Tourism Archives - Page 85 of 97

Crowds at the Samaritan Passover

Years of relative quiet in the West Bank have led to increasingly large crowds of Israelis and foreigners attending the Samaritan Passover ceremony. Not all of the Samaritans are happy about the intruders. From Haaretz:

The real problem was the area around the altar on which the sacrifice was to be made, which was surrounded by a fence and designated for prominent Samaritan community members, who surrounded it to fend off visitors. One young woman from Jerusalem spied an elderly Samaritan woman who was having difficulty walking, took her hand, and accompanied her to the site; for her pains, she remained inside the altar area until the end of the evening, taking photos of the slaughtered lambs with her cell phone. Other Israelis passed themselves off as journalists, invited guests, army officers – anything to get closer.
Asher, a red-haired Samaritan from Holon, despaired. “Who needs this headache, go home,” he growled, frustrated by the dozens of people blocking his path. “But we are your guests,” somebody insisted. “You’re not my guests, go home,” he responded.
Another Samaritan proposed charging visitors an entry fee next year. One elder confessed that his community had lost control of the annual ritual. The mountaintop site is not suited to thousands of visitors, he said, and there is not enough space for photographers. Meanwhile, some young people climbed atop a Palestinian fire truck nearby; others watched from the rooftop of a building, which did not appear to be strong enough to bear them; the barbed-wire surrounding the building did not deter anyone. Other visitors knocked on doors of private houses and asked to watch the ceremony inside.
Almost everyone had sophisticated camera equipment. One photographer who tried to barge her way into the closed-off altar area complained that she just had to take pictures. Said one Samaritan guard nearby: “It’s all on YouTube.”

I’ve seen similar attitudes with Samaritans as with Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, and others.

When times are hard and visitors are few, they gladly welcome outsiders. Tourists who want a VIP welcome right now are advised to head to Egypt.

This year the celebration was held on Sunday evening, the day before the Jewish Passover. For more reading about the event, I recommend the top hits given on Google search. In addition, see this page for views and perspectives before tourists outnumbered Samaritans.

Crowds watching the Samaritan Passover, with full moon over Mount Gerizim

Tagged Samaria, Tourism

250,000 Tourists in Israel for Passover and Easter

This will be a busy week in Israel, with Passover beginning Monday evening and Good Friday and Easter a few days later. From the Jerusalem Post:

More than a quarter of a million tourists are expected to visit Israel during the Passover and Easter holidays, the Tourism Ministry reported on Saturday. Of these tourists, at least 100,000 are expected to visit Jerusalem alone. The seven-day Passover holiday begins on Monday evening and is one of the main periods of the year for tourism to Israel, along with the High Holidays in the fall. About a week after, Easter will begin, bringing tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims to Israel. One of the highlights of the pilgrimage for Orthodox Christians is the Holy Fire Ceremony, to be held next Sunday in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City of Jerusalem. The ceremony brings thousands of worshippers into the alleyways of the Old City as the fire is passed among the masses.

The story continues here. For a fascinating description of the Ceremony of Holy Fire, to be observed on Saturday, see here.

Tagged Jerusalem, Tourism

Haifa Bahai Temple Renovation Completed

From the Associated Press:

Followers of the Bahai faith unveiled their newly renovated holy site on the coast of Israel on Tuesday, drawing attention to one of the Holy Land’s lesser-known religions. The renovation of the Shrine of the Bab, a UN-designated World Heritage site, lasted two-and-a-half-years and cost $6 million dollars, according to the Bahai leadership. The structure has been refitted and strengthened to withstand an earthquake, and the building’s dome – the most distinctive feature of the landscape in the Mediterranean port city of Haifa – has been covered with 11,790 new gold-glazed porcelain tiles.

The full story is here.

Tagged Tourism

Western Wall Clean-Up

If you don’t check your mail for a while, at some point the mailbox will begin to overflow. The problem is increasing at the Western Wall with more and more visitors placing notes in the cracks between the stones. Authorities are now considering adding a third annual clean-up. From the Jerusalem Post:

Armed with wooden poles, Western Wall employees on Wednesday removed millions of handwritten notes, faxes and email printouts from between the ancient stones. The Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which gives the Kotel such a face-lift twice a year – before the upcoming Passover and ahead of the Jewish New Year – are considering a third annual clean-up, due to the growing influx of requests and notes.
The notes will be placed in a repository in accordance with Jewish law, with the laborers – working under the supervision of Western Wall and Holy Sites Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz – taking care to not read their content.

The full story is here.

Removing prayer notes from the Western Wall

Tagged Jerusalem, Temple Mount, Tourism

Mount Carmel, Then and Now

If you’ve driven through the two Druze communities on Mount Carmel, you may have wished you could have found out more about this Arab group that is loyal to the State of Israel. A recent article in the Jerusalem Post gives some insight into their culture and cuisine.

“Sometimes when people come here and talk to the Druse, they learn about the conflicts that Druse have as young Israelis and young Druse. They learn about how they fit in with the society. One of the conflicts we have is how we are seen by Druse in Syria and Lebanon, who are loyal to the countries they live in. We are often in a position of being between a rock and a hard place. We are seen as enemies of their countries but we are also related to them by faith, religion, and also our family relations.”
Zidane spoke of other conflicts, like the state’s plan to build gas lines passing through the village’s agricultural lands, or the way that he is always taken aside for extra questioning at Ben-Gurion Airport because he has an Arab name, and how that makes him feel as an officer in an IDF reserve unit.
More than anything else, Zidane spoke about Druse and the army. This is mainly because it’s what Israelis most know about the Druse, and what they often want to talk about. Like other aspects of being Druse, Zidane said it is not all very simple.
“I think that when people think of Druse, the first thing they think of is the army. Yes we like the army, we serve in it, but I think all the citizens should do it, even an Arab Muslim or Christian should. We are loyal and we have proven it, and now I don’t want to only be treated by this subject. I don’t think we should stop serving in the army, but it’s not the only thing we can do.

For a perspective on the ancient significance of Mount Carmel, see this recent JPost column by Wayne Stiles.

Daliyet el-Karmel, Druze village on Mount Carmel

Tagged Tourism

En Gedi Never Fails to Disappoint

This article by Yoni Cohen may be the most worthless piece of reporting I’ve seen in years of reading the Jerusalem Post. I can’t imagine that it took more than five minutes to write, nor can I understand why the Jerusalem Post is not exercising some editorial oversight over an article linked from the site’s front page. Perhaps these days it’s all about getting the “clicks,” but ultimately I think it’s a bad strategy.

The five photos are all blurry (to my eyes), but the three brief comments currently posted are more helpful than the article itself.

[This blog post took less than five minutes to write, but this illustrated page about En Gedi took much longer to create.]

Tagged Dead Sea, Tourism