‘Two Cities. One Break’?

The current television advertising campaign by the Israeli Tourist Board uses the slogan ‘Two Cities. One Break’ as it’s basis, focussing on the cities of Tel Aviv (modern metropolitan city with beautiful beaches on the Mediterranean Coast) and Jerusalem (the holy city). The campaign uses images of smiling people on the beach and in nightclubs…

‘Make me a channel of your peace’

Make me a channel of your peace Where there’s despair in life let me bring hope Where there is darkness, only light And where there’s sadness ever joy. For me, and I think it’s safe to say everyone on this trip, these words and this weel kent hymn by Jon Cohen will have new meaning…

“If there’s nowhere n the world for us…”

“If there’s nowhere in the world for us, let NASA build us a home up there” Eid These words are slightly tounge-in-cheek but none the less a heartbreaking window into the problems of part of the Jahalin Bedouin Tribe near the Jericho road. This large family group were denied permission to build a school on…

Sad Friday and Easter Sturday

Today is Sad Friday in the Orthodox calendar. The time when evening services are held to enact Jesus’ funeral. A sad occasion with flowers, funerial chants and weeping. A time to stop and take stock of what has passed and what is still to come. In the West we call the Friday before Easter Sunday,…

Holy Sites or not Holy Sites….that is the question!

Today was an early start in order to head to Jerusalem to visit the Al-Haram ash-Sherif complex. This site is only open at certain times and as it is currently a Jewish holiday traffic could be busy and checkpoints slow. Thankfully neither was bad and we made good time entering the complex via the Dung…

“Alone we can do so little…”

The group made up by people from Inverurie West along with two friends arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport at 5:30am (Israel time) to be met with one of the features of traveling into Israel. Whilst the majority of our group passed through passport control very quickly, it came to the last person who did not. Taken…