Welcome To The Holy Land

14/11/2022

14/11/2022

This must rank among the best tours I have ever been on. Our guide, Amer, intelligent, passionate and insightful, really brought the reality of injustice in present day Hebron alive for me.
If you want to learn the truth about persecution on the West Bank, and the appalling treatment of Palestinian residents by the Israeli authorities and the Jewish settlers they protect, then this is definitely the trip for you.

12/11/2022

Today, we visited the Palestinian Kufyyah’s factory in Hebron.

10/11/2018

Come to Palestine. Educate yourself about the Palestinian Israeli conflicts.

02/07/2017

Welcome to Palestine

18/02/2013

===>The story of Abraham's purchase of the Cave of the Patriarchs from the Hittites constitutes a seminal element in what was to become the Jewish attachment to the land in that it signified the first 'real estate' of Israel long before the conquest under Joshua. In settling here, Abraham is described as making his first covenant, an alliance with two local Amorite clans who became his ba’alei brit or masters of the covenant. The Abrahamic traditions associated with Hebron are nomadic, and may also reflect a Kenite element, since the nomadic Kenites are said to have long occupied the city, and Heber is the name for a Kenite clan

18/02/2013

===>Hebron (Arabic: al-Ḫalīl; Hebrew: חֶבְרוֹן , Standard Hebrew: Ḥevron, Tiberian: Ḥeḇrôn ISO 259-3: Ḥebron); Ottoman Turkish Halilürrahman) also known as City of the Patriarchs, is a Palestinian city located in the southern West Bank, 30 km (19 mi) south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters (3,050 ft) above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to approximately 250,000 Palestinians, and between 500 and 800 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter. The city is most notable for containing the traditional burial site of the biblical Patriarchs and Matriarchs and is therefore considered the second-holiest city in Judaism after Jerusalem. The city is also venerated by Muslims for its association with Abraham and was traditionally viewed as one of the "four holy cities of Islam.

Hebron is a busy hub of West Bank trade, responsible for roughly a third of the area's gross domestic product, largely due to the sale of marble from quarries. It is locally well known for its grapes, figs, limestone, pottery workshops and glassblowing factories, and is the location of the major dairy product manufacturer, al-Junaidi. The old city of Hebron is characterized by narrow, winding streets, flat-roofed stone houses, and old bazaars. The city is home to Hebron University and the Palestine Polytechnic University.

Hebron is also the largest Palestinian governorate with population of 600,364 (2010)

01/02/2013

===>Solomon's Pools , Birkat as-Sultan Suleiman al-Kanuni; Hebrew: בריכות שלמה, Breichot Shlomo) are located immediately to the south of al-Khader and about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) southwest of Bethlehem.
The pools consist of three open cisterns, each rectilinear pool with a 6 metres (20 ft) drop to the next, fed from an underground spring. With each pool being over 100 metres (330 ft) long, 65 metres (213 ft) wide and 10 metres (33 ft) deep, the total water capacity is approximately 200,000,000 litres (53,000,000 USgal). Consequently the pools have played a significant role in the area's water supply for centuries.
They are named after the Biblical Solomon, stemming from a legend of Solomon using the waters and gardens as in Ecclesiastes 2.6, where Solomon is recorded as saying "I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees".[1] However, recent evidence suggests that the lowest pool was probably the constructed during the Maccabean period at the time of the reconstruction of the temple at Jerusalem (circa 2 BCE).

A second phase occurred when ancient Roman Pontius Pilate built 39 kilometres (24 mi) of aqueduct from the collection pools at Arrub. Roman engineering under Herod the Great in connection with his improvements to the Second Temple created the underground tunnel feeding the upper pool
Water system

The pools provide water for an aqueduct system supplying Bethlehem and for the population of Jerusalem where the aqueduct terminated under the Temple Mount and separated from its neighbour by 50 metres (160 ft) and each pool is 6 metres (20 ft) lower than that above it, the conduits being so arranged that the lowest, which is the largest and finest of the three, is filled first, and then in succession the others. It has been estimated that these pools cover about 7 acres (28,000 m2).

The pools are fed by four different springs; the most prominent is Ein-Atan or Etam at the head of the Wadi Urtas, called "the sealed fountain," about 200 metres (660 ft) to the north-west of the upper pool. The spring water is transferred to the upper pool by a large subterranean passage.[3]

The water system as a whole shows a high degree of sophistication. Five different aqueducts, totalling nearly 60 kilometres in length, were linked to Solomon's Pools. From the lower pool an aqueduct has been traced carrying the water through Bethlehem and across the valley of Gihon, and along the west slope of the Tyropoeon valley, till it finds its way into the great cisterns underneath the temple hill in Jerusalem.

Present day

The water, however, from the pools now reaches only to Bethlehem. The aqueduct beyond this has been destroyed. Two of the aqueducts connected to additional water sources from the south; another, from the upper pool, carried water east to the Herodium where Herod had constructed a large recreational pool, lined with columns; and two aqueducts brought water to Jerusalem.

The area around Solomon's Pools has provided a pleasant atmosphere for picnics and relaxation over the centuries. On the north side at the entry to the park is an old Ottoman fort structure, built in 1620, which is known as Qal'at el-Burak or the castle of the pools. This has served at times as a caravansery (or khan - a resting place for caravans), and now has a restaurant with a garden area inside.

31/01/2013

===>Mar Saba

The Great Lavra of St. Sabbas the Sanctified,[1] known in Arabic as Mar Saba (Arabic: دير مار سابا; Hebrew: מנזר מר סבא; Greek: Λαύρα Σάββα τοῦ Ἡγιασμένου), is a Greek Orthodox monastery overlooking the Kidron Valley[2] in the West Bank east of Bethlehem. The traditional date for the founding of the monastery by Saint Sabas of Mutalaska, Cappadocia is the year 483[3] and today houses around 20 monks. It is considered to be one of the oldest inhabited monasteries in the world, and still maintains many of its ancient traditions. One in particular is the restriction on women entering the main compound. The only building that women can enter is the Women's Tower, near the main entrance.

The monastery holds the relics of St. Sabbas the Sanctified. Mar Saba is occasionally referred to as the Convent or Monastery of Santa Sabba.[4]

Mar Saba was also the home of St. John of Damascus (676 - 749), a key religious figure in the Iconoclastic Controversy, who around 726 wrote letters to the Byzantine emperor Leo III the Isaurian refuting his edicts prohibiting the veneration of icons (images of Christ or other Christian religious figures). John worked as a high financial officer to the Muslim Caliph Abd al-Malik; he eventually felt a higher calling and migrated to the Judaean desert, where he was tonsured a monk and was ordained a hieromonk (monastic priest) at the Monastery of Mar Saba. St. John's tomb lies in a cave under the monastery.

The monastery is important in the historical development of the liturgy of the Orthodox Church in that the monastic Typicon (manner of celebrating worship services) of Saint Sabas became the standard throughout the Eastern Orthodox Church and those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite. The Typicon took the standard form of services which were celebrated in the Patriarchate of Jerusalem and added some specifically monastic usages which were local traditions at Saint Sabas. From there it spread to Constantinople, and thence throughout the Byzantine world. Although this Typicon has undergone further evolution, particularly at the Monastery of the Stoudion in Constantinople, it is still referred to as the Typicon of Saint Sabas.

Mar Saba is where Morton Smith claimed to have found a copy of a letter ascribed to Clement of Alexandria containing excerpts of a so-called Secret Gospel of Mark.

31/01/2013

===>Aerial photo of Herodium from the southwest

29/01/2013

===>Christmas pilgrims, 1890