A great website with pictures, history and and everything about the City of David (also known as Silwan) can be found here at the ELAD website: elad.org.il Even though it's in Hebrew, and the English part isn't working yet - you can browse around pretty easily.
ELAD (אלעד) are the initials in Hebrew for: EL IR David - To the City of David.
ELAD's mission is to reclaim as much of the City of David as possible, and promote Jewish historical awareness to this key area of Jerusalem.
I'm sure some of the Muqata's centrist blogger friends will say that Elad does little to promote Israeli/Arab harmony by injecting Jews into a predominantly Arab neighborhood...but bear in mind that Elad's work is specifically reclamation-based, and their agenda is not antagonizing the Arab residents.
ELAD (אלעד) are the initials in Hebrew for: EL IR David - To the City of David.
ELAD's mission is to reclaim as much of the City of David as possible, and promote Jewish historical awareness to this key area of Jerusalem.
I'm sure some of the Muqata's centrist blogger friends will say that Elad does little to promote Israeli/Arab harmony by injecting Jews into a predominantly Arab neighborhood...but bear in mind that Elad's work is specifically reclamation-based, and their agenda is not antagonizing the Arab residents.
In any event - it was a great tiyul, and I'll have to go back another time with the older kids, though I'm sure they'll kvetch (till we get there and they end up having a decent time anyway)
Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael
12 comments:
Tiyilum are definalty Israel's answer to family time, holidays, boredom and unemployment. Great shot.
So I'm a "centrist" now, am I? Then change the way you refer to me in your darn blogroll!
- And that can be their agenda if they want it to be. But the consequences of the actions carried out according to that agenda speak for themselves.
Only in Israel are the leftists the ones who believe that two people can't live together while the rightists say they have no problem moving in.
The Ir David tour was my favorite of all the tiyulim we took when we visited Israel the summer before last. Those tunnels are awesome.
are the lightposts from the original architecture? or are they a modern improvement? :D
wish i was there...
Jameel - do people still walk through the Mai Shiloach water tunnels? I did that many moons ago when I walked, as a kid, with my similarly aged cousins through Ir David to get to the entrance. It was very cool.
I actually got attacked in Silwan about 8 years ago. I went through the Shiloach tunnel with 2 friends, and we came out by the pool. We planned on going back through the way we came, but there were a bunch of arabs sitting there who told us we couldn't, because people were coming through still and you can't pass them inside. Being naive American teenagers we figured they had a point. So we asked them to call us a cab. They said there was a taxi place across the street. We walked there and people started screaming "yehudim, yehudim"! I don't know why, it's not like a strange sight to see Jews, but something else must've been going on. Anyway we dodged a hail of stones, bottles and a little barking dog. We ran down the street and up the hill, but it was pretty scary.
I went to Maayan HaShiloach a couple times, but both trips were before the current intifada. It's a really cool place. :)
hey jameel,
is that really why elad is called elad??
I hopped over to their site. they've got a lovely slide show presentation.
thanx
Dry Bones
Israel's Political Comic Strip Since 1973
Hey Yaakov -
Yes, thats EXACTLY why Elad is called Elad (you think I would make stuff like that up just get more hits hits on my blog?)
And yes, its an amazing site they put up - Shavua Tov!
Judd, Scraps & Shtender: Not only can you still walk through the water tunnel, but lots of new tunnels have been excavated, including a very cool one from the Caananite period. And, security is very good to the point that we felt very comfortable walking around (and that has nothing to do with my M16...I would have felt perfectly secure without it).
BEC: The lamposts are prehistoric (oops - does mean they are older than 5766 years?)
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