Old Jaffa

Shabbat Shalom. It is Friday evening and the start of Shabbat. Most stores in Israel shut down on Friday afternoon and don't reopen until Saturday after sunset. With Tel Aviv being such a secular city, it is still busy.

The first thing we did this morning was walk across the street and put our feet in the Mediterranean. It was cold but delightful.


It was a lazy morning - waking up at 9:30 and spending most of the day in the old port city of Jaffa. Jaffa is the port where Jonah left from when he ran away from God. It's a short book in the Old Testament and worth the time to read it ... or for a bit of entertainment, listen to this little girl read it to you - here.
  
 


It is also where Peter raised Tabitha from the dead (Acts 29:40) and Simon the Tanner's house where Peter stayed (Acts 10:15). Saint Peters church is a Roman Catholic Church built over a 1,000 years ago.
 

Jaffa is known for its beautiful cobblestone streets and narrow alleys. Last time we were here we saw a beautiful bride being photographed by one of the blue doors.




Because it was Shabbat we treated ourselves to a seafood dinner right on the Jaffa seaport. The fish (served whole) was from the Mediterranean and the Israeli salad could have made a meal all by itself. 



We leave early tomorrow morning for Haifa.


Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 29, 2019 at 5:50 PM

    I just shut my eyes.....as the sun sets in Estes Park on Shabbat .....I can smell the sea.
    So glad you’re there.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mount Hermon Nature Preserve

Image
Yesterday we began our day visiting the Mount of Beatitudes. It was the one place along the Galilee that we hadn't been to. If it wasn't for all the tourists it may have been easy to picture Yeshua preaching to the multitudes on the hillside. We then traveled all the way up to Dan (the furthest most part of Israel) to the Mount Hermon Nature Preserve. I was driving north on 90, missed our exit, and I was glad the road ended ... otherwise we would have been in Lebanon. This nature preserve has ancient ruins of the temple of pan and beautiful hiking trails. The area is lush and green. Unfortunately, it is also surrounded by land mines left by the Syrians when they controlled the Golan Heights. There are areas sectioned off by barbed wire warning you not to enter. This water is the source of most water in Israel - leading down to the Galilee and in to the Jordan. Mt Hermon Springs
Read more

Old City Jerusalem

Image
Yesterday was a pretty special day. We got to spend it with Ari, our tour guide we had on both of our previous trips to Israel. It is said that touring Israel with Ari is like shoving a college semester in to two weeks. We met for coffee and Ari spent the next hour and a half explaining the history of Jerusalem and how the walls changed over the years. We have heard it before but it is always good to refresh our memories, especially since we would be spending the day in the Old City. Unfortunately, this is the only picture I took of Ari. Ari loves to draw maps - whether on paper or on his hands. This is the map of Jerusalem we took from him at the end of the day. It makes perfect sense to us and I'd be happy to explain the Old City to anyone using this map. Although Israel became a nation in 1948, the Old City of Jerusalem was not open to Jews to visit. It was under Jordanian rule and didn't become part of Israel until after the 6 day war in 1967. The Jewish sect...
Read more

The Sea of Galilee

Image
Although it's still overcast the sun was shining bright this morning as we ate breakfast on our deck. Ann made a friend, named him Wiggles, but we told her that she couldn't take him home! Yesterday we spent the day driving around the Sea of Galilee exploring the places where Yeshua walked. Our first stop was Magdela, the home of Mary Magdeline. Did you know that you cannot build before the department of antiquities checks first to make sure you aren't building on top of something significant. Well, the Catholic Church had plans to build a retreat on the Sea and found a first century synagogue and town. The retreat is being built around the ancient town. the site of the synagogue where Yeshua taught a menorah on the Magdela stone It was amazing to see the difference 6 years made. When we visited 6 years ago Magdela had just been discovered and wasn't even open to the public but Ari, our guide, got us in anyway. There was nothing but the uncovered sy...
Read more