Okayama It was raining today, off and on torrential downpours. We borrowed an umbrella from the hotel room to stave off some of the rain. We climbed aboard our bus and headed to Bethlehem. On the ride toward Bethlehem, Michal filled us in on the history of Jews in area and the migration of authority over time. Once we approached the border of the Palestinian Authority, as an Israeli, she left us and went back to Jerusalem.
http://yookyoungyong.com/product/stripe-line-pitcher/?add-to-cart=398 In Bethlehem, the Church of the Nativity
On the other side of the line, Johnny, a Greek Orthodox Christian, boarded our bus to serve as our guide. We drove through a small town known as Shepherd’s Valley to Bethlehem. Once in Bethlehem, we visited the Church of the Nativity, built atop the grotto where Jesus was born. This is the oldest site continuously used as a Christian place of worship. The writings of St Justin Martyr around AD 160 first identified this site as Jesus’ birthplace. In 326, emperor Constantine ordered a church to be built and in 530 it was rebuilt by Justinian. The crusaders redecorated the interior, but much of the marble was looted in Ottoman times. In 1852, shared custody of the church was granted to the Roman Catholic, Armenian and Greek Orthodox churches.
Touching the silver star marking the place where Jesus was born. The manger however was not available since the Catholics were celebrating Mass
The exact spot where Jesus was born is supposedly marked by a 14-point silver star. The steps down to the grotto were fairly precarious, so Mike stayed topside. I knelt and touched the silver star for a blessing. The differences, between each of the responsible religious organizations, are very marked. The Greek Orthodox is very opulent, over the top, highly decorated. The Catholics control the manger area and were conducting a service so photos not allowed. Subsequent to the partition of the space, the Catholics built an entire church connected to the Church of the Nativity. The Armenian area was more similar to the Greek Orthodox but a bit simpler. While we waited to descend into the grotto to view the birthplace, the Greek Orthodox monks were cleaning their sanctuary with mops and brooms having just concluded a service.
The pope mobile left in Bethlehem under the care of the Franciscans after Pope Francis’ visit
From there, we popped into a small cafe for coffee and to catch sight of the “popemobile” in a plexiglass specially built enclosure . It was left here when Pope Francis came for a visit. Because of the rain it was all steamed up, but I took a photo anyway.
Johnny escorted us to the Shepherd’s Tent, a restaurant overlooking Shepherd’s Valley, for lunch. He left us there to tend to a leaking roof at home. Our driver, Surya, drove us back through the border to Jerusalem to the hotel to pick up our bags and rejoin Michal.
3 more Chagall windows in the synagogue in the Haddassah. Joseph is the one in the center.
She was escorted by her son, Jonathan, to visit the stained glass windows of Marc Chagall in the Hadassah Hospital synagogue. Created by Marc Chagall in 1960-61, depict the 12 tribes of Israel; Joseph was my favorite for its bright colors. They were installed in 1962. Tradition associates each of the 12 tribes with a symbol, a precious stone, and a social role. These elements are all represented in Chagall’s imagery and choice of color. During the six days war, several were damaged and replaced graciously by Chagall. It took him a year and a half to complete the repair project. He always considered these windows his gift to the Jewish people.
We left Hadassah and headed to Tel Aviv to catch our flight to Cairo. We had no issues with security but our flight was delayed a bit. We finally boarded, taxied out to the runway and a thunderstorm with lightening struck. We are placed on a ground hold until it was safe to take off. We took off very late, arrived in Cairo a little after 10 pm, and arrived at our hotel the Nile Ritz-Carlton around 11 pm. Upon check-in we found dinner waiting for us in our room
