Jerusalem Walks Leon's Walks

According to archaeologists Yossi Garfinkel and Saar Ganor, a hill shown on maps as Khirbet Qeiyafa is a Biblical city called Shaarayim, mentioned in ISam 17:52. "Then the men of Israel and Judah gave a great shout of triumph and rushed after the Philistines, chasing them as far as Gath and the gates of Ekron." The bodies of the dead and wounded Philistines were strewn all along the road from Shaaraim, as far as Gath and Ekron." Yesterday I sat on the top of this hill and cou

Shalom Friends, This has been a busy week. Last night, after I had spent a little time with my son Ariel, his wife, Lilach and his kids, Ophir and Alon and of course Ollie, Ettie fetched me, after she’d spent a day shopping and “clearing her head” which I doubt is a good idea, with her favorite cousin Ayala, in our beautiful Prius, that I don’t drive since giving up my driver’s license for the sake of the bus and walking, to meet our old friends Carmela and Shimon, Ettie’s fr

An item, some weeks ago in Haaretz newspaper announced the opening of Herod’s Pool to the public. I had heard about archaeological excavations in the 1930’s that discovered a palace and a pool of Herod’s in Jerusalem near the Armenian Quarter, in the vicinity of the Jaffa Gate, I’d also read a bit of Josephus’ Jewish Wars where he describes Herod’s beautiful Jerusalem palace, apparently the most beautiful palace of all. He had palaces in many places, the most visited and ther

It didn’t matter where I went on Rosh Hashanah as long as I was spending time with my kids, by this I mean my grandkids, although I’m happy spending time with any kids who want to spend time with me. Spending time with them doesn’t mean that I’m really doing very much, it just means that I’m sitting on a comfortable white plastic garden chair, with them at a place where they can find things to do, what some educators of children call a challenging environment. This is a very

Shalom everyone, On Wednesday afternoon I was waiting as usual outside the government tourist information office at Jaffa Gate for my tourist for the day to show up. I had rushed to get there on time at 2:30. I thought I had the wrong time, but when I called I was told that he would turn up only at 3 PM. While I waited I read a few pages of my book by Eliezer Schweid. Eventually he turned up and I got started; first I took him first to see a map of Jerusalem to show him where

This week an English tourist mentioned some planned restrictions on eating in public in order not to offend the sensitivities of the Moslems who are fasting in Ramadan. Here in Israel we don't have a law like that, even though we are very strict about not making speeches of incitement against any population group or taking any action which may provoke the sensitivities of any particular group whether Jews, Moslems or Christians. This discussion started me thinking about the s