Beautiful view of Jerusalem from the bus window, on our way to the Bethlehem gates, or from Bethlehem…I forget, but isn’t it nice?
1.) It is the birthplace of Jesus.
2.) Rachel is buried there. Rachel was the wife of Jacob. Jacob is the ONE who God re-named Israel.
Now if you want to understand that story better, ya just gotta go read Genesis because an awful lot of strange things happened back in those days of barbarians, much more than we are going to get to today on this blog.
Another beautiful scene near Bethlehem
So of course, many people wish to visit Bethlehem, myself included.
Ah, yes. The problem. You cannot visit Israel without this eventually coming up. You see, Bethlehem belongs under Palestinian Authority in what is called the West Bank.
Wait. Does that mean Americans can’t visit Bethlehem??
No.
It does not mean that. It means that American government employees and Israelis cannot visit the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, or Golan Heights, with the exception of Bethlehem and Jericho. We actually didn’t know that on this trip and were under the impression that we were not allowed to go to Bethlehem.
The Gaza Strip is far more unstable than the West Bank, and Americans are strongly advised to not go there, but Bethlehem is not in the Gaza Strip.
So technically, we COULD visit Bethlehem, and most Holy Land tourist groups do so. We weren’t actually with a tourist group from the U.S. We were only taking day excursions with a tour guide from our hotel in Tel Aviv.
I don’t remember where I saw this, but interesting, eh? President Trump was there the week before us. Perhaps that’s why they made this sign?
Our tour guide was an Israeli. She cannot visit Palestine, but she was full of fascinating information. Bethlehem was not even a scheduled stop on our tour, but she knew we wanted to see it, so she took us to see the border wall.
But the Palestinian/Israeli tensions are still there.
Our guide said, “There’s the UN. He is not supposed to be here. He is supposed to be at Golan Heights.”……interesting….
Our guide said, “You are here. You have seen the gate to Bethlehem, so really you can say you have been to Bethlehem. Okay. We are good. Now we will turn around and see the place where John the Baptist is from.”
By that time in the day it was around 3 or 4 pm, we had been touring Jerusalem all day, and my brain lost its ability to take in new information. So the next post will mostly be pictures.
Jerusalem Part 1: Mount of Olives and the Upper Room
Jerusalem Part 2: Where Jesus was Crucified
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You saw the gate and were at Bethlehem. Fascinating!
I was pretty excited.
Hi April, it's a shame you didn't get to see Bethlehem properly! At least you saw the sign pointing out Rachels tomb, so you were close. At least you have a good reason to return to Israel, one day...
My brain gets addled with too much information too, which is where taking lots of photos comes in handy.
Thank you for linking up with the #MMBC.
That's okay. I was still so happy just to be in Israel. :) This was my very first trip across the atlantic!
Thanks for extending your tour to us:-)
No prob. :)