SHALOM FROM ISRAEL

Wow....I have been in Israel almost a week now and have been so busy that I have not had time to post to this blog. Sorry about that.

I left for Israel on Feb 7 from JFK and don't come back until the end of this week, Feb 18. Do you know what it is to see an entire country in 8 days? Almost impossible.

From day one it has been up and on the bus at 7AM with a return back to the hotel at 11PM. One site after another with so much history and world events wrapped up in this tiny country the size of New Jersey.

Israel is to the world....Jews....Christians....and Muslams....the center of the universe. More earth shaking events have happened in this small country over the millenium than in any other country in the world.

Jesus Christ is revered not only as The Christ but Christians....but also as a prophet by the Muslems and a holy man by the Jews. For that reason alone the religious powers of the world have spent years fighting over this religious place.

Jerusalem is still divided into 3 parts.....the Christian section ...the Jewish section and the Muslam section. Dress codes and tradtions both change from one sector to the other.

To go the short distance to Bethlehem, there is a huge wall. The small city where Jesus was born is actualy in the Palestinean territories and Jews cannot enter there.
It was really frightenening to cross from one section to another as you have to pass through armed guards and then through barbed wire fences all the while surrounded by
Palestineans who look for all the world like the pictures of terrorists that we see i the Us newspapers every day.

It is hard to believe that Jerusalem has grown so much that Bethlehem is like a close suburb of the main city. But it is a whole world away in its customs and traditions.

So now in Tel Aviv it is like being back in Miami or New York. Skyscrapers everywhere...the Medierranean lining the coast.

More on this later.....I am again...late for the bus to go somewhere.
Shalom!