Jarom in Jerusalem: Politics, pictures, people and a post.

Well I figured I better update my blog today because we have two field trips the next two days so I'll have lots to say about those later! Once again this week I found myself super busy, always trying to stay on top of homework while having fun and going out into the city. One day we visited the Church of the Dormition. It's a place where they commemorate the death of the Virgin Mary. It's located right on top of Mount Zion. After that we headed around the North Side of the Old City, past the western wall, and visited some old tombs that were locked up in the Kidron Valley. There was this big one called Absalom's Pillar (named after David's son who rebelled against him). Apparently it was buried under a ton of rocks because it was a Jewish tradition to take your son there and throw rocks at the tomb to teach your son not to rebel. It's not really where Absalom was buried, it's much later than that, but still old. Another day we headed over to the temple mount and walked all around. We walked where Solomon's Porch would have been (where Christ did a lot of his teaching) called so because I guess that section of the temple in Herod's Day was part of the Original Solomon's temple. We also explored The Church of the Holy Sepulchral again.

I also spent the week doing readings and papers and homework. I've decided to have a good attitude about all the reading they offer us. I decided to look at homework and readings as a banquet they're offering us rather than a force-feeding they're giving us. P.S. Nobody does the reading here and I don't blame them. Anyway, Thursday night was an "informal" talent show. I'm not sure why it's called informal other than you can do whatever you want and be goofy. Two days earlier I was not signed up to do anything, but by the time the show rolled around I was involved in three. I'll have to find someone who has pictures. In one act I played the "Pransome Hince" (handsome prince with letters switched) in the story of "Rindercella" (A backwards Cinderella story). Then we also did this spoof of an online harry potter puppet show, but using teachers from the Center rather than from Harry Potter. Then I participated in a dance number by a lot of the Jerusalem Center guys dancing to "Newsies" and "Open the gate and seize the day." I've had an awesome time here at the Jerusalem Center. I'm making lots of super good friends. I've started to feel like this may be one of the best experiences of my life so far.

We'll be visiting Jordan in only one week! We watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade- the place where the grail is held in that movie is a real place called Petra we'll be going too. It will be sweet!

Hey! If you want to see a view of Jerusalem from our center, watch www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jva3sylajxA

Some Politics: Once a week we have a forum where we invite someone from the area to lecture on Middle Eastern affairs. We've had some excellent people, including the PR man of the Israeli Government, a member of the Palestinian Parliament, and most recently some famous and important Journalists from this land. Matthew Kalman came and talked to us about the absurdity of Journalism in this land. This is the only place you can be a foreign correspondent and not speak the language. No one wants to learn Hebrew because they won't use it anywhere else, and Arabic is hard. Also, no one wants to go to the West Bank because they're afraid something will happen to them. So basically a lot of things will be second hand. Also, the people here are super polite, and will tell you whatever you want to hear. I'll give you an example. When the dividing wall here was built it went through some farmer's fields, cutting them off from their own fields and the marketplace where they would sell their products. Apparently some foreign correspondents went there and looked for someone who spoke English. They were directed by some other news crews to a man up on the hill. They went there and interviewed him all about how the Israeli government was building a wall through his lands and how horrible it was and all that. One of the correspondents stuck around and got to know the man better. One day, he noticed the house he was at was abandoned. The journalist asked him where he lived. He said he lived in this city far away. The Journalist continued to ask him things and it turned out the man wasn't a farmer at all, but someone in a Palestinian village in charge of torturing people. Apparently the people were just so polite and saw the need for someone to tell the story in English they assigned this man to say things to reporters. Anyway, it was just an example how things here aren't reported correctly. Also Khaled Abu Toamehr, another very famous journalist (look him up), talked about Journalism as well as the two state solution. He told a story about how everyone and their dogs in Palestine knew Hamas was going to win elections here, but no one in America did. He talked about how the day before elections happened, he wrote an article about how Hamas was going to win, and he got a call from the Washington Post wanting to know where he got his information. They didn't believe him. He told them if he was wrong he'd leave Journalism. The article was published and he was right. He talked about how many times the truth won't be published in the media because it's not "part of the story" that's popular. Needless to say, my faith in the media's ability to report on situations in this place is gone. Both journalists talked about how you don't have to know anything to write an article about the middle east. He said he read in a Toronto Newspaper about how Hamas was reforming and getting ready to accept Israel. He took the paper home and brought it to some leaders of Hamas. They said it was news to them. Anyway, I've been trying to formulate an opinion on things over here. Honestly I think Palestinian leaders have radicalized the people so much I don't think a two state solution is the best thing to have happen right now. The moment there are elections HERE Hamas will be elected because people don't like the current leadership (they have a long history of being very corrupted). According to the Palestinian Journalist, Obama hasn't helped things. First off, he made it an issue a couple years ago that the Israeli's should stop building settlements in the West Bank. This is something the Palestinian President had not demanded, so of course, not to be one-upped by the American President, he demanded it too. Once again, when Obama demanded that a new state be formed along the 1967 lines, this was another thing the PLO hadn't demanded seriously. Now they do demand it. It would seem to me, as it did to the Journalist, that Obama has only made things here worse by making demands that won't be met. Now in September Palestine will go to the United Nations and ask to be recognized. If that happens then they will call for a boycott of Israel, which will be a country that is occupying theirs. Well, we'll see what happens. (Also, other American presidents haven't done the best either. George W. Bush had the election take place in which Hamas was elected, then supported Fatah in staying in power against elections.) Anyway, I look forward to learning more and understanding the current affair of it better.

Lion's Gate and some friends!

Church of the Dormition

Some friends on the north side of Jerusalem.

Throwing a rock at Absalom's Pillar.

If you look real close you can see blue and gold paint. This is paint from Herod's temple in Jesus's time! It was buried underground for years, but now the paint is slowly eroding and won't be there in a couple years!