haifa.5

Haifa Fornightly(Editor--Huzefa Mehta) 5th edition 1/1/93 A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all. I did write the 4th edition but I do not remember having mailed it. Did I? Couple of more interesting titbits: Kapshi is engaged, Sunil Mannikar and Umesh are getting married on the 15th and 16th respectively. Rest regarding G, Bhatia, and khurana the future is uncertain. Quite a eventful fortnight. We spent the Christmas weekend in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is about 15km south of Jerusalem. However it is part of West Bank. Due to the political activities the part is heavily patrolled and inspite of that it has a lot of problems. We left from here after work and drove about 2 1/2 hours to Bethlehem. Reached Jerusalem around 7 ish and tried looking for accomodation. All hostels were occupied. Lots of students from Europe--and it was strange to see a conglomeration of English speaking crowd after a long while. We found a hostel in the conservative Jewish neighborbood area. Being immigrants from Poland these people where a black coat and hat and have little locks at the side of their faces. They do not have TV's or any newspapers and they go to the religious school. On Sabbath they do not even use lights and the whole area is patrolled off so that cars cannot come in. We put our stuff in the hostel and left for Bethlehem. We werent allowed to go in the direction of the church since we needed to have passes for it and they were all booked up in advance. So we somehow parked the car at the base of the Bethlehem hill and walked up to the church. At the church there were hazaar crowd and lots of security. We had to pass couple of metal detectors and then we were allowed in the courtyard facing the Church Of Nativity which contains the manger. In the courtyard were also group of singers trying to enthuse the crowd. Also lots of festivity with the shops opened selling falafel and shish kababs with beer. We stood in the line getting into the church hoping that we would somehow crib our way to the security when we had to enter the church. We found a priest manning the church compound. Finally I approached him "Father do you have extra passes?" "From India?" "Yes from India!" "You have come all the way from India to attend the mass?" "Yes and we did not know that we needed passes to enter the manger" He left and then returned with the needed passes. Entered the chapel and we forced our way thru the crowd. Lots of television crew around--and security. Had to leave our cameras out since it could be used as a trigger device. Finally at around 1:00am we left the chapel. Went out ate /had beer and went back to Jerusalem. The next day --we wandered thru the Jewish part of the bazaar. Had a kosher breakfast and left for exploring the churches. Saw the Romanian church, a Russian church, a Syrian church(ever seen Bible translated in Arabic?) and finally we went to Damascus gate in the Old City to see the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Its the place where Jesus was crucified. The whole structure is confusing since each conqueror built his own monument around it. All the steps and places where Jesus rest/started carrying the cross/where He was laid/where He is burried were all there. A common misconception that Christ was crucified by the Jews whereas He was actually crucified by the Romans is depicted here. It was strange staying in a very conservative neighborhood. We went for a walk down the 18th century lane and all the 'dattis'(hebrew for religious people) kept staring at us as if we were from outer space and we did the same. We came back and went to the hostel lounge to find some british guys and a Druze arab. Druze arabs are not palestinians and they are the only Arabs which are allowed to serve in the military. There are lot of Druze villages near Haifa and the people from here are mostly pro-Israeli, however Druze people from the Upper Galilee want to go back to Syria and they loyalties do not lie with Israel(partly because half of their families are in Syria) The next day we went to the Al-Aksa mosque and the dome of the rock. Very beautiful structure. Its the place where the Muslims believe that Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven. Also the Jews/Christians/Muslims believe that it was here that God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son. Went and visited the Islamic museum. It contains beautiful writings of the Koran in Gold. Predictably enough the whole place(the transition area between the Jewish Quarter and the Moslem quarter) has a tension lingering in the air. There is no where the words. There are photo's of those who were killed during the incident in 1990 when 21 people were shot down in that area. Versions of what led to the incident differ--as to who started the brawl. Later that evening we went to Bethlehem. It was tense because there was no security. (Jitu I think the even the churches here potray Jesus as Caucasian-at least thats what I recall-I think partly because the churches were built by the Greeks,Romans and Crusaders themselves) We saw the Manger again and also the Milk Grotto where Mother Mary hid herself to feed her child. Made our way back to Jerusalem that evening and then back to Haifa. A strange part about Israel is that racism is almost made into a way of life. People from the occupied territories get different colored license plates. Arabs(even those who have accepted the Israel way of living) are not allowed to serve in the military with the exception of the Druze. Not even the Christian Arabs. As a result they are not allowed to ask for loans or any other benifits and consequently they remain poor. At Intel however I see no such signs. Sure I have made some enemies due to my very pro-Palestine stance but it does not affect any part of my work(at least I dont think so) I have found some "secular" Israelis too. However they are very few. Partly because of the holocaust and the threat of the nearby strong Arab neighbours they are very skeptical. What is strange is that they have inflicted the same conditions against the Arabs against which they have fought all along. For the new years eve we attended a party at John and Gregs place. Dancing and such(mostly the foreigners) and some people from work. We went to Jaffo(Yaffo) next evening. An Arab town south of Tel-Aviv just facing the sea. Lots of international restaurants in the old-town. It has lots of artists just sitting and painting in the city. There was an Indian Restaurant Taj-Mahal at Jaffo. All the Indian restaurants I have seen in Israel are very stylish compared to any decor in other restaurants I have seen other restaurants I have seen. The Falafel shops which are by the dozens allow unlimited addition of salads(I like the ones which have fried "baingan" in unlimited supply). The non-veg version of this is shorma which is some meat instead of the falafel balls. We intended to ski the next day but we left very late in the morning. There is Mt. Hermon which they say is very crowded-- We drove to the ski spot but were diverted to a waterfall which was about 1 hr from the ski-spot. We trekked to the waterfall and it was kind of nice..saw wild boars herd and a couple of jackals.This upper galilee part has lots of fields having hidden mines and there are signs for them everywhere in this area. Rest is all fine...We begin the Pentium proliferation and so now I will hopefully be busy. Plans to finally do skiing and maybe go to Patra in Jordan or the Dead Sea.