A Few Days in Tel Aviv & Jerusalem

Most of you know that one of my best friends is Kate.  Kate and I worked together in New York at the Jerusalem Foundation.  She and her husband, Ash, live in London with their three kids - Alon, Ben and Tali.

Ben just turned 13 so the time for his bar mitzvah arrived.  Alon had his a few years ago in London; Ben wanted to have his in Israel.  So, off we went.

Here's a shot of part of Tel Aviv - it's a massive city with "downtown" sections all over.  I stayed with some friends in a town called Modi'in that's halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.  I took the train into Tel Aviv and walked around one day.  It was MASSIVELY hot.  I found the Art Museum, but only about 20 minutes before it closed.  But I also found this view of the Azrieli Center and I like it.

I have two friends in Israel besides people I know through Kate.  I got together with them one night.  

Here they are - Liron (on the left below) and Chen (on the right.)

Me and Chen

Me and Liron

It was great to see these two again.  A few days later (on Friday) I had an afternoon free, so I went with Chen up to Haifa and the Druze villages on Mount Carmel.  I took the train back to Tel Aviv from Haifa that day - it was really beautiful.

Anyway, on the Thursday we went up to Jerusalem for the bar mitzvah.  Bar mitzvahs are really cool - they mark the movement of young boys from childhood into manhood.  Bat mitzvahs do the same for girls.  This is a photo of Ben reading from the Torah (it's inside the thing Ben's holding.)  He read and spoke in Hebrew.  He also had some really good thoughts on the ideas of freedom of choice and responsibility.  His parents were really proud of him.

After the service a few of us walked down to the Wailing Wall.  Here are a few pictures:

Messages put into the cracks of the Wall

Men Praying at the Wall (the women have a separate section)

Up above the Wall is the Temple Mount (the Wall is the western part of the retaining Wall Herod built for his temple.  It's become sacred to Jews because for centuries it was the closest they could get to the Temple Mount - and even today most Jews wont' go onto the Temple Mount because the rabbis have said that since no one really knows where the Holy of Holies of Solomon's Temple was and since walking accidentally onto the location of the Holy of Holies would be a terrible thing to do the entire place is just avoided.

Anyway, there are two holy mosques up on the Mount.  Here are pictures:

The Al Aqsa Mosque - its the silver dome on the left.

The Dome of the Rock


This was a great trip.  It was great to see Ben go through this great event.  We followed up all the spiritual events with a great party at the beach in the evening north of Tel Aviv.  

I stopped in Istanbul on the way back to the UK for a few hours.  I went into the city and met a friend (Nuran) at a tea shop.  We ran into another friend and he joined us.  I hung out for a while and then went back to the airport and now I'm back in the UK.  

I'll be home in just under 2 weeks!  I can't wait to see what's happening in SF these days!