JERUSALEM 4
Armenian Quarter
We started off with a walk to the Old City again. This time we wandered into the Armenian Quarter. The Armenian Quarter has been occupied by Armenians since the 4th century when Armenia decided to be a Christian country and some monks came. They do not consider themselves either Arab or Palestinian. The quarter occupies about 15 percent of the Old City - so really not a quarter. This is the front of the St. James Monastery in the Armenian quarter.
There was a demonstration when we were there.
This had to do with the Armenian Genocide that took place between 1915 - 1923.
Christ Church
It is the oldest Christian church in the old city located just inside the Jaffa Gate and within the Armenian Quarter. It was built in 1849. Its congregation is mainly English speaking Jewish Christians???? It supposedly was built to look like a synagogue to fool Jews.
Mikail and the Tomb of Samuel
We had lunch and went on a hike and had lunch with Mikail and his family (Eina wife and children Noam, Levi, Sarah, Daniel and Shlomi). In this photo we are hiking near his home in Jerusalem. Mikail used to work with the Queen at NIH and she often has said that Mikail was one of her three best post-docs over the 30 years she was at NIH.
On the walk we stopped into the Bible Lands Museum. Among the mosaics was this one from the 3rd century.
Tomb of Prophet Samuel
During the Passover season many Jews venture up to the Tomb of the Prophet Samuel. It is located on the top of a 908 meter hill outside Jerusalem in an area that is in what may at one point become part of a Palestinian State or not. From the top you can see some of the Israeli settlements in disputed areas and many Palestinian villages.
You can see as far as Jerusalem and supposedly when the Crusaders first came to Israel to conquer the land back from the Muslims this was their first sighting of Jerusalem.
The site was originally a synagogue, then a Crusader fortress and then a mosque. The Queen is with Mikail and his wife Enid.
Excavations are being done of the site.
This is the entrance to the burial site of Samuel. Mikail and I went into the small room at the base of the structure and it was packed. We were the only ones not dressed in black.
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