Western Wall at Night ( Exclusive Panorama Photo)

Western Wall Plaza. Dave Bender (All Rights Reserved)
Click on photo for larger panorama.

"Folded notes of prayers, blessings and personal requests to the Almighty, pressed into the crevices of the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City. What happens when all the cracks between the Herodian -era stones are filled?

The answer is here: www.davebrianbender.com"

'From Jerusalem to God - by Kotelevator'

Click here for the full-sized image.

By Dave Bender JERUSALEM, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Worshipers and tourists at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism's holiest site, will soon have a new way of approaching the Lord above: an elevator.
Read more: http://www.davebrianbender.com

Passover: Priestly Blessing at the Western Wall (exclusive photo)

Watching the ritual, Passover 2005. (Photo: Dave Bender)

Ultra-orthodox youths on scaffolding at the Western Wall get a better view of the ancient Passover ceremony of the priestly blessing of multitudes of worshipers packed into the plaza. Click on the photo to see a full-sized image.

More on Passover here.

Jerusalem, Israel & Pals: splitsville?

Looking north towards central Jerusalem, from the capital's southernmost neighborhood, Gilo. I shot this photograph with a cellphone camera, and then tweaked it in Photoshop to get this somewhat dreamlike image. (Dave Bender)

Writer, columnist and blogger Judy Lash Balint weighs in with a well-crafted, detailed, and personal POV on the significance of reports about dividing Jerusalem:

When most tourists think of Jerusalem, they generally have in mind the Western Wall, the Israel Museum, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Ben Yehuda Mall and Yad Vashem. Sadly, tourists, like most Israeli Jews, don't spend much time in eastern Jerusalem--despite the fact that this part of the Holy City holds the most historical, spiritual and strategic significance for Jews and Christians.

But in the run-up to the Annapolis summit, as the Olmert and Bush administrations intone the old "two states for two peoples" mantra, and renewed declarations that a Palestinian state will have east Jerusalem as its capital go on, perhaps it's time to understand the dynamics of the eastern part of the city.

Until very recently, Israeli politicians both left and right cited "Jerusalem, the undivided capital of Israel" as the consensus mantra. Now, Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon, (the same Ramon who was convicted just six months ago on sexual harassment charges) is advancing the same unrealistic Camp David thinking on Jerusalem as that first raised by Ehud Barak in 2000. Let the Arabs have the Arab neighborhoods and the Jews will keep the Jewish areas, and the "Holy Basin" of Judaism and Christianity's holiest sites will be administered by joint international supervision, declares Ramon.

But, as anyone who has spent any time at all in Jerusalem's neighborhoods can attest, things on the ground are far more complex than that.

Read the rest and learn. Previous post featuring Balint.

(Full disclosure: Judy and I have worked together in the past on news coverage about Israel and PA areas)

Three Weeks, Three Thousand Years

Worshipers thronging the Western Wall, Jerusalem
(Photo: Dave Bender)

Aish.com has a comprehensive page of links to well-written articles about Tisha B'Av, beginning this Monday evening until Tuesday night.

"Tisha B'Av marks the day when God walked out on us, and took His house with Him."

Worth reading.

I commemorated last Tisha B'Av in the northern Israeli town of Rosh Pina, close to Lebanon as Hizbullah rockets and IDF artillery alternately thundered in the background. May those scenes and sounds not return.

After Words, We'll Talk (Original Photograph)

After Words, We'll Talk

Click on image for full-sized photo.
(Photo: Dave Bender)