Gena

Gardens of Gethsemane
Olive grove or garden, E of Jerusalem, near the foot of the Mount of Olives. In the Gospels, it is the scene of the agony and betrayal of Jesus. A number of sites in the area of the Garden are tended by representatives of the Christian tradition. The Franciscan Basilica of the Agony is built over the ruins of a 4th-century church

On the Lebanon boarder

I felt pretty safe in Israel

Life is good. There is nothing better then jump in the mud and float in the oily substance called Dead Sea.

Floating in the Dead sea

Masada

After Rome destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70, the Great Revolt ended-except for the surviving Zealots, who fled Jerusalem to the fortress of Masada, near the Dead Sea. There, they held out for three years. Anyone who has climbed the famous "snake path" to Masada can understand why the surrounding Roman troops had to content themselves with a siege. Masada is situated on top of an enormous, isolated rock: Anyone climbing it to attack the fortress would be an easy target. Yet the Jews, encamped in the fortress, could never feel secure; every morning, they awoke to see the Roman Tenth Legion hard at work, constructing battering rams and other weapons. If the 960 defenders of Masada hoped that the Romans eventually would consider this last Jewish beachhead too insignificant to bother conquering, they were to be disappointed. The Romans were well aware that the Zealots at Masada were the group that had started the Great Revolt; in fact, the Zealots had been in revolt against the Romans since the year 6. More than anything else, the length and bitterness of their uprising probably account for Rome's unwillingness to let Masada and its small group of defiant Jews alone.

We were walking on the local streets and met kids from local yeshiva.

Local market

Via Dolorosa

The Via Dolorosa (Road of Sorrow), also known as the Way of the Cross, is the route Jesus is said to have followed as he carried the Cross to his crucifixion. There are 14 stations along the way commemorating different events, starting at Lion's Gate in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, where Jesus was convicted by Pontius Pilate, and ending at his tomb, inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre within the Christian Quarter. Every Friday at 3pm priests lead a procession and prayers are said at each station.

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The Western Wall

Gena and me next to The Western Wall entrance.

The Western Wall in the midst of the Old City in Jerusalem is the section of the Western supporting wall of the Temple Mount which has remained intact since the destruction of the Second Jerusalem Temple (70 C.E.). It became the most sacred spot in Jewish religious and national consciousness and tradition by virtue of its proximity to the Western Wall of the Holy of Holies in the Temple, from which, according to numerous sources, the Divine Presence never departed. It became a center of mourning over the destruction of the Temple and Israel's exile, on the one hand, and of religious - in 20th century also national - communion with the memory of Israel's former glory and the hope for its restoration, on the other. Because of the former association, it became known in European languages as the "Wailing Wall".

Jewish man for symbolic donation blessing people

Jerusalem

Israel was always one of the destinations we wanted to visit. History of the land and the fact that it is place of all religions. Muslims, Christians and Jews lived there for two thousand years and every place in this country described in the bible, torah and Koran.
When I was in school my friend gave me Bulgakovs Master and Margarita. I imagined that place as it was described there.
When we started to prepare to go to Israel we couldn’t book any tours trough US travel agencies because of the latest developments in Israel, Are you crazy? It is not safe there. Our friends told us but we decided to go.
We booked hotel in the center of Tel Aviv and booked tours for five days through tone of largest local agencies.
Israel is small country. You can cross it by car in6 hours.
Our first trip was Jerusalem (about two hours drive) . We arrived in Israel in Passover.