Holy Saturday again

Wild barley in the fields

It's Holy Saturday again ... this time for the Orthodox Churches. The bells of the Holy Sepulchre have been tolling the death knell all day yesterday ... but the celebrations inside have been very quiet. Though 4 major orthodox churches are represented inside, only the official heads can preside and there will be no faithful allowed to enter. So the service of the Holy Fire will be a rather private affair. Israeli police will make sure there will be no crowds ... and the Holy Fire will be brought out orderly according to the various churches straight to the airport where it will be flown to orthodox countries.

Today all the City Gates except Zion and Dung gates are closed. It's to stop christian orthodox from gathering at the holy Sepulchre for the Holy Fire ... but some of these people ... all russians ... insist on entering and have been stopped by the police.

Last Thursday evening saw riots in our ultra-orthodox jewish neighbourhood of Mea Shearim. They had been protesting against the lockdown and when police came in to break up synagogue gatherings, they started attacking the police with stones and sticks. The police fired stun grenades but one exploded in front of a 9 yr old girl out with her mum to buy food. It was caught on video.

Meantime the govt is relaxing the lockdown this evening after the sabbath ends. Among the relaxations are the possibility of walking 500m from your house, instead of 100m; some shops will reopen. All that is good news.

I'm unable to upload photos on my blog ... so I'm trying again with this blog. Someone is hacking into my system again.