Merhaba,

   We are now back from Bodrum after a long, full, 24 hour passage.  We were put back in the water at 11 am Monday morning.  But had we started out then for Marmaris we would have arrived about 11pm, too late to do anything but anchor out and wait until morning to enter the marina.  Instead we dropped anchor in Bodrum and waited around.  But that was just too hot and boring so we pulled up anchor and hoped for slow speeds that would get us to Marmaris about 8 am.  No such luck.  Even with the throttle cut back we zoomed along at over 7 knots.  By 8 pm we knew our plan wasn’t working so well so we found a bay that looked somewhat sheltered from the 24 knot winds and we went in and dropped anchor.  We would wait there and rest for 4 hours, pull up anchor at 1 am and head for Marmaris planning to be there about 8 am when the marina staff would help us into a berth and before the wind would pick up.  We’d had our anchor drag back in Bodrum and then again the first try in this bay.  So though we really were good and stuck the second attempt, we took turn standing watch to make sure we didn’t drift back into the island behind us.  Randal took the first watch from 9 until 11 and then I watched until 1 am when we pulled up anchor and were on our way.  The thing about standing watch at anchor is that I could read so it wasn’t so boring.  When we’re moving there is too much movement to read and too much to watch so reading isn’t such a good idea.  I know people who listen to audio books or can read, but we haven’t had smooth enough crossings of late to make reading possible.  I do read during the day unless we’re really rolling and then even I get queasy looking at print.  As it happened, beware of what you wish for…those earlier wishes for slower speed caught up with us when we didn’t want them, the wind increased and we bounced our way towards Marmaris averaging less than 5 knots for too many hours.  There was a full moon so that was nice and by sunrise, my watch was from 4 am to 7 am, I was wide awake enough to let Randal sleep until 9 am.  We finally arrived in Marmaris Bay and though it was still windy, the bay helped as did the marina walls so we got into our berth without incident with the help of the marinaros.  Marinaros are the men in the small, powerful dinghies who lead you to a berth, push the bow and stern around with their dinghy, hold you in place and then handle your lines on shore and hook you up to the bow line.  Good guys. 

Ru

     Randal, from a habit developed during his Roanoke Wreck Repair days, always gets to work before the “workers.” Our cruising lifestyle hasn’t changed that. So every morning we left our pension room by 7:30, an hour before the traditional Turkish breakfast was served. When we got to the boat yard I made our traditional breakfast. Randal eats Raisin Bran with skim milk and sliced banana and I have oatmeal with yogurt; just as we do where ever we are. Randal turns on his computer first thing. After I get our breakfast, I check email and baseball scores. Not a good year to be checking baseball scores if you are a Red Sox fan. After that I would go for a walk in the hills behind the boat yard. I could have taken a dolmus into town, or even walked for that matter as it was just a little over 2 miles. The point of being in Bodrum is to be in town seeing the sites or shopping, laying out at the beach or buying a ticket for one of the charter boats that cruise around the bays. At least that’s the point if you’re in Bodrum on “vacation.” And though Randal and I are on one long permanent vacation, we had work to do. Randal “supervised” and at times lent a hand to DoraMac’s bottom job and I had a load of hand wash to do every day along with the few dishes we would use. Cleaning the inside of the boat was pointless as particles from the sanding process and just general dust was inescapable as all of the portholes, hatches and doors had to remain open or the temperature in the boat would have been well over 100. Yat Lift had great wifi! I was able to research my blog mails and also download a bunch of books to my Kindle. My sister forwarded me Amazon deals and other suggestions. Lots of choices for less than $4.00 per title and most are actually free which makes you wonder about who makes money from books these days. I can also borrow books for free from my library at home and have done so in the past. Unfortunately my taste in books doesn’t seem to match what’s available to libraries electronically as some publishers won’t allow libraries the use of electronic titles. Too bad; hopefully that will change. But from a reluctant Kindle user, I am now quite the fan or the media and am almost as happy reading from my Kindle as from a paper book. My Kindle is the middle model so does pictures, but not really well which is too bad but okay for now. I still am looking forward to our time at home when I can borrow tons of books from the Roanoke Valley Libraries. Nothing electronic will ever replace libraries and librarians. And you can take that comment to the bank. As for the Red Sox….one can only hope.

This email is some last photos of our visit to Bodrum……..

Laundry facilities….

I am spoiled by having a washing machine on DoraMac. For most of our cruising friends, hand washing and local laundry facilities, are part of their cruising life. The problem isn’t even washing. Rinsing takes tons of water and then wringing is about impossible. I remember watching the women in Cochin, India slap their laundry on a huge wood stump. Probably works as well as a washing machine. And maybe gets some of the water out too, but nothing beats the spin cycle on our tiny washing machine. It may not clean so great, but it does spin really well. As it was truly hot, and the sun beat down all day, even Randal’s cut off jeans shorts, hung up dripping wet mid-morning were dry by late afternoon.

My daily walk

Funny what perspective will do.

The sailboat looks 10 time larger than the resort buildings and it looks as if the sea is higher than the roof tops.

One day I hiked to the end of that road off in the distance.

Not so far as it looks; but all up and down hill.

My sitting place on the rocks at the foot of this hillside driveway.

It would take me about 30 minutes to walk here but then I would continue past and down the next hill until time or tiredness made me return back here to “my spot.” It was quiet enough to hear the breezes. There were crickets, distant bells, and only the noise that comes when industry is far away. Up the driveway were two domestic buildings, one a home. Often there was a car, but I never saw any people. One day I saw a horse. I could have sat there for hours, but there was work to be done on the boat. And though I could sit and stare into space for hours in elementary school, now I don’t have the patience. Or the imagination perhaps.

Even this shadow could prick your finger.

In town……

I also loved the evening quiet on our street.

If life always looked like this it would be okay with me.

Ladies of Akasya Sokak, Kumbaçhe Mah (Our street in Bodrum.)

Babies to the “ancient” lived together in the neighborhood.

A “smoke” out on the balcony.

And on Restaurant Row…..

Spying on the tourists.. . Ladies who eat ice cream, smile. Ladies who play cards and smoke cigarettes, are very serious.

We ate dinner at the same window table in the same restaurant every night (except for one time, because we’d had a huge late lunch at the yard, we had PB and J in our room.) Randal ordered the grilled sea bass every night. People staying in the hotel would sit in the tables outside oblivious to our people watching them. I started to recognize some of them as each night we saw them come from the beach to retrieve their room keys.

Who would have thought orange plastic could look so good…and pink and blue.

Perfect seaside dining.

(Our dinners were eaten indoors with AC and paper place mats advertising something I should remember, but don’t.)

This cooling mist looks like fog. The Bodrum Castle is ghostlike in the distance.

Reading

Most afternoons we’d head back to our pension room about 5 pm. We’d relax and read for about an hour or so. Then we would shower and go have dinner, walk a bit, return to our room and read. Happiness is having a good book to read…and a best friend to read next to you. Of course we did fight over the pillows. 

This photo is right side up: it was our flag that was upside down.

     Amazingly this was the “first upside down flag” we saw Sunday morning. Randal and I took Sunday to do some touring. We went off on our motorbike in search of the covered market. We passed a fairly large hotel and I noticed the flag was upside down so we U-turned and I went inside to tell them. While they were apologizing and explaining that a “technician” had been called to fix it, Randal was outside in the parking lot actually fixing the flag. Once a Marine, always a Marine. Later, in town, we passed a restaurant displaying small flags of several countries. Ours again was upside down! So Randal fixed that one too.

The giant chandelier that amazed me last year still amazes me.

Bodrum Harbor with the Castle in the distance.

We tried to visit the Castle which houses a museum of underwater archaeology, but we got there at noon as it was closing for the lunch hour. It was just too hot to wait around so we put it on our “to do” list for the next time we visit Bodrum. We will be here for a year so there still might be a chance.

I couldn’t resist one of the tiny watercolors from this shop.

http://sayinburku.com/

Randal is still searching for that perfect (and perfectly priced) Turkish carpet.

If you are interested in Turkish carpets, visit the website from this shop. Last time we visited we learned quite a bit and this time too as the owner Sayin Burku really tried to teach us about carpets. According to his website Bette Midler is one of his clients. So are several people with Sheik before their name.

These photos of Sayin Burku and his weavers are from the booklet he gave us. Lots more photos are on his website.

A scene from a Carfour Express in Bodrum where we stopped for less exotic staples such as cucumber and tomatoes for our passage back to Marmaris.

The beautiful painted window in the Yat Lift office and in shadow, Nurten.

Nurten worked in the office. She spoke English to us, French to the French cruisers, Turkish to the local workers and who knows what other languages. Very impressive, woman and window.

Photos of us going back into the water. It would be easy to confuse the coming out with the going in except for the beautiful bottom paint you can now see where before it was pretty grungy.

Once the lift straps were in place, removing the tiny stands that look too impossibly small to hold up a 34 ton boat. But those straps look pretty puny too, except in real live they are rather larger looking. The stands look as puny in real life as they do in the photo.

Rolling back to the travel lift slip and being lowered back into the water. Randal then had to reattach our front sail. When that was finished, the men threw us our lines and off we went…to drop our anchor and wait. We’d asked to be put into the water later, but 11 am was the only time their schedule would allow for it. So that was that.

The End.

Merhaba/Shalom,

   I thought I’d never get this email finished.  I certainly wish I had a library handy to make research easier.  This email goes on forever, and it’s about one small part of the Old City of Jerusalem.  But I found it fascinating.  It was quiet and away from all the hustle and bustle.  I wish I’d had more time.  Wish I’d taken the time to pay more attention to the handout while I was there so I would have better photos for you to match what you read.  Oh well, to quote my pal Joesephine, "done is better than good." 

Ru

I don’t know why I decided to visit the Four Synagogues. I almost didn’t because the door looked closed. And since I’m really non-observant, I almost feel as if I’m intruding. But the kind man working at the desk that day, covering for his friend who regularly sits there, made me feel welcomed. When I was confused about which synagogue was which, he walked with me matching the information from the hand-out to where I was actually standing. I don’t have his photo as he didn’t want to pose. He was, after all just covering for his friend. Of course what made sense while he was showing me made no sense when I started writing this email. I hope I have them correct.

“According to the Talmud, as Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai was coming out of Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple, he stated, "…be not grieved, for we have another means of atonement which is as effective, and that is the practice of loving-kindness, as it is said, For I desire goodness, not sacrifice (Hos. 6:6)".The basic philosophy of Judaism in all of its forms today can be traced back to this one great Rabbi.” http://www.jpost.com/Travel/AroundIsrael/Article.aspx?id=252353

Here is a map of the 4 Synagogues that I stoel from the website you see near it…in case it disappears when I send the email.

http://www.jewish-quarter.org.il/atar-bksf.asp

This website has lots of good info about the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.

I went to the pink one first (Yokhanan ben Zakai); the orange one second (Emtza’I Middle Synagogue); the darker blue third (Istambuli); and then the greenish one last (Eliahu Hanavi .) It wasn’t the order of the hand-out so I got a bit mixed up and looking at Wikipedia just made it worse. But I think I have it right now. One of the things my “tour guide” told me was that one of the synagogues was actually originally an Ashkenazi Synagogue. But I can’t prove that to myself, so I don’t know.

This is the handout I was given….and didn’t take the time to read thoroughly as it was long and I was tired and it was getting late. I have repeated the parts about each synagogue with the photos of that synagogue so you don’t have to scroll back and forth.

FOUR ANCIENT SYNAGOGUES – THE BEATING HEART OF THE SEPHARDI COMMUNITY IN JERUSALEM

It was in 1267 that Rabbi Moshe Ben-Nakhman (known as Nachmanides or by his initial, as the RaMBaN) arrived in Jerusalem from Gerona in Catalonia, Spain, to bring new life and organization to the city’s Jews. He quickly set up a synagogue in a “half-ruined house with marble pillars and a fine dome” (as he wrote to his son, Nakhman)and for centuries after it continued to serve all the city’s Jews, whatever community they owed allegiances to. Until that is, in 1586 the Turkish city governor (known as Abu Seifin) ordered it closed, on the pretext that a hundred years before the building had been sanctified as a mosque. Jerusalem’s Jews had no choice but to manage again as separate communities. The Sephardim built their new center to the south of the RaMBaN synagogue, at a spot where tradition say, in the time of the Second Temple, had stood the study house of no less then Rabban Yokhanan be-Zakai himself, the renowned tanna (scholar-judge) who took over leadership of the people after the Temple’s destruction and the uprooting of the Sanhedrin from Jerusalem to Yavneh.

The need to build new synagogues coincided with a marked growth in the numbers of Jews in the city, for the rulers of the Ottoman empire allowed Jews who had settled in their territory after the expulsion from Spain (1492) to move freely within the empire and when the Ottomans captured Jerusalem in December, 1516, a steady influx of their Jews into the city had begun. However, under the prohibitions decreed by Islam, no “infidel” prayer house could stand higher than a neighboring Muslim holy place. Jews got round the difficulty by starting their synagogues’ ground floors 3 meters below street level, adorning the necessity by quoting Psalm 130, “Out of the depths, O Lord, I call you.”

By the beginning of the 19th Century the four synagogues were derelict and tottering, with the rain dripping through holes and cracks. At last, in 1835, the Sephardi community’s notables succeeded in obtaining from the Governor of the Holy Land, Ibrahim Pasha (son of Muhammad Ali, the famous governor of Egypt who had conquered the land in 1831) a permit for the synagogues’ renovation and repair. The lay-out of the areas containing the four synagogues was at the same time reshaped to make it a single compound, which now encompassed- because of the different periods of synagogue construction – a uniquely rich variety of architectural styles and features.

This period of physical reconstruction also marked a turning point in the status of the Jewish community in Palestine-Eretz Yisrael. In 1840 the Ottoman authorities restored their direct rule over the land. In consequence of this and of other changes that had taken place (for instance, the great European powers had began asserting their interests by opening foreign consulates in Jerusalem), Istanbul made Jerusalem an independent Sanjaq (district), answering directly to Istanbul and not, as before, to the governor of Damascus, and as a result, the standing of the community and its notables underwent a very positive change. Jerusalem’s Chief Rabbi, a Sephardi, who had hitherto borne the traditional Jewish title of “First in Zion” (Rishon LeTzion) was now officially designated Hakham Bashi, that is, head of the Jerusalem Jewish community and all its rabbis, and as such enjoyed official status under the Ottoman system of government.

The four, now structurally linked, synagogues, together with their study houses and charitable institutions (Bet HaRashal, the Sephardi Talmud Torah (study house), the Tifferet Yerushalayim yeshiva, the widows’ alms-house) now made up the center of the Jerusalem Sephardi community’s spiritual and cultural life, a community which until the 1870s was by far the largest Jewish community in the city and the only one to enjoy official recognition by the authorities and the non-Jewish population throughout the whole period of Ottoman rule.

The Qahal Qadosh Gadol (Great Congregation) Rabban Yokhanan ben Zakai

This synagogue, built in the late 16th – early 17th Centuries, held pride of place among the four synagogue, to the extent that the whole compound was sometimes called the Rabban Yokhanan ben Zakai compound. The synagogue, oriented west-east, had an elongated interior leading up to not one but two Holy Arks, both with Gothic-style fronts and symmetrically placed against the eastern wall. The high stone-built prayer dais (bima) in the center was also elongated, with a decorative wrought-iron railing on all four sides. It was in this synagogue that, from 1893 on, the Rishon LeTzion and Kakham Bashi, was ceremonially “enthroned” and where public meetings and assemblies were held and where important communal events such as the official ceremony in 1870 to welcome Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, took place.

Until the destruction of 1948, the congregation cherished an old shofar (ram’s horn trumpet) and oil jug in a niche in one of the synagogue walls. Tradition whispered from generation to generation that with this very shofar the prophet Elijah would announce the coming of the Messiah and with oil poured from this ancient juglet the Messiah would be anointed.

The Eliahu HaNavi Talmud Torah Congregation

Expert opinion is that this synagogue (it also served as a study house) was the first of the four built. The ceiling of the main prayer hall was domed in the Turkish style and its large stone prayer dais was railed and furnished in wood. In the north-west corner is a large alcove, from which steps lead down to “Elijah’s Cave”. There people came to place lighted oil lamps , each flame imploring the Prophet to make a special wish come true.

How did the synagogue come to be named after the great Elijah? Well, the time-honored story goes that the community of Jews in the city was once so small they could not even make up a minyan (the 10 men required for holding public prayer). This was very distressing to the 9 available men, and even more so when the holiest day of the year, the Day of Atonement, arrived. There they were and the time had come to say the Kol Nidrei prayer that opens the Day, when an old man joined them and, wonderfully, made himself one of them. Then, with the day’s closing prayer, he vanished. Only then did the 9 realize that the Prophet Elijah, himself no less, had made himself one of them. To commemorate the miracle they added the name of the Prophet to the name of the synagogue.

The Istanbuli Synagogue

This synagogue is both the largest and last to be built, having been constructed in the 1760s by immigrants from Istanbul; hence its name. Its windows are very distinctive, being large and deeply recessed in the thick walls, each one made up of three long vertical panes surmounted by a single, wide horizontal one. Flanking the Holy Ark stood two Corinthian columns carved around with arabesques. Like the other four synagogues, it had a high prayer dais. The Istanbuli also had a geniza, a space or chamber where books of scripture, too worn or damaged for use but too holy to be thrown out or destroyed, were stored. Every so often the geniza was emptied and the old books and scrolls carried in public procession to be reverently buried in a cave in the ancient Sambuski Sephardi cemetery at the foot of Mount Zion.

The Emtza’I (Middle) Synagogue Zion Congregation

This is the smallest of the four synagogues called the “middle” one for the simple reason that it was built on a plot of land between the other three, a plot which apparently had, till then, been an outside courtyard of the Rabban Yokhanan ben Zakai Synagogue, accommodating its women’s enclosure. The origin of the synagogue’s official name, Zion Congregation, goes back to a tradition that an underground passage once connected the synagogue to the grave-site of the kings of the House of David. Like the Rabban Yokhanan ben Zakai synagogue, it has an elongated interior and a groin-vaulted ceiling.

During Israel’s War of Independence (1947-48), all four synagogues provided shelter to the inhabitants of the Old City’s Jewish Quarter, and with the fall of the Old City, it was from them that the Quarter’s defenders filed out to captivity in Jordan. All four were then devastated: they were plundered, burnt and the skeletal remains used as stalls for horses, goats and sheep.

On the liberation of the Old City in 1967 Six Day War, the four synagogues were found in the ruinous state described earlier, and piled high with rubble and manure. But to our great fortune at least the outer walls stood intact. The Council of Sephardi Communities and the Jerusalem Fund, with assistance from the Israeli government, the Yad Avei HaYishuv organization and donations from other funds and individuals in Israel and around the world, took on the task of restoration. It was not until the hundreds of tons of accumulated refuse had been removed and the basic structure of walls and roof repaired and rebuilt, that it was possible to restore the structures to their former, beauty and glory.

The National Parks Authority had charge of the work, with practical direction in the hands of the architect, Dan Tannai, whose first concern at all times was to restore the original lay-out and reconstruct each synagogue’s outstanding former characteristics and features. Before the destruction, the splendor of the buildings had been their interior furnishings, especially the prayer dais and Holy Arks. Antique dais, arks and lamps were now brought from Spain and Italy and their dimensions precisely altered to fit the new settings. Item by item, the atmosphere and appearance of the synagogues of that past age was recreated.

Finally, in the intermediate days of Succot, 1972, all four synagogues were re-inaugurated and rededicated in a solemn and moving ceremony, attended by the State’s leaders and high officials.

Text by Dania Haim

http://tourguides0607.blogspot.com/2011_09_01_archive.html

Walking down the steps below street level to enter the Four Synagogues

The beautiful door and the artist’s signature in the lower right corner.

Qahal Qadosh Gadol (Great Congregation) Rabban Yokhanan ben Zakai

Two Holy Arks, an unusual feature in synagogues.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com

“Have a seat between the bemah (stage) and the arks at the fore of the synagogue. Notice that the bemah is in the center as is the tradition of the Spanish Jews. They believe that when the Torah is read the people of Israel should surround it and it should be held above us, in the midst of the nation. Notice the heavenly painting above the arks. The Sephardic community that returned to the Land of Israel after the Inquisition were Kabbalistic scholars and the art here represents the idea that the universe is made up of spheres, and the gap between the spheres hovered over Jerusalem. Look at the window on the south above you. There is a glass shelf with a shofar (ram’s horn) and a jug of olive oil. The tradition holds that when the Messiah comes he will be announced by the Prophet Elijah from this synagogue and this shofar and anointed king using this olive oil. It was said before 1948 that these vessels were holy and only a righteous person who had immersed himself in a mikveh (Jewish ritual bath) could touch these vessels. About fifteen years ago the synagogue’s caretaker told me that as a soldier during the Six Day War, when he entered this synagogue, which he had remembered visiting as a child, he stumbled upon a young Arab shepherd eating humus, sitting on the floor. He asked him where the jug of olive oil was and the shepherd replied that he had used it all up in his hummus! To this day I couldn’t tell if the caretaker was messing with me or not. These vessels are replicas of the originals.

The painting over the Ark.

What time I visited the Four Synagogues

Judaicia showcased in the Synagogue

Shofar and Oil Jug On one wall Tzdaka, Donations for the Poor

“Perhaps Yohannan ben Zakkai’s greatest contribution to the Jewish people lies in the Talmudic story of the destruction of the Temple. The Jewish War was raging in the year 69 C.E. and the Jewish rebels had holed themselves up on the Temple Mount. The Romans were ravaging their way through the Land of Israel, and Jerusalem was all but lost. Vespasian and his Tenth Legion would surely breakthrough to the Temple courts at any day. Yohanan ben Zakkai did what no other rabbi dared to do. In defiance of the rebels orders he knew that he must get off the Temple Mount with his disciples in order to continue the study of Torah. He played dead and his students wrapped him in a burial shroud and smuggled him out of the Temple complex, through a cemetery and straight to the camp of the Roman general Vespasian. Ben Zakkai was known to Vespasian as a man of great influence who had tried to discourage the war to no avail. He addressed Vespasian as "king" twice. As Nero was king, Vespasian believed the rabbi was just trying to butter him up, and he had Ben Zakkai locked up in the darkest of solitary confinement awaiting a death sentence. Three days later the news arrived that Nero was dead and Vespasian had indeed become king. Vespasian as a reward for his prophecy would grant the rabbi any wish. His wish was to allow the other great rabbis on the Temple Mount to join him and his disciples in Yavne, and to set up a yeshiva to keep the flame of Torah study alive, and with that he changed Judaism forever.”

Joe Yudin became a licensed tour guide in 1999. He completed his Master’s degree at the University of Haifa in the Land of Israel Studies and is currently studying toward a PhD. Joe Yudin owns Touring Israel, a company that specializes in “Lifestyle” tours of Israel.

http://www.jpost.com/Travel/AroundIsrael/Article.aspx?id=252353

Doorway to “the Middle Synagogue”

The Ruins of the Four Synagogues

Middle Synagogue

The Emtza’I (Middle) Synagogue Zion Congregation

This is the smallest of the four synagogues called the “middle” one for the simple reason that it was built on a plot of land between the other three, a plot which apparently had, till then, been an outside courtyard of the Rabban Yokhanan ben Zakai Synagogue, accommodating its women’s enclosure. The origin of the synagogue’s official name, Zion Congregation, goes back to a tradition that an underground passage once connected the synagogue to the grave-site of the kings of the House of David. Like the Rabban Yokhanan ben Zakai synagogue, it has an elongated interior and a groin-vaulted ceiling.

Istambuli Synagogue

The Istanbuli Synagogue

This synagogue is both the largest and last to be built, having been constructed in the 1760s by immigrants from Istanbul; hence its name. Its windows are very distinctive, being large and deeply recessed in the thick walls, each one made up of three long vertical panes surmounted by a single, wide horizontal one. Flanking the Holy Ark stood two Corinthian columns carved around with arabesques. Like the other four synagogues, it had a high prayer dais. The Istanbuli also had a geniza, a space or chamber where books of scripture, too worn or damaged for use but too holy to be thrown out or destroyed, were stored. Every so often the geniza was emptied and the old books and scrolls carried in public procession to be reverently buried in a cave in the ancient Sambuski Sephardi cemetery at the foot of Mount Zion.

About two hundred years after the first two synagogues in the

complex were built, Jews from Istanbul arrived in Jerusalem. This wealthy community

built a synagogue for itself, the lstambuli, alongside the two older synagogues.

When the Jewish Quarter fell in the 1948 War of Independence, all the synagogues

were vandalized. ‘With the reunification of the city in 1967, they were renovated as

part of the restoration of the Jewish Quarter. In the case of the lstambuli, the Holy

Ark you see was brought from a synagogue in Ancona, and the large “bima" or

podium from Pesaro, both in Italy.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com

I think this is the geniza of the Istambuli Synagogue which now houses old Torahs and other documents and Judaica.

Sephardic Torah

“The Sephardim usually store Torah scrolls in a wooden box. The Torah scrolls in an Ashkenazi synagogue, in contrast, are typically covered by a mantle through the top of which protrude two staves known as atzei hayyim or "trees of life." Two finials or "rimmonim" are typically placed on top of these staves. Usually, a crown is incorporated into the design of the finials.”

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/eppp-archive/100/200/301/ic/can_digital_collections/art_context/torah.htm Canada National Archives

The Eliahu HaNavi Talmud Torah Congregation

Expert opinion is that this synagogue (it also served as a study house) was the first of the four built. The ceiling of the main prayer hall was domed in the Turkish style and its large stone prayer dais was railed and furnished in wood. In the north-west corner is a large alcove, from which steps lead down to “Elijah’s Cave”. There people came to place lighted oil lamps , each flame imploring the Prophet to make a special wish come true.

How did the synagogue come to be named after the great Elijah? Well, the time-honored story goes that the community of Jews in the city was once so small they could not even make up a minyan (the 10 men required for holding public prayer). This was very distressing to the 9 available men, and even more so when the holiest day of the year, the Day of Atonement, arrived. There they were and the time had come to say the Kol Nidrei prayer that opens the Day, when an old man joined them and, wonderfully, made himself one of them. Then, with the day’s closing prayer, he vanished. Only then did the 9 realize that the Prophet Elijah, himself no less, had made himself one of them. To commemorate the miracle they added the name of the Prophet to the name of the synagogue.

Note the magnificent, carved-wood holy ark, brought from a synagogue in Padua, Italy, after the Second World War. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com

Merhaba,

  So here are just some photos; no research needed so it was quick and painless.

Ru

More Bodrum Photos

From our room window: Women sitting, tatting, knitting and talking….enjoying the evening .

A cock-eyed photo from our window this morning….all of the motorbikes.

Self-portrait with camera.

I am wearing a dress/nightgown and flannel pants. I need the flannel for my sciatic leg and it really makes a difference as the AC really chills the room. You can see just how basic the room is with lots of hooks on the wall rather than closets or drawer space. But it’s just fine for our needs: a place to sleep that’s cool.

Roof top dining area with the wonderful view, but it’s really too hot to enjoy even by 4pm and we leave before they serve breakfast which starts at 8:30 am until 10:30 am. Most vacationers stay up late and get up late. We’re the odd ducks that get up early and go to sleep early.

Our routine is to get up and be on our way by 7 or 7:30 am so we can use the morning’s less hot temperatures for walking and working. Lunch is usually at the small restaurant at the yard. The food is very tasty and filling with huge portions for only 8TL. But I find it too heavy at lunch time so skipped it today and ate cucumber, tomato and cheese on the boat. Randal ate at the restaurant as he likes to get away from “work” for lunch. We usually leave the yard about 4ish. When we get to the Otel we dump our panniers and helmets and go up to get a cold drink. Then we rest in our air conditioned room until it’s time for dinner. We eat at a most uncivilized early time: usually before 7pm. Most people don’t eat until much later so they can eat on the beach after the sun has gone down. We eat inside with the air conditioning. They turn it on for us, now that we are regular customers. We’ve eaten in the same place twice and the same thing twice. Randal gets the grilled sea bass and I have a “big salad” with grilled chicken. The staff go out to the fish market and get the fish. We could get the fish ourselves and bring it to a restaurant, but we haven’t tried that yet. We’re usually back at the Otel by 8:15 and read for a while before going to sleep just as everyone is going out for dinner and the bars. Late at night, or maybe it’s very early morning I can hear the thrumming of drums from the bars, but it’s just background noise and not head-splitting noise.

Walking down to the beach from our Otel.

Ice cream time….these ladies are obviously enjoying their cones while the folks not eating ice cream seem decidedly less happy.

The restaurant where we eat, which is also a hotel.

While we eat they change their patio seating to beach seating for later in the evening.

My grilled chicken salad and Randal’s grilled fish: too many bones for me to want to mess with and I just really want the “big salad.” Quite tasty.

Lots of colorful seating along the beach: hopefully it fills up at night.

This was the most creative.

But these made me smile.

Bars are also a fixture along the beach.

I wish I had the courage to buy some of these muscles, but one bad piece of shell fish and your doomed to hours in the loo.

The sun blotted out all of the color but shows the shape of the Bodrum Castle which is now a museum and which we still have yet to visit.

 

Docks chock a-block with boats waiting for passengers.

I couldn’t resist this photo…..we miss our bikes but the motorbike is so much more useful, especially in the heat.

The road where I take my morning walk.

This is the top of the hill; then the road goes down to the coast and another boat yard. Maybe I’ll go further on day. If Sharman were here were here we’d walk for hours in the hills as there are paths. But the road does for me by myself.

Merhaba,

   Randal and I were up and out of our pension room by 7:30 am.  We left our key with one of the managers as they want to move us to a smaller room.  That’s fine, we don’t need 4 beds.  We motorbiked the picturesque road along the coast back to the yard where Randal and I both have projects to do.  We ate our usual breakfast, as we do have power and water on the boat.  Then I was off for my morning walk up the hill behind the boat yard.  It really is quite lovely, to me.  Others might just think it barren and dull.  It was really quite hot so at the top I sat for a bit in the breeze, drank some water and then headed back down.  On my way down the hills, a man jogging with no hat, sun glasses or water passed me going up.  Crazy person. 

     My next "event" was laundry which involves working the upperbody, back and arm muscles as well as hands with all that wringing.  After that, because the yard wifi is so good, I searched Amazon for cheap books to download to my Kindle which also picked up the wifi.  At Netsel Marina the wifi is quite slow or non-existent so we use a 3G dongle.  But there is a fee to download books with 3G so I’m loading up here with the wifi…if that makes sense.  There is a library at Netsel and I did find a few books there, but most are thrillers that I really don’t read. 

   I really am enjoying working with the photos from Israel as I’m learning lots that I never knew.  I really can’t wait to sit with our friend Gabriel Szego and ask about a zillion questions.  It was Gabriel’s cousin Nilly and her husband Eitan who took us on our Golan Heights tour day.  Anyway, I do go off on tangents, but then finally have to just stop because if not, I’d never get an email sent. 

Ru

Tifereth Israel Synagogue, Alone on the Walls, and The Cardo

Reminders that people actually really live in Old Jerusalem: it’s not just a giant open air museum.

Growing up in New Bedford we belonged to the Tifereth Israel Synagogue. It was small and is still my idea of what a synagogue should look like: dark and not the least bit modern. I can’t remember if we were the last class confirmed in the old Synagogue or the first in the new one, just a few blocks from our home and across from Buttonwood Park. All I remember is Marsha Cohen’s slip starting to hang below her dress. I don’t remember learning anything particularly spiritual either preparing for my Bas Mitzvah or later Confirmation. Not much to show for years of Hebrew and Sunday School. “Education is wasted on the young,” they say. And whoever “they” are they’re right. At least in my case. Latin, Maths, geology, chemistry, so much just in one ear, on a test paper, and then gone. Thankfully I always loved to read, grew up, became a librarian and learned how to find answers to my questions. It’s the lost chance to know languages that I’m sorry about. …. The point being….I found a Tifereth Israel Synagogue ruin in Jerusalem I had to take photos and learn about it. Of course that’s just raising more questions about the different sects in Judaism. I grew up Conservative. There was an Orthodox Synagogue, Ahavath Achim whose Rabbi Weinberg started a day camp my sister and I went to and worked at for several summers. I think that’s the only place I really felt religion when the Rabbi would tell a different story Friday afternoons. We sang prayers before and after lunch. We sang the American National Anthem and then Hatikvah, Israel’s Anthem. Not sure if Camp Tikvah still exists. Ahavath Achim Synagogue closed in 2010. There is no reform synagogue. As for the different sects, I really know nothing about them.

The Tifereth Yisrael synagogue is also known as the Nissan Beck synagogue, after its founder. It was called "Nishes Shul” by the Hassidim, which in Yiddish means Nissan’s synagogue. The name Tifereth Yisrael (Splendor of Israel) is in honor of Rabbi Israel Friedman, the Hassidic leader and founder of the Radzine Hassidic dynasty, who initiated the establishment of the synagogue and was the first donor of funds aimed at buying the land upon which it was built.

The first Ashkenazi Hassidim arrived in Israel towards the end of the 18th century, and settled in Tiberias. When the Pharisees returned to Jerusalem, The Hassidim became jealous and moved to Jerusalem as well.

It was Rabbi Friedman’s intention to establish a Hassidic synagogue in Jerusalem, and it was built simultaneously with the Hurva synagogue of the Pharisees. Construction began in 1882, and continued for ten years.

While the construction was ongoing, the Austrian Emperor Franz Josef visited Jerusalem, and asked why the synagogue had no dome. Nissan Beck replied: "The synagogue has taken off its hat to you, your highness." "How much will it cost me to have the synagogue replace its hat?" the emperor asked, and donated a substantial sum for the completion of the dome.

The synagogue was magnificent. It stood at a height of 20 meters, and its domed roof was one of the highest places in the Old City. It served as a community center for many of the Hassidim in the Jewish Quarter, and it had a Mikveh in its basement.

During Israel’s War of Independence, a vital military observation post was established on the synagogue’s roof. For this reason, there was a great deal of hand to hand fighting with the Arab Legion around the synagogue and in the immediate vicinity. Finally, the synagogue was captured and subsequently destroyed by the Arab Legion. The synagogue’s large dome and walls collapsed, covering the synagogue’s foundations.

After the reunification of Jerusalem, the rubble and refuse were cleared, and the lower level and the entrance to the prayer hall, built to resemble the facade of a Galilean synagogue, were revealed. Today the site, with its ancient stones restored, serves as a monument to the synagogue’s magnificence.

http://www.jewish-quarter.org.il/atar-tfr.asp

http://www.jewfaq.org/movement.htm give an explanation of the different “sects” in Judaism.

• Movements are sects or denominations of Judaism

• The oldest movements were Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and Zealots

• Medieval movements included Karaites and Rabbinical Judaism

• Rabbinical Judaism split into Chasidic, Orthodox, Reform and Conservative in the US today

• Other countries have similar movements differently named

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org offers a different interpretation proving that we see things from our modern perspectives making one “historical truth” pretty impossible.

Tifereth Israel with its dome then….and the ruins it is now.

Lunch in an ancient courtyard: the plaque on the outer wall of the restaurant.

The Hurva Synagogue has been restored, but the tour was too late in the day for me.

It was about 1:30 when I ate lunch so was pretty tired and hungry. I ordered a “Tunisian” sandwich which is a tuna sandwich with vegetables and a sliced hard cooked egg. It came with lettuce and tomato and cucumber and it was way too much for me. There was a group of 6 Americans eating there also. One young man hadn’t ordered anything. He said he just ate everyone else’s left overs. I almost offered him mine but he’d already had several pieces of pizza and was claiming to be full. As a whole, they didn’t come across as a very appealing group, so I just left my left overs on my plate…and left.

I took this photo outside as none were allowed inside.

It was a small museum. A short film was shown during which those who had been part of the siege were interviewed. The walls were covered with the photos taken by John Philips.

Alone on the Walls (Permanent Exhibit)

The permanent exhibit ‘Alone on the Walls’ was established to perpetuate the memory of the defenders of the Quarter, and of those who lost their lives defending it, during the War of Independence of 1948. Inaugurated in 1990, the exhibition illustrates the siege of Jerusalem and specifically the battles for the Quarter during the last 15 days of warfare. The Quarter was under siege from December 1947 – after the UN resolution for the partition of Palestine, which ended the British Mandate and enabled the creation of the State of Israel – until May 1948. The Jewish Quarter was partially besieged by the Arabs for 150 days, while the British were still in control. During that period many incidents occurred that demanded a heavy price in blood from the Quarter’s residents and defenders alike.

When the British withdrew in 1948, a regiment of the Arab Legion, assisted by a militia of 1500 troops from neighboring Arab countries, attacked the Jewish Quarter. The Quarter at the time was defended by 200 Haganah, Etzel and Lehi soldiers. The defenders fought house to house for 13 consecutive days until their strength, their numbers and their ammunition were depleted. By the 28th of May 1948, the area of the Quarter under their control was reduced to 20 dunams, in which resided 1600 helpless people. The defenders surrendered. 350 residents and defenders were taken into captivity, 1400 were expelled from their homes. 68 residents of the Quarter were killed during the six months of war: 39 defenders and 29 civilians. The exhibit displays a collection of photographs taken by John Philips, a photo-journalist who documented the fall of the Jewish Quarter in 1948. http://www.jewish-quarter.org.il/atar-acharon.asp

About the photo-journalist John Philips.

“John Philips, an American photojournalist, was sent to the Middle East in early 1948 as a correspondent for Life Magazine. On May 19, 1948, Philips joined the Arab Legion in their attack on the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. Dressed in the Legionnaire’s uniform, he was free to move unhindered throughout the combat zone.

On the 10^th day of fighting, Friday, May 28^th, Philips’ camera captured the Fall of the Jewish Quarter, hour by hour. .” From the Alone on the Walls brochure

One last stop for this email, The Cardo

The Cardo was Jerusalem’s main street 1500 years ago. The Cardo was originally paved in the 2nd century when Hadrian rebuilt Jerusalem as a Roman polis called Aelia Capitolina. The Cardo was extended south to the area of today’s Jewish Quarter in the 6th century by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian. In its day, The Cardo was an exceptionally wide colonnaded street running through the heart (or cardo) of the city on a north-south axis, connecting many of Byzantine Jerusalem’s major institutions. Parallel rows of columns supported a red ceramic tile roof and an arcade ran along, at least part of its eastern side. http://www.israelinsideout.com

Can you find the pomegranate? (He has his red ball cap on front to back, and a backpack…or so it looks to me. There was a tour group, of which this tired woman was a member, that was blocking the painting so I didn’t get very close. This is a zoomed photo.)

“A section of Cardo has been reactivated as a shopping street, full of arts and various special goods. In part of the preserved Cardo, the French school of art Creation de la Cite installed a large painting of the Byzantine Cardo – look for the depiction of a Byzantine girl handing a pomegranate to a 21st century boy. “ http://www.israelinsideout.com/Things-to-do-in-Jerusalem/the-cardo-the-ancient-heart-of-jerusalem.html

I was pretty tired at that point too, but stopped off at the Four Synagogues and I’m really glad that I did. That will be next email about Israel.