Our last event of the afternoon was a trip to Bethlehem, a town of about 7,000, located about six or eight miles south of Jerusalem. Bethlehem is a hillside town and all around it are high but smoothly rolling hills, quite stony and rocky but dotted with olive, citrus fruit, and nut groves. Just north of the town we saw the broad deep valley in which the shepherds were herding their flocks when they noticed the Star shining over the inn where Christ was born. And looking at this again was much more impressive to me than the large "Chruch of Nativity" which now covered the spot where Christ was born. This church has the same characteristics of the other churches I've described, and in the middle of it is a beautiful lighted altar below which is a 10-inch silver star encircled with the words "Here Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary." A few feet away is a small room in one corner of which is a stone "manger," now all lined with marble and looking more like a fireplace, with oil lamps hanging down in it and a little railing in front of it. Certainly diffferent from what one might expect.
We spent a few minutes in a couple of souvenir shops outside the Church of Nativity, and then climbed in our truck and drove back to the YMCA in Jerusalem. After fighting off the souvenir salesmen until the rest of the gang arrived, we headed our convoy back toward Camp Tel Litwinsky and the Yarden hotel in Tel Aviv--tired but very glad the opportunity to see it all, even though I didn't quite agree with the way some of the spots are being "preserved for posterity."
This was Thursday evening, and we arrived at the Yarden around 6:30 p.m. Wily and I cleaned up, located the others, and made plans for the evening. It was suggested that we first go down along the beach and watch one of those beautiful Mediterranean sunsets, so I grabbed my color camera with high hopes of a classic sunset slide--but even though we started out while the sun still appeared high enough, it dropped so rapidly that by the time we reached a vantage point it was "down under," so after watching the breakers and listening to the surf for a while, we proceeded to Pills' terrace overlooking the sea, a combination restaurant and night club. We had a tasty fish dinner and listened to the music--and then home and to bed by 11:30.
Friday Wily and I were up again at 6:00 in order to eat breakfast and be ready to leave for the Sea of Galilee by 7:00. the truck took us again to Camp Tel Litwinsky for the enlisted men and enlisted women, and then we headed north. The trip to Galilee was even more scenic from an agricultural point of view than the trip to Jerusalem. Of course it was longer, being approximately 100 miles each way. We saw the same changes of terrain that we saw before but on a more extensive scale. In the level farming country, the fields of wheat and barley were larger; in the rolling country the hills were higher, and the valleys broader; in the rocky country the ground was more barren. First came the orchard district, and most of it could have been placed in Southern Illinois. Some orchards were enclosed with barbed wire fence (the first I've seen since leaving the states) and others with beautiful rows of tall slender evergreens.
And then, as we passed down our macadamized road (which is the prevalent type all over the Holy Land and is quite good) the orchards were replaced by the large relatively flat wheat and barley fields with now and then a piece of corn or a plowed area mixed in. I noticed as we went along here a very modern looking high-tension line built on towers almost as large as those around home. The interesting thing to note was the fact that in some of the fields we saw the people (mostly women) harvesting with hand sickles and piling it up in little bundles, while in another field we saw a man just finishing up with a combine and tractor; then, too, we saw several smaller fields being plowed with the old-fashioned wooden plow, drawn by oxen, while in another place we saw a John Deere tractor and two-bottom plow standing in the field.
To back-track a bit while on the subject of harvesting, between Camp Tel Litwinsky and the Lydda airport, we saw a large yard in which grain was being threshed in the way you read about in history books. Scattered around the yard were piles of the cut grain in different stages of being threshed. In one spot was a stack of loosely piled grain which as yet hadn't been touched. Next to it another pile had been leveled out into a smooth even layer of about two feet in depth ready to be worked on. And a few feet farther was a third pile, resembling the second, that was actually being threshed by having a sled holding a boy pulled over it by a horse. And there were other places in the yard where the process was completed, and the natives were sifting the grain out of the straw and chaff with pitchforks. It was all very colorful and would have made some interesting pictures but the truck was always full of people in a hurry to get some place else when we passed the yard, so I didn't ask to stop.
Back on the road to Galilee, as we passed by the broad, almost level farming country, we entered more of the very hilly land with the stony, rocky soil similar to what we saw outside Jerusalem. There were very few trees in this part of the country and the hillsides contained very little vegetation except on the flat surfaces of the natural terraces where grass and weeds and an occasional patch of ripening wheat grew. This was more of a grazing district, and we saw many large flocks of sheep and the black, long-eared goats that looked from a distance like Angus cattle. They were usually tended by wandering Arabs, probably Bedouins, who lived in long, very low, black tents that appeared to be made out of gunny sack material. Most of the tents didn't appear to be more than three feet off the ground but they were quite long and quite broad.
All of a sudden we went through a sort of pass in the hills and entered a long, broad level valley called the "Plains of Esdraelon." These plains are quite historic and are the site of so many famous battles dating back to may years before Christ that they are called the greatest battlefield in the world. Ahead of us we saw Mount Tabor, Mount Carmel, and Mount Moriah. And far off to the left, on a hillside and just barely to be seen, our guide pointed out the town of Nazareth. Soon after entering this area we stopped at the small town of Afula for a 15-minute break and a morning snack of hamburgers and orange juice. I also tried some ice cream, but it had more water than cream in it, so I wasn't too favorably impressed.
We passed through the Plains of Esdraelon and went into rolling hilly country again, but this time the hills although higher were more gently sloping and the valleys much deeper and broader. It was here we found some of the most beautiful long distant views. The valleys were all farmed, and when the road wound up over the top of a hill, we could see the checkerboard layout of the fields below and all of the various colors from dark green orchards to ripening grain. We found this kind of terrain all the rest of the way to the Sea of Galilee which we saw at last as we passed over the top of a hill. The sea was very pretty, a deep blue, and in the distance about 35 miles to the north, we saw the snow-capped peak of Mt. Hermon.
The Sea of Galilee is actually not a sea but a fresh water lake formed by a widening of the River Jordan as it flows south toward the Dead sea.
We immediately drove down to the home of the retired 80-year-old former Methodist missionary and YMCA worker, Dr. Harte, who acts as a host to all of the Red Cross "tourists" making the trip to the Sea of Galilee (about three groups per week). He gave us a little introductory talk, showed us around his little museum, and then suggested we take a swim in the lake. We had been forewarned and so came prepared with suits. And what a swim it was. We all hated to leave the water, it was so warm and perfectly clear. A warm spring bubbled up right in the center of the area in which we swam, and it kept the temperature of the water just right for swimming.
After the swim we went back to Dr. Harte's terrace overlooking the lake and had a lunch of sandwiches and chocolate milk while Dr. Harte took us on an "eye" tour of the important spots around the lake.
Dr. Harte's home is on the western shore, about one-third of the way from the north end. He pointed out that if we were to run a line from his house almost directly east to the other side, we would have to the left the northern one-third of the lake, and around it practically all of the places made famous by Christ. In other words, the northern shore was the only area around the lake (Sea of Galilee) with which Christ was closely associated.
Looking east directly across the lake from Dr. Harte's home we saw the slopes where authorities believe the multitudes were fed. And to the north, near where the River Jordan flows into the lake, we saw the various spots where the ancient city of Capernaum (the town where Christ did most of his preaching) may have been located, and just behind this area, the slopes where Christ spoke the Beatitudes to his disciples. To our right, also on the western shore of the lake was the city of Tiberius, which seemed to be a thriving city and more modern than some of the others in this vicinity.
As we left Galilee I saw the "best yet" as far as Palestinian agriculture was concerned: A hay baler actually at work in a field along the road.
On the way back to Tel Aviv we traveled a slightly different route, which took us farther west, through Nazareth, Christ's home town. It is a small town and very old looking, built on the side of a hill. The houses are for the most part the single story, flat-topped kind, made of stone. We saw many sheep and goats wandering through the narrow streets, and many native women balancing large water jugs on their heads. Again, the historic site pertaining to Christ and his family was covered with a church. Underneath the church, however, the cave and the connecting tunnels were left almost intact, and we went through these, seeing the big underground water reservoir that had been cut out of rock, and the cave in which Joseph and Mary and Jesus lived after their return from Egypt. Above the cave, in the area where the church now stands, Joseph had his carpenter shop, the one in which Christ worked as a boy. --Wilbert.
(To be concluded)