Ashdod, Israel

March 27, 2023

We sailed out of Jordan headed towards Israel. That meant we were going to traverse the Suez Canal. It took us a day to reach the canal and wait for our convoy of ships to go through and another day to actually sail through the canal. We were at the head of the convoy of 39 ships, so we were able to get some unobstructed views. The Suez Canal is an amazing feat of engineering and the cost for a cruise ship to sail through is staggering. I heard that the cost for our ship to pass through was over $500,000.

Brian was busy taking pictures throughout the day.

We spent our day in Israel on a tour to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Our time in Jerusalem was spent focusing on Jerusalem at the time of the Second Temple, also known as Herod’s Temple, which was constructed over the remains of Solomon’s Temple between 20-18 BC. After our time there (and lunch), we would head to Bethlehem to visit the Church of the Nativity.

Jerusalem is about an hour from our port of Ashdod. The traffic was heavy, but the scenery was interesting.

As an added complication, this was the day scheduled for massive demonstrations against the government’s wish to control the courts. In fact, our guide apologized to us. He was tired because he’d been at a demonstration until 2:00 am. He said, and we agreed, that sometimes you just have to speak up.

We headed into Jerusalem and our destination, Temple Mount, inside the walls of Old Jerusalem. Before we parked, we were able to get our first view of the Temple Mount. The golden dome in the middle is the Dome of the Rock. You can see the walls of the old city.

Heading down, we drove by the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane. I had no idea they were so close to the city. The pictures we were shown in Sunday School where obviously not great models of geography or historical accuracy. I’m pretty certain Jesus was not blonde and blue eyed and looked a great deal like the people I saw today.

This is the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane:

We were visiting the temple on a Monday. This is important because on Monday and Thursday Jewish families come to the temple to celebrate their 13 year old sons’ Bar Mitzvahs and their transition into adulthood. There was music, dancing, balloons flying, and boys being paraded around under canopies

Entering the walls through the Dung Gate, we headed to our first stop. There is a newly renovated archeological museum at the temple, the Davidson Center. It had only been open a week and our guide was excited to see it, too. We were handed over to one of the center’s guides and she was excited to share the new facility with us. There were lots of media displays and interactive exhibits. We watched an introductory video about the history and building of the temple. Everything was very state of the art.

Heading outside, we began to explore the grounds and temple proper. This is an active archeological site and history is being uncovered everyday. We saw buildings, ritual baths where worshippers purified themselves before visiting the temple, and finally the stairs to the temple itself. The stairs were purposefully built with varying heights and depths to force people to approach the temple reverently.

The museum guide left us, and our guide took us around to the side of the temple where the marketplace was. It was here that we could see vivid results of the destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70 AD. The road was crushed by the great stones of the temple walls when they fell. Piles of these rocks were left as a reminder.

When we got to the marketplace, our guide took out the Bible and read the story of Jesus throwing the moneylenders out of the temple. This may have been the place this happened. Here is what one of the marketplace stalls looked like:

There were, of course, cats.

The Temple Mount is sacred to three religions: Judaism, Christianity , and Islam. When we were there, the Dome of the Rock and the El-Aska Mosque were not part of our tour.

Lunch was being served to us deeper in the old city. This part of Jerusalem is divided into four quarters: the Jewish Quarter, the Christian Quarter, the Muslim Quarter, and the Armenian Quarter. The Muslim Quarter is, by far the largest. We climbed up streets and stairs to reach our destination—an Armenian restaurant. So many interesting sights along the way!

Lunch was served family style and included a good table wine. The dishes included pita bread, salads, kebabs, chicken and a tasty cake.

After our meal, we loaded back onto our bus (after another walk) and headed to Bethlehem. Bethlehem is just a few short miles away but is a totally different world. The city is in the West Bank and is part of the Palestinian Territory. Since our guide was an Israeli Jew, he was not allowed to enter. We dropped him off and our driver, who as an Israeli Arab could proceed, drove us into Bethlehem where we picked up our new guide. He was a Christian. This is a very politically complex area.

After an obligatory shopping stop, we headed across town to the Church of the Nativity. Bethlehem is markedly different from Jerusalem. It is a good size city with a different feel, which is hard to put into words. This region has been so divided and full of violence throughout the centuries. It just made me sad.

Some pictures follow. Note how the car is parked. That was not unusual.

Once the bus was parked, we walked up the streets full of souvenir stores and reached the Church of the Nativity which contains the grotto where Jesus was born. This may or may not be accurate, but in the end it doesn’t really matter to all the pilgrims who come here. The outside of the church is a large courtyard that faces a stone wall. The entry to the church is through a very tiny doorway. You really had to crouch down to enter. I didn’t get a good picture of the doorway. There were a lot of people hiding it. Here’s the best I got.

The interior of the church is cool and dark. There are no pews and the walls are covered with 12th century mosaics and beautiful decorations. The folks looking down in the picture are looking at the mosaic floor. The church must be stunning when lit up at night.

Our tour did not include a visit into the grotto. However, our guide (playing loose and free with our time schedule) decided we couldn’t come all this way to Bethlehem and not see it. We joined the long line and, eventually, went down the dark narrow steps into the grotto. The floor is covered but there is a gold star in it where you can reach in and touch the ground where Jesus was born.

Back on the bus, we left our Bethlehem guide behind and headed back into Israel to pick up our first guide. The traffic was heavy due to the demonstrations. With that, and our side trip into the grotto, we would be late back to the ship. Since we were on a ship sponsored excursion, the ship would wait for us before leaving. As late as we were, tours coming in from other places in Israel had a harder time getting through the demonstrations and arrived much later.

It was an overwhelming day in Israel. It will take some time to process what we have seen and done here.