Mary, the Mother of Jesus
One of the amaaaazing things about Jerusalem is that you literally can just walk down the streets and pass a dozen historical sites—and not just recent history. So yesterday, we went out to look for a few sites, but on the way there, we passed a place that claimed to be the birthplace of the […]
Holy Sepulchre, Church of the Redeemer, Church of John the Baptist and Passover
Church of the Holy Sepulchre! Inside one of the lower chambers The entire place is very… ornamented. Isn’t that the COOLEST glow ever? Despite being kind of dirty and overly busy, it definitely had a spiritual atmosphere We befriended a nice Christian shop owner just outside the main area of the Holy Sepulchre. His name […]
Matthew Kalman, Professional Reporter of the Middle East Conflict
Today we had more classes, I organized my photos and studied for finals coming up… not a lot worth writing about, but for the weekly forum, we had an excellent forum speaker who talked to us about the role of media in this conflict… and how it falls short of what it could be in […]
Elias Feinzlberg, Holocaust Survivor
Today we had 7 hours of class (1 hour of Old Testament, two sets of 2 hours of Judaism, and two hours of Palestinian). It was quiiiiiite the gauntlet. It was kinda frustrating, because it was really interesting stuff (we finally got the “founding of the state of Israel” war from the Israeli view in […]
Package Joy, Ethiopian Church and Me’a She’arim
Today I got my first and (hopefully) only package from home! I say hopefully because not only does it take a long time to get packages, but Israeli mail has an extremely frustrating tax law on all incoming packages: they have set up a list of all the things that they deem should be taxed […]
Yad Vashem
Yesterday, we went to the grave of Oskar Shindler and watched “Life is Beautiful.” They were in preparation for what was coming today… I was more than a little apprehensive about what was coming because I inherently don’t like unhappy things. You see, I have this philosophy that you can find something good in everything, […]
Oh! The “Whittle’d” Town of Bethlehem
Today we went to one of the most iconic, most recognizable, most talked about places in the entire history of the world: Bethlehem—the birthplace of our Savior Jesus Christ. We sing about it. We reread the happy story of His birth. But have you wondered: What is the state of Bethlehem today? I hadn’t. Until […]
Israel Zoo!
Today I went to the Zoo! There was a giant ark there, which was pretty much empty inside but it had a great view of the zoo and the surrounding area. We got to ride on a little train too to get around. One of the best parts of the day was that there was […]
Misc Event Catch-up
Me leaving my mark under the center! Went under May 26, 2010 Me playing the YMCA bells for all of Jerusalem to hear! Did this on May 30. Me next to the YMCA bells At the YMCA tower! Me making pita bread–Jewish style! My friend Lance holding up an actual Torah scroll! The Torah is […]
Stuff About the JC
A few people pointed out to me that I haven’t really focused on anything… other than the places I visit and what I learn there. And, they’re right. I haven’t. So I suppose it might be a good thing to just talk about day-to-day life type stuff. So here goes. The Jerusalem Center is, basically, […]