For work, I went to Israel to visit the primary Micro Focus R&D center. Israel is known for security software development. They also make tools for building and testing business software applications. I use those tools for my development and it’s why I was there.
After three days of meetings, we took a tour of Jerusalem. Our guide, Edan, is Biblio-Historian, that means his focus of interest is 500 BC to 1000 AD. His tour bus was a brand new Mercedes 20 passenger van; it was very comfortable. One big interesting fact is that Tel Aviv is only 108 years old and has 1.2 million people. Jerusalem is 4000 years old. We stayed in Tel Aviv each night and Jerusalem is a 30 mile drive. All the road signs have Hebrew, Arabic, English descriptions; in that order. Along the way, Edan suggested we watch the movie “Cast a Giant Shadow”. He said it tells the story of how Israel became a country. One of my favorite quotes he shared was “The Bible is a collection of stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.” It shouldn’t be taken literally.
We started at the Mount of Olives. From there you could see:
- Ancient city – 2500 years ago. Also, called the City of David.
- Old city – 2000 years ago. This includes things like the Western Wall.
- Ezekiel 37 – This is the passage that Jews followed to build the city.
- Church of Mary Magdalene
- Sacrifice/resurrection church – Holy Septure
Jewish, Muslin, Christians all live in this one city. And, they are fighting over 1 square kilometer. Even within the Jewish community, they argue over Orthodox vs. Reform. The rules are sometimes strange to us. For example, to get the western wall, men enter on left, girls from the right. According to Edan, the year 2018 is actually 2014. Gregorian scholars, from 400 AD missed their calculations by a bit.
Church of the holy scepter is the most important Christian church in Israel. It’s actually made up of nine Christian denominations
- Catholic
- Armenian
- Aserian
- Etc
They split the church into sections. And, they share guardianship of the tomb of Christ.
Another interesting story from Edan was about why Christians are fighting over Jerusalem too. He said Christians claim to want to live the way Jesus did. If that’s true, Christians should worship the “Sea of Galilee” because that’s were Jesus did most of his work.
We also went to a Bazaar for souvenirs. It felt just like Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar but much smaller.
At the end, Edan told the story of Netanyahu and how he always gets re-elected. He was originally voted into power to help the Orthodox Jews; 20% of the Israel population. And they always vote together. They do this because law says, they don’t have to work, just go to school. So, 20% of the population, and growing, lives off the 80%, and shrinking, who pay taxes. At some point this will collapse.
It was a very educational event.
