shabbat shalom 26.03.08

Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 21:49:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Linda Whittaker" ~olsvig2000@yahoo.com~
Subject: shabbat shalom 26.03.08
To: "Linda Olsvig-Whittaker" ~Linda.Whittaker@npa.org.il~

Hi everyone,

The Easter weekend has passed and a quiet working week followed. Last Saturday I met with a visiting friend and took him on a tour of the Silwan neighborhood which sits on the archeological site of biblical Jerusalem, much of which is now excavated and made into a park, Ir David. In the time of King David, Jerusalem was entirely outside the walled Old City of today, and was limited to a kind of penninsular hill between two valleys, called the Hill of Ophel:



The excursion was rather unusual. It was lead by one of the Tel Avi University archeologists who excavated part of this site in the 1970's, as part of an organization called "alternative-archeology". Their concern is not only the archeology of the site, but how it relates (or rather, doesn't) to the residents of Silwan who live on and around the Hill of Ophel. There are major political problems in this area, reflected in the near-total disconnect between the archeological site and the Arabs of Silwan who should be stakeholders in the effort. Some of the archeologists feel this is terribly wrong and are trying to connect them. So we not only saw the site with a wonderful guide, but we also ended up in a tent with the local Arab leader and heard their side as well. It was an eye-opener for me, especially since my organization is responsible for this archeological park and we got a very different pressentation of it the last time I was there. (Every issue in the Middle East has at least six sides...)

Easter, the next day, I joined the Scottish Presbyterians in the morning for a restrained celebration at St. Andrews, and the Jesuits of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in the afternoon for a Catholic service, followed by dinner with a friend in Sheikh Jarrah. That pretty much covered the spectrum of Catholic and Protestant Easter. But the Orthodox Easter (and most local Christians are Orthodox) is a month away due to differences in calendar. That is truly a wild and oriental affair, with flaming torches and gongs and crowds of men and black-robed women mobbing around Holy Sepulcher. Pretty much like the Byzantines did it, I guess.

The rest of the week was quiet, which was good since I haven't felt well. We have the "hamsin" season on us, when weather conditions fluctuate wildly between hot and cold, and dust storms blow in from the Sahara. It was in the 30's earlier this week (high 80's in Fahrenheit, I guess) and then a cold front moved in and the temperature plummeted 15 degrees, and now is warming again as a new hamsin is moving in. I never did respond well to hamsin, and now that I am older it bothers me more.

I was quietly working most of the week on an article which I finished yesterday, so can relax a little. Our new international project is gearing up and I send one person to a first meeting in Bratislava this coming week. I fly to the Netherlands myself later in April for the first major project conference. Email and Skype are flying amon us (skype is computer based vocal communications technology, essentially a "phone call over the computer" which also enables conference calls. It will be a mainstay of this project, which is located in about 14 European countries, ourselves and South Africa. We just can't get together physically often enough.)

I just hope my health holds up. After all the checks of last year, I seem more or less okay, but not feeling normal either. I'm having slight dizziness from time to time which bothers me, don't know the cause. It could be related to the anemia from which I am recovering, and could be blood pressure problems. I hope that with the better weather and more exercise this will clear up.

That's it for now,

shabbat shalom
Linda

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http://shabbat-shalom-jerusalem.blogspot.com/