned that the notes are taken out of the Wall every Wednesday and stored, not destroyed).  I guess no one would want to be responsible for destroying a message to God.

I walked through the narrow streets, some of which are actually stairs and found the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the holiest site in Christianity.  This is a very old church which does not have a large cathedral but instead has many small alters throughout. 

From there I followed my map of Jerusalem and The Old City to the Tomb of King David which is a very small operating Synagogue.  King David is buried in a small room and a Rabbi introduced himself and said a prayer for me (he offered to pray for my wife but I told him I hadn't met her yet).  I couldn't take pictures in King David's tomb.   Directly above David's Tomb in the same structure is what's known as the Upper Room which is the site of The Last Supper.  It felt sort of special to be in the same spot where Christ and his Disciples dined 2015 years ago.  The view in the second photo is the same view in all the paintings of the Last Supper.   

I relied on my map (because you can easily get lost in the maze of streets in the old Jerusalem) to guide me to The Cardo, an excavation of an ancient Roman street.  I went down the stairs and walked through the Cardo (which was the name for every main commercial street the Roman's built anywhere they were conquering and building).    The walk down the Cardo lasted about 100 yards and then changed suddenly into an Arab bazaar that went all the way out of the Old City, with smell of spices and incense, lots of junk souvenirs, and many shops where the Arab population of Jerusalem regularly shops.  This street was at least 1/2 mile long and covered like some movie scene.  There was a point where I wanted to take a picture and realized that I was the only non-Arab I could see.  I hesitated and on the next corner were Israeli police and soldiers.  I took my picture.

Once out of the Damascus Gate at the North of the Old City I went about 200 yards further north on a city street and saw a small sign pointing the direction to the Garden Tomb, where Christ is said to be buried.  I followed the sign and found a high wall and a large gate with a sign saying the Garden is closed until 2PM.  There were only a few tourists waiting to get in.  I talked with a couple from Switzerland who were reading verses from the Book of John off their smartphones and a young women from Czechoslovakia who said she visits Jerusalem whenever she can and every day she's in Jerusalem she spends time in the Garden Tomb.  At 2PM about 10 of us entered and I walked in these most peaceful gardens with lots of places to sit, pray, etc.  After seeing the whole garden I saw a little sign that says "tomb" with an arrow.  I followed the path and came upon a scene that was familiar from pictures.  There were some tourists taking pictures outside the tomb opening.  They left just as I arrived.  It appeared I was alone in the area and I walked into the tomb.  I was alone for 10 minutes a few feet from where Jesus was buried.  I really couldn't believe it.  I walked out of the tomb and there still was no one else around.  I took some pictures inside and outside which follow.

This is the end of my first great day in and around the Old City of Jerusalem.   I don't know how or when I could have another day like this one.

Vic

July 5th , Sunday, Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in a relatively short time....

We left for Tel Aviv after having breakfast at the same restaurant as yesterday.  We meant to eat elsewhere but the Hotel's map was confusing and we were very hungry.  Like the movie "Trains, Planes, and Automobiles" we traveled by taxi, bus, and another taxi to arrive at the Ramada Hotel in Jerusalem where I proceeded to unpack and hope to catch up on some sleep.  We walked from the hotel to a sort of a mall and movie complex called "Cinema City", movie theaters, restaurants (see the picture of the Kosher McDonald's) and a lot of stores like you see in American malls.  What was very noticeable was the large number of children, which is a common sight all over Israel.  The other pictures are of modern Jerusalem from our hotel balcony, one shows the light rail system that runs across the city.

Tomorrow and Tuesday (July 6th and 7th will be of the Old City of Jerusalem)

Tel Aviv, Israel July 4th,

Greetings:

The hotel included breakfast at your choice of three local restaurants, two of which are closed on the Sabbath.  We ate among local Israelis and the food was good but with different eating customs.  In Israel it is common to have vegetables or a salad with breakfast.   Tea might be served in a glass which gets hot so you can only lift it by the topmost portion of the glass.  After breakfast we walked around an old area and then went to a shopping area which had old and new buildings and was originally established by a German immigrant in the early part of the 20th Century.

In the evening we were picked up by our Cousin and his wife and they took us to a seafood restaurant on the Mediterranean Sea in Tel Aviv.  Outside the restaurant is a park that runs along the beach for a long ways and the people of Tel Aviv relax and picnic on the grass until late in the evening.  The photo shows a bit of modern Tel Aviv with construction cranes in the background and an old structure built by early German immigrants to Pre-Statehood Israel.