Israel Visit 24 November 2005

Today we spend in Jerusalem, visiting, strolling, experiencing, enjoying. We tried to go up on the Temple Mount, but access was limited to 1 hour in AM and in PM, which we forewent because of a previous appointment.

Something old, something new. Across the square from Shorashim, Moshe and Dov, a crane was being erected to reconstruct the nearby synagogue.
Mondays and Thursdays (today) are Bar Mitzvah days at the Kotel (Western wall). So attendance is up. Joy is in the air. Expectation is high. At the closest place we can be to the site of the temple, that was and will be, atop Har (Mt) Moriah. The white structure on the right is a temporary ramp up to the temple mount, while the long-standing one is being repaired.
Some Sefer Torahs (Torah scrolls) are so large that the young man must have help to carry it.
Others make it alone, but with the hand of a proud father on his shoulder.
Davening (praying) at the Kotel.
Looking up at the wall that has stood for centuries.
Of course fashion reigns among the foreigners who accompany their Bar Mitzvah boy to the Kotel.
The oxymoron of a synagogue named after anti-semitic Martin Luther, with Arabic yet no Hebrew name, yet in the center of Old City Jerusalem.
At the Hebrew Museum Scroll of the Book display, photographs of the scrolls were not allowed, under tight security. So this photograph is not mine.