The Church of All Nations, like the Chapel in Shepard’s Field in Bethlehem is the work of an Italian architect, Antonio Barluzzi. It is a dark, but beautiful building. This church sits at the bottom of the Kidron valley, at the bottom of the Mount of Olives, and the traditional site of the garden of Gethsemane is right next to it. While some of the oldest of these olive trees are hundreds of years old, they are not 2,000 years... Read more

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which goes back to the time of Queen Helena at least in the 4th century, is the probable locale of Golgotha. It is in fact not one church but many, claimed by so many Orthodox and Catholic denominations that this man has to hold the key to the main door— he’s a Muslim and this tradition goes back in his family to the middle ages! I asked the man sitting at the door— where’s... Read more

Along the cardo there are of course food shops as well…. Name that fruit! Needless to say, the food in the Jewish quarter is all kosher. Read more

The Cardo Maximus (or Roman equivalent of Market St.) runs right through the old city of Jerusalem from the Damascus gate right past the Wailing Wall area, and on to the gate at the other side of the old town. It has been there since Roman times, which is to say, basically since this was turned into Aelia Capitolina in the 2nd century after the second Jewish revolt, and the banishing of Jews. Until 1967 there were various occupations and... Read more

There are actually not that many places where one can say with certainty ‘I’m walking where Jesus and Paul once walked’, but the steps leading up into the Temple is one of those places. Here’s Leen Ritmeyer’s reconstruction of what it looked like in Jesus and Paul’s day…. The area I’m referring to is in the bottom left of that picture, the steps leading up to the entrance way into the Temple Mount. Nearby were mikvehs, ceremonial purity baths such... Read more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dk_BmwBZJU And now for something completely different. It’s been over two decades since there has been a film about Asians featuring just Asians (do you remember the Joy Luck Club?). If you were pining for such a film, well your long nightmare is over. And the movie is quite good. What it is not is a rom-com, in the traditional sense. There are a few funny scenes, but it’s far more romance than comedy to be sure, for the full... Read more

While all roads do not lead to Jerusalem and its environs, that’s where we must go for the next few posts. We start with St. Peter in Galicantu or St. Peter’s of the Cockcrow church. This is one of those locales which probably corresponds to where Jesus was held, at the house of Caiaphas in a holding cell. You can still see the Roman steps that went down to the Kidron valley, and on to the garden of Gethsemane area……... Read more

The Golan Heights are at present occupied by Israel, but they used to belong to Syria and Jordan. Biblically this area is important because over here on this side of the lake was Gerasa territory, and Gadara village, and one or the other is the locale where Jesus exorcised the man who had a legion of demons in him. Here’s the view looking towards the lake from the Golan…. The Israelis have been busy bees over here since they took... Read more

Certainly one of my favorite sites to visit is another Caesarea, Caesarea Philippi in the far north, where Peter made his confession that Jesus was the Christ. The important point is…. this was not in Israel. In fact, it was in a pagan city originally named for the Greek god Pan. It was one of the ten cities of the Greek Decapolis, and later Herod Philip’s capital. Here there were pagan temples, and statues of Greek and Roman gods and... Read more

The Gospels suggest that Jesus made Kefer Nahum (the village of Nahum)=Capernaum his home away from home. The house of Peter’s mother-in-law seems to have been the spot where he visited and stayed and today that house appears to be the one underneath the Fransican boat-shaped modern church. As you enter the site, there is a new visitor awaiting you….a homeless figure lying on a bench, which upon closer examination has a hole in his foot, and is Jesus. This... Read more