Today is Easter Sunday and I got up at 6 AM to go to the Easter Sunrise Ecumenical Service. This was a joint service was conducted by the Catholic Priest and the Protestant Minister. The service started before the sun came up at the ship was coming into Ashdod, Israel. At 6:22 AM the sun came up over Israel and it was a once in a lifetime that I could be in Israel on Easter Sunday. We were not scheduled to be in Israel but do to the cancellation of our three stops in Egypt, two stops were added in Israel. Israel has two ship ports and one is Ashdod and the other is Haifa which we will be in on April 6th. Israel is 80% Jews. From 1939 to 1945, the Holocaust & WW II many Jews Illegal immigrated to Israel. In 1947 the UN had a Partition Plan which divided the country into a Jewish section and a Palestine section. The countries around Israel did not agree and resulted in war. In 1948, the state of Israel was established. In 1967, was the six day war. One result of the war was the Golan Heights area which was occupied by Syria before the war and after the war it was occupied by Israel and annexed by Israel in 1981. In 1979, a peace treaty was signed with Egypt. In 1982 to 1984 there was a war with Lebanon and in 1993, the Oslo Accords was signed with Palestinians and in 1994 a peace agreement was signed with Jordan. In 2006 there was a second Lebanon War. Today, certain areas of the country are for Jews and others are for the Palestinians. Fences have been built and it is not easy for the Palestinians to travel outside of their area. Bethlehem is in the Palestine section and any travel to Bethlehem requires different busses and tour guides so as a result only one, a 2 day overnight tour went to Bethlehem. Jerusalem also has sections which tours cannot go without changing busses and tour guides.
A little before 9 AM, I left on a tour called "Leisurely Jerusalem." We left Ashdod and traveled thru some of the farm land in Israel and traveled into the Judean Mountains on the way to Jerusalem. At 9:30 AM we stopped for a rest stop and after arriving at 10:15 AM in Jerusalem and we drove up to the Mount of Olives for a panoramic view of the old city and the rest of Jerusalem. We next drove to view Gethsemane the garden of olive trees in which Jesus spent the last moments before his arrest. Located here was the Basilica of Gethsemane a church built by the Franciscan Catholics. Here we also saw a 1000 year old olive tree. We drove by the city of David and the old city walls and stopped at the Dung Gate. Here we viewed and touched the Western (Wailng) Wall which was part of the holy temple. The firs temple was built by King Solomon 3,000 years ago and was destroyed by Nevuchadnezzar of Babylon. It was rebuilt on its ruins seventy years later and was destroyed by the Roman legions over 1,900 years ago. At 1:30 PM we arrived for lunch. From here we had a view of the Old City and Bethlehem in the distance. This tour did not stop at these sites. We then took a driving tour of the city and then headed back to the ship where we arrived at 5:30 PM.
After dinner I did not go to the movie. The ship left Ashdod at 11 PM and headed for the next stop at Haifa, Israel.
Below are pictures from part 2 of Ashdod and my tour to Jerusalem. See part 1 for additional pictures.
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