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LEON'S PICTURE DIARY

Pictures of places Leon visits each week on tours of israel

Sat 28th Feb 2015

Movie today: Being Alice. Beautiful acting showing, dramatic change in a person who contracts Alzheimer. A beautiful but sad movie.

Rishon Le Zion to comfort mourners, Miriam and family who's mother died at age 94 in Ofakim. A single parent who immigrated to Israel from Tunisia and succeeded in raising 5 children very successfully. Miriam is married to Eti's cousin Dudi

Fri 27th Feb 2015

A walk to Mahaneh Yehudah Market to meet Ettie and Doron and Yuval, on their regular early morning Friday shopping. I continued to Modiin to accompany Sigalit and the kids to the park where blow up slides and trampolines had been set up for the kids. We came early and Tamar and Eitan enjoyed everything. I wore a top hat for Purim disguise.

Took the 111 bus to Tel Aviv, then 116 to Hatikvah suburb and walked to meet Ariel and Lilach to visit with them and play in the park with Ophir and Alon and their dog Ollie. She likes the special doggy park.

Friday night, dinner with Omer and Lavi and their kids, Jonatan and Alma and the olf folks, Boaz and Ayala. Delicious soup, kind of spinach with garbanzo beans.

Wed 25th Feb 2015

Tour Guides refresher 34 in the footsteps of the pioneers in Lower Galilee. The story of ICA, Jewish colonisation association established after pogroms in Russia and Ukraine at the end of the 19th century. ICA brought Shabotnikim (Christians who observe Saturday as the Sabbath, like the Jews)experienced farmers from South Russia to Israel to teach the Jews farming. They converted to Judaism and were considered Gerim(a Biblical term for people who convert to Judaism) today they are all fully fledged Jews, having married into Jewish families. 

sigalit

Mon 23rd Feb

Ohad Neharin and Batsheva dance co at the varda hall at Susan Dalal center in New Zedek. The Hole. A great build up of tension with a happy ending. A really beautiful performance. Alon beat me twice in chess. Is it okay if your grandson beats you at all the games he plays. Grandfathers are supposed to be clever.

Sun 22nd Feb 2015

Avremele, my cousin from Cfar Saba died yesterday. Today I'll go to the funeral. This morning I walked in the brisk air of a bright, clear day and saw the remnants of the snow.

Sun 22nd Feb

Funeral of cousin Averemele in Cfar Saba. Cousing Hetzik's grave. Spartacus ballet at the Israel Opera in Tel Aviv. "Why not" a happy romantic movie at Lev Disengoff. Recommended for getting into a happy mood

Sat 21st Feb 2015

Still snow, slightly melted and slippery, certainly not a time for a walk, but I have one of these standing bicycles which I inherited from Ettie's dear mother Pnina. 1/2 hour riding on that while listening to an audio book on a free app, The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. I love her detailed descriptions of families and homes in New York in the early years of the 20th century, a way of life to remember but not really to emulate, very colorful characters, like Newman Archer and the vander loydens and countess oleska.

Fri 20th Feb 2015

At last, snow. It came silently outside as I slept

Thu 19th Feb 2015

All day I waited for the snow and read The Guttenberg Galaxy and thinking all the time that I don't understand what McLuhan is trying to say, but I can't put it down because the subject of the cultural, social and political change which has come about in society as a result of the invention of printing is too important to be put aside. It's in fact critical for understanding societies that are still in the pre-print phase, based on audio-tectile means of communication.

Tues 17th Feb 2015

National Library, downloaded some interesting articles about Rabbi Emanuel ben Solomon of Rome, who lived at the end of the 13th century and wrote a Jewish version of Dante's descent into hell. Some people think that Dante's idea of a descent into hell is based on Mohammed's night time journey described in the Koran. Later I met Jo for our appointment, marketing manager, Israeli travel agency. German Colony, Joseph the Fisherman,cnr Avishai str and Emek Rephaim. Riding home with 3 library books under my, as if I'd robbed a vault of its most precious treasure with a free day ahead to delve into it as if I was eating a long yearned for chocolate cake with whipped cream and a cherry on the top.

Wed 18th Feb 2015

Forcast is snow, while I wait I read, mainly Eudora Welty's beautiful descriptions of a young girl, Laura, in Delta Wedding, arriving to meet her relatives, the Fairchilds, at their plantation named Shellmound, at Fairchilds, Mississippi. This is idyllic, better than reality but, that's the point, namely that mostly we prefer romance and life in an idyllic environment rather than the harshness of reality. It is shatteringly beautiful.

 

Mon 16th Feb 2015

Rainy days but Jo and I took the bus, running, not to get too wet from Jerusalem Gardens Hotel to take bus 9 for a visit in Talbiya. Having enough of the rain we took a cab back.

Sun 15th Feb

Yad Vashem, the holocaust memorial, always a very emotional place to visit. Every time I go there with tourists I have to rethink the causes for man's inhumanity to man then to wonder why we still haven't learned any lessons from this terrible event. We entered the Old City by thge Jaffa Gate and ate humus at the famous Lena, just after the 8th station of the cross. 

Sat 14th Feb 2015

Valentine's day, beautiful weather, blue skies, but cold, Ittamar's birthday, Ettie made a strawberry cake and took it in the evening while I slept (it's hard for me to see cakes leaving the house) saw Imitation game at Yes Planet in Rishon Lezion, beautiful place, even a lake, great acting by Benedict Cumberbatch, a natural for Turing. Shocking that homosexuals were considered criminals in England even in the 20th century, the guy was a hero, dammit. Excellent movie but I could have done without some of the artificial melodrama, such as the guy who's brother is on the ship that identify as being in danger.

Fri 13th Feb 2015

Touring with Roberto and family, Waldorf Astoria, Shuk Machaneh Yehudah, Lunch at Haba, drive around the walls of the Old City, The Wailing Wall (Kotel)

Thu 12th Feb 2015

Tour with Roberto, Pupi and Gaya on a very stormy day to The Palmach Museum, Caesarea, fish lunch at Bat Galim, The Crusader Castle in Acre, panorama of Haifa, visit family in Ranaana

Wed 11th Feb 2015

Tour with Roberto, Pupi and Gaya to Ayalon Inst to Shederot, typical Israeli lunch, beans, meat and rice, police station to see the misiles fired at Shederot, kibutz Niram, reservoir, view into Gaza

Mon 9th Feb 2015

We left Tiberias at 7, drove through the Jordan Valley, up to Maaleh Ephraim to the Land of Benjamin to the visitors center at Pisagot the main settlement in the Land of Benjamin.

Sun 8th Feb 2015

Journey visiting Tiberias and hotels, O'halo Manor, Kinar and beautiful scenes on the way

Fri 6th Feb 2015

visited the center of town and took some pictures from the roof tops and some pictures of Bezalel Art School, returned to Kibbutz Rahel for a beautiful vantage point over Jerusalem and a visit to the ruins of a palace from the time of Solomon, and a monastery from the Byzantine period.

Thu 5th Feb 2015 

I accompanied Jo le Poole of Idoed Reizen on a familiarization tour. We started in Tel Aviv in his little Nisan car and rode to Latrun, where we ate and viewed the famous Ayalon Valley, beautiful and green in the Spring time. We continued to the Martyrs Forest to see the Anna Frank Memorial and to drive to Jerusalem through the beautiful Kesalon Valley.

Tue 4th Feb 2015
A walk through Sanhedriya. A modern religious suburb of Jerusalem built in the middle of a Jewish Cemetry from the 1st century BCE.
Sun 1st Feb 2015

A walk  through the Buharan Quarter of Jerusalem, a stop for a great felafel at shlomo's felafel and a walk through the Buharan Quarter market, where they have a great shop for selling nuts, dried fruit and spices

buharan quarter market

buharan quarter market

great nut a dried fruit shop here excellent for tu bishvat

buharan quarter felafel

buharan quarter felafel

great felafel at shlomo's in the Buharan Quarter of Jerusalem jerusalem walks

Thu 22nd Jan 2015
Paleolithic wall paintings
Lecture by Prof Prof. Manfried Bietak of the university of Vienna, who spoke about the Minoan wall paintings of Tel el Dab, also known as Avaris, the capital city of the Hyksos kings in Egypt in 16th century BCE, which he has been excavating for the last 40 years.

Minoan influence on Egyptian culture at this time is very interesting but it’s much more interesting when one considers that the Hyksos were the shepherd kings from Canaan, who conquered Egypt in the 16th century and ruled over it for more than 100 years.

 

Some scholars identify these kings as the ones who befriended Joseph and so brought about the entrance of the Israelites into Egypt.

 Image Credit: Flickr, Ze'ev Barkan

Prof. Jean Clottes on Paleolithic art. He told us that there are more than 400000 caves containing works of art. Our ancestors were busy painting on walls already 60000 years ago. You can see some of the pictures I took during his lectures, to admire this wonderful work, on the website page of my no newsletter.

 

More on this subject can be found on a website: http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/prehistoric/paleolithic-art-culture.htm

The 3rd lecture was given by Sylvia Rosenberg of the restorations dept at the Israel Museum. She spoke about art in Herodian times and showed some beautiful pictures of works of art from Massada and Herodion.

Tel Aviv University Campus

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