The Garden Tomb and Jewish Quarter of the Old City

Today we took a cab to the Garden Tomb, which is a short distance north of the Damascus Gate, and therefore outside the current city walls. The owners of the site, a Protestant group from England, contend that this is the true Golgotha and burial place of Jesus. Archeological experts disagree, but not all agree that The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the correct place either. The problem is that there have been so many rulers of Jerusalem over the centuries, and so many demolishings and re-buildings, that it is impossible to tell exactly where anything happened.

Nevertheless, when one looks at the Garden Tomb and feels the tranquility there, one gets a totally different feeling than one gets at the Holy Sepulchre, which, as one tour book put it, "has been decorated beyond all recognition." Here is a picture of the tomb:

If nothing else, at least the garden tomb gives more of a true representation of how the site at The Church of the Holy Sepulchre once might have looked.

Next we walked back to the Old City and toured the Jewish Quarter, which has been extensively "refurbished" since the Six Day War in 1967, when Israel regained control of Jerusalem from Jordan. Many parts of the Jewish Quarter were destroyed under Arab control, and repair work and excavation of rocks and buildings down to levels existing at the time of Christ, or even several centuries prior to his birth, have been underway for many years. You can actually see the various levels in several areas cut away for viewing. We witnessed a couple of "parades" of young men - what might have been part of a Bar Mitzvah, because one of the young men was walking under a canopy that others were holding over him - they were led by a drummer, and it was very exciting to watch.

What must be a truly meaningful restoration for Jews is the newly completed (just opened last month) synagogue in this area of the city. At least two previous synagogues at this site were destroyed by enemies, and it has taken forty years to rebuild. You will notice in the photo below that the synagogue is interestingly juxtaposed beside a mosque, just as The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is.

Once again we had lunch at the same restaurant in the Arab Quarter - the host now recognizes us and begins to prepare our meal as we make our way to "our" table. We tried the delicious grilled chicken this time. Move over El Pollo Loco!

It was once again pretty hot by the afternoon, so we took a cab back to our apartment and hoped our laundry delivery would come this morning, because we were down to our last bits of wardrobe. Fortunately the man brought the laundry this morning - VERY expensive - must be more costly when you don't speak the local language.

One of the things we have really enjoyed is seeing so many cute children here. We were able to capture a photo of two young ladies having lunch together in the restaurant with us. They were obviously feeling very grown up to be having luncheon together and gave Alan permission to take their picture.