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The Ibrahimi Mosque, or Mosque of Abraham, which is located atop The Cave of the Patriarchs, or in Biblical terms The Cave of Machpelah which Abraham purchased from the Hittites as a burial ground.

Wikipedia summarizes well the Cave/Mosque’s current status:

After the Six Day War, the area came under the control of Israel, and the restriction limiting Jews to the 7th step was lifted. In 1994 Baruch Goldstein took an assault rifle into the enclosure and killed 29 Palestinian Muslims at prayer, as well as injuring 125 others, before being bludgeoned to death by survivors. The resulting riots left an additional 26 Palestinians and 9 Israelis dead, and the incident provoked national and international condemnation of Goldstein’s actions.

The increased sensitivity of the site meant that in 1995 the Wye River Accords, part of the Arab-Israeli peace process, included a temporary status agreement for the site, restricting access for both Jews and Muslims. As part of this agreement, the waqf—a traditional “trust” holding land for Islamic religious purposes—controls 81% of the building. This includes the whole of the southeastern section, which lies above the only known entrance to the caves, and possibly over the entirety of the caves themselves. In consequence, Jews are not permitted to visit the Cenotaphs of Isaac or Rebekah, which lie entirely within the southeastern section, except for 10 days a year which hold special significance in Judaism. One of these days is the Shabbat of Chayei Sarah, when the Jews read the Torah portion concerning the death of Abraham and Sarah, and that concerning the purchase by Abraham of the land in which the caves are situated.

The Israeli authorities do not allow Jewish religious authorities the right to maintain the site, and only allow the waqf to do so. Tourists are permitted to enter the site. Security at the site has increased since the Intifada, and the Israel Defense Forces surround the site with soldiers, and control access to the shrines.

A view from the top of the steps on the Jewish side

Praying, reading Scripture
(notice this is a zoomed shot of the last pic)

I was having trouble deciding how I wanted to interpret the above image. I have two more versions here and

here. Tell me which you like best and what you like and don’t like about the various ones.

An Orthodox Jewish lady reading the Scriptures. Notice the Arabic script on the mosque walls.

A wider angle view of the outside. Unfortunately, the IDF soldiers wouldn’t let us go to the Arab/Muslim side, though we tried. So we had to stay on the Jewish side.

The shuttered souk (marketplace)

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The Church of the Nativity (Arabic: كنيسة المهد‎) in Bethlehem is one of the oldest continuously operating churches in the world. The structure is built over the cave that tradition marks as the birthplace of Christ, and it is considered sacred by followers of both Christianity and Islam (see Jesus in Islam).

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The Great Lavra of St. Sabas, known in Arabic as Mar Saba (Hebrew: מנזר מר סבא‎), is a Greek Orthodox monastery overlooking the Kidron Valley in the West Bank east of Bethlehem. It was founded by Saint Sabas of Cappadocia in the year 439 and today houses around 20 monks. It is considered to be one of the oldest inhabited monasteries in the world, and still maintains many of its ancient traditions. One in particular is the restriction on women entering the main compound. The only building that women can enter is the Women’s Tower, near the main entrance.

And here’s a picture:

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Peppers

Eggs

Mushrooms

Rice

Brothers

Meat on a stick

Temple

Monk behind bars

Golden rays of evening sunlight hit the temple

Mekong, palm trees, one of my first HDRs

Chatting with the monks

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Sampling and thoughtfully examining

Benji approves of the cookie in question

Hiking up to the Fankhauser Anabaptist hiding place

The trap door that led to the hideout behind a false wall

This picture was taken by Dietrich as I was teaching him about aperture and depth of field

This and the next four pictures were taken by Dietrich with my camera

A group of us sitting on the Fankhauser steps chatting: Jan and I, three of the Amish girls, three of the Horning girls, and two of the Beachy girls

Jan and Frieda (notice Dietrich using depth of focus/field)

Regina, who loves to tease Dietrich

Charlene

This is again the beginning of the pictures I took; this is at the cow bell store

Guess what flash arrangement I used to take this picture

Deciding between two goat bells

If this’d be on the front porch of a general store, it would be just perfect

Lorne searching out his Kuepfer forebears

Back at the Muri farm, the view from the top of the hill

Out across the fields

Watching the cows and the sunset

The cow and Mike

A mutually amusing encounter

Cow, grass, barn, sky

Mom praising the Lord Sound of Music-style

An intense game of foosball

Celebration or anguish: I’m unsure of which, but they are certainly mirrored in Dietrich and Jan’s expressions

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Great vats of cheese

Quite the cheesy display

The small wooden house where the factory had its beginning and a big vat of cheese over an open fire the way they used to do it

Flower, bug

Lorene taking a drink from the fountain

Mike, trying to not get his beard too wet (with his wife Lorene in the background)

Lorne getting his beard quite wet

Dietrich taking a drink and dunking his name tag

A delightful expression!

“Ludwig” and Jan getting a drink; if you notice in the bottom left a spray of water which is Benji-generated which predicated the following pictures

Jan first threatened to spray Benji with water from his mouth, but then tried to…

…throw him in the water trough.

Our elders enjoying taking pictures as the Hans Haslebacher house

Our good buddy Jan

The three Hans’s: Jan, Hans Mast, and Hans Haslebacher

Swiss countryside

Ascending the steps of Trachselwald castle where Anabaptists were held as prisoners

The most recent Anbaptist in chains

Looking out the Trachselwald window

A tower of Schloss Trachselwald

Skipping down the hill

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The flower clock face

One of the folklore people getting red in the face blowing the alp horn

Charlene trying her hand at the coin-in-the-bowl “musical instrument”

Singing with aplomb

Mom and Dad, and Heidi and I dancing a traditional folk dance

Dancing with my beautiful sister

No, my face isn’t red because I’m (a conservative Mennonite) dancing with a lovely lady, it’s because I got a terrific sunburn that day and it was blitzing hot in there with no A/C

Warbling and lilting away

Playing a saw with a violin bow. Amazing.

Dietrich taking a turn at the alp horn

Our good buddy Galen giving it a seemingly futile try; actually, he emitted a squawk through it (an accomplishment in itself) almost immediately, but instead of quitting while he was ahead, he kept trying to do more and produce a richer, fuller tone and failed to emit even a squawk!

Charlene taking her turn

Ruth, our resident tour yodeler, giving the folklore yodeler a run for her money

Two of the older ladies in our group enjoying themselves with new instruments

The whole ensemble

Heidi and Elmer trying to follow the rhythm

Sister Heidi playing the spoons

Levi manning the grater (many of these folk instruments were simply everyday tools and kitchen instruments that found their dual use as musical instruments)

Jan having a blast on the washboard

After the folklore people did their thing, we sang a song or two for them

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Fishing on one of the two Interlaken lakes

Boats near Interlaken

Heidi and her shop

Bright red car and matching red Swiss umbrellas

The Stadt Thun, the ferry that took some of us young’uns on nice cruise of the lake

A duckling furiously paddling out of the way of the boat

Heidi relaxing in the sun

Sisters Jolene and Regina, two of our Amish friends

The Swiss flag flapping in the breeze

My dear sister Heidi and I

The docks of one of the towns by the lake

Drinking from a fountain (one of the delights of Switzerland, and various parts of Europe, was the abundance of drinking fountains like this)

Dipping deeply

Obliviously drinking…

…only to discover (when two people walked by chattering in German, pointing and laughing) that… oops!

Benji and Jolene cheesing on the train ride back to Interlaken

Benji happily sticking his head out the window like a dog, only to rapidly retract it when we went through a tunnel

Benji relaxing while we waited for the paragliders to come down

Various people helped him out with his relaxing

Our dear Montana Mike stretched out on the grass taking a snooze

The sunset on the way back to the farm

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Kristi walking down the path from the Wies Church, a not-so-typical, famous rococo church in Bavaria

Columns, sky

The interior of the Wies Church

A closer up shot

The organ of the Wies Church

Sauerkraut, bratwurst and potatoes! Yum!

The whole family eating the sauerkraut, bratwurst, and potatoes in Oberammergau, Germany

Oberammergau: Green dome topped by cross, massive cliff topped by cross

Three crosses in the graveyard of Oberammergau church

Linderhof Castle built by the extremely eccentric King Ludwig II of Bavaria

Dietrich in training

I love the front of Linderhof against the blue sky

Casting down the world

The golden, gravity-powered fountain of Linderhof

Some of the amazing gardens

Waterway

A small cupid fountain with an arrow stream

Gorgeous gardens

Star

The opera grotto; the painting is either the background or curtain of the stage. The king would be rowed around in his little boat while the opera performed

More grotto

The green pathway up to the grotto

Linderhof in all its opulent beauty

The backlit cupid

Two of the Amish girls and Horning girls exchanged clothes and coverings for the evening meal.

This was the night Turkiye beat Croatia in the Euro 2008 quarterfinals; our hotel was in the same square as a bar filled to overflowing with Turkey fans

Turkiye! The fans celebrated the win by driving around the square (this was about midnight) for a full half hour holding down their horns continuously and screaming at the top of their lungs. Crazy Europeans.

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Trying out my new 100-400! Heidi in the foreground, Benji in the background. We were in an old hotel called Hotel Esquilino right off of the Piazza Esquilino; I was leaning out one hotel room window, Heidi was leaning out another, and Benji was across the open courtyard looking out another with his signature look. I didn’t notice it ’til now, but Heidi looks great despite being severely jet-lagged and having just woken up.

Taking wedding pictures, the groom, um, takes a picture of the bride

Typical Italian look

Bascilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in the Piazza Esquilino

Ditto.

Another shot of the Coliseum

Arch, coliseum

A staired and tunneled street

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Nuns praying

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(Of interest, this is my 700th post!)

A ferry pulling into the Eminönü dock (you need to see this full-size to appreciate it fully)

Make sure you don’t miss the pictures below the fold…

An Istanbul ferry crossing the Bosporus

Ships in the distance

A container ship docked on the Asian side of Istanbul

A tug boat charging through the water

An old salt

Ships, buoy

Three ships

Ship, three flags

Orange reflection

Container crane

Sailboat…

…using its motor.

Ship, framed

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Damascus Gate

Alms

School.. or prison?

The ever-present UN

Ramallah’s finest coffee

Relaxing

A Palestinian refugee camp and Israeli settlement near Ramallah–the settlement is above, camp below

The late glorious leader

We visited the refugee camp

Yours truly in the Palestinian refugee camp

Ready for war

Stark contrast

Ramallah

The best schwarma place in Ramallah

The Orthodox in Jerusalem

There was a free outdoor concert right outside Jaffa Gate right by our hotel celebrating Jerusalem day. It was quite enjoyable. If you want the full size images, go here.

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