Bad news Saturday

Rain clouds this morning

Another stabbing attack near my house .... the 2nd in 24 hours. The terrorist was shot dead and a passerby was wounded by a ricocheting bullet. That took place at Lions Gate about 120 meters from my house. Things certainly are going downhill from now on.

It drizzled the whole day ... and I guess the whole night as well. I've decided to stay home as yesterday's anti-chinese incident - the 5th time in 2 weeks - convinced me not to go out anymore while this coronavirus panic spreads. And for sure the panic will go overboard now that 9 korean pilgrims have returned home to be confirmed as infected. It's unlikely they aught it here. More likely they were already infected back in Korea when they came to make the pilgrimage. The virus just incubated till they returned to Korea a week later. Now the anti-asian sentiments will even be more aggressive. Stay home ... stay safe. I was told yesterday an asian group was chased away from standing in front of arab shops while they made the Way of the Cross.

An a terrible injustice took place ... again. Jewish settlers occupied land belonging to the Diocese in northern Samaria and complaints to the police have fallen on deaf ears. It is all part of Trump's plan to take our property and give them to Israel ... land that Trump doesn't own.   http://www.lpj.org/posts/latin-patriarchate-condemns-israeli-settlers-violations-its-property-tayasir.html?fbclid=IwAR08P3UtQlDlEsrELeqdrvSWGoGGExUXsJJfUw5N7qPk5wd5pl5GY5K-MdI

Palm Plaza ... cold and wet

And we hear that suicide bombers have targeted downtown Damascus which used to be very safe. It's terrible that no one hears of this news and even less people condemning it.  

Ending all the bad news today ... I had several attacks of asthma today. Though I didn't go to work, I cleaned my room and probably the dust affected me. It was really bad and I was so worried I thought of going to hospital. Well the wheezing and gasping has stopped ... I'll just rest tonight and see if it comes back tomorrow.

A friend's kindness

Muslim crowds entering Old City

The relative peace was broken this afternoon by a stabbing attempt at the southern suburb of Jerusalem. That's about 4 kms away.  A woman attacker was overcome by passersby before she could do any harm. Suddenly we are brought back to reality ... that peace is so fragile and underlying the calm atmosphere, there is an undercurrent of hatred waiting to explode.   https://www.timesofisrael.com/woman-tries-to-stab-passers-by-in-suspected-jerusalem-terror-incident/

It's Friday ... and the usual crowds of muslims have come from all over the country to pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque. Police presence was not particularly heavy. That was a surprise ... they did not expect an attack in the Old City.

I'm recovering from my cold ... and I've a huge cold sore which I'm treating with the latest medicine. Doesn't seem to be working because it's a lot bigger today. I hate going out looking like that because people would all the more say "corona" and make disapproving gestures. Unfortunately I had to go out and buy some necessities. I kept my head low so no one would see the sore ... which was ok even though the streets in the New City were quite busy with the weekend crowd. But once in the shop I had to raise my head to look for the things I needed to buy and immediately a man said to the shop owner "Corona ... be careful". The owner is my friend Eran, and he ignored the remark but shook my hand and brought me around to see some new stuff he had. That was a very nice gesture. It made me feel less self-conscious. And that everything is fine. No need for exaggeration and baseless panic.

West Jerusalem this morning 

But yes, today Israel received it's first corona-infected victim ... a passenger from the Diamond Princess cruise. All the israeli passengers have been transported immediately to the desert city of Beer Sheva where a hospital has been isolated for quarantine purposes. Now let's see how things develope.  

Meantime riots broke out in Jericho when runners of palestinians returning from China will be quarantined in a busy part of that city. Tires were burned and stones thrown and roads blocked. The mayor assured everyone there was no one coming back from China and no one has the virus ... but the population runs on hearsay and rumours. It's dangerous for asians now to enter palestinian territories as this excitable crowd is unpredictable.

Thursday

Provident food for lunch

I didn't sleep well ... after yesterday's hard work I just couldn't sleep. From midnight to 3am I slept and then I was up. My mind was reeling with so much work to be done. Then work began at 7am till noon when I have an hour's break. My head is splitting with pain and was faint. I think I was hungry. Luckily the chinese sisters came and quickly cooked some northern chinese "bin" with eggs and carrots/Mu Er.

There's been some good news locally. Israel has allowed 7000 gazans to enter Israel to work, the highest number of permits ever granted. By raising the employment, Gaza's will be able to feed their families and there will be less hostilities with Israel. The the Palestinian - Israeli trade war is ended thus ending the dilemma of countless farmers on both sides of the border. And there has been no sign of violence north and south ... so this week looks good.

But the scary news is that 2 Iranians have died of the corona virus and they have never been out of the country. How did the virus enter the country? Israel is beefing up emergency measures because the infected israelis on the cruise ship will arrive back today.

I have another class in 15 mins and then 3 hours of conference, adoration and confessions till 7pm. I'm looking forward to an early sleep tonight. Fingers crossed.

Exhibition

Visiting the digitalisers at work

A very busy day preparing for the 1 hour exhibition for the Hebrew University conference. Found out some of the world's top medievalists are in the group. Daunting. The whole morning was spent arranging the exhibits of 12th and 13th century manuscripts .... some are really impressive.

At 3.30pm the group came and they were very impressed by the exhibition. And they also wanted to see the work of our British Library team digitalizing our manuscripts. They also got a tour of the modern section of our library. All in all it was very successful and everyone was happy.

One of our illuminated manuscripts

Now it's exactly 12 hours since I started preparation for this exhibition. Am exhausted. My good friend Sharfi asked to have dinner with me so I guess I'll go .... just to relax from 3 days of very hard work. He's jewish and vegetarian so usually I let him choose the place to eat. We'll see where we'll go. It's raining so I hope it's not going to be far. I don't have a raincoat on.  

And yes it's raining. Weather forecaster say it's the last rain before a hot dry summer sets in. News reports say thousands of syrians are running away from the war in the bitter cold winter. Some children have already died from the cold. It's horrific.

And Iran has recorded it's first 2 cases of coronavirus. It's time we realized viruses don't respect borders. Here in Israel we're just preparing ourselves for the 1st case. Hopefully the hot dry summer will come quickly and the virus dies out before it reaches our country.

Rain is back

Rain again

The rains have returned ... I was caught in a shower while on my way home from work today. I took shelter in Jack's Lebanese restaurant. I know his family well... especially his old father who escaped the war in Lebanon in the 70s and came to Israel as a refugee. Singlehandedly and with lots of health difficulties he bought up his sons and daughters. Today his youngest son Jack is a chef and owns a small restaurant specialising in lebanese food. I try to support them whenever I can. This evening I was famished as I had not eaten the whole day since yesterday. So taking advantage of the rain, I went there and asked for spaghetti with chicken shnitzel. It was good to eat hot food.

Today was exhausting as only one volunteer and myself had to prepare a major exhibition of our medieval manuscripts. The Hebrew University is holding a 3 day conference on medieval life in Jerusalem and has asked our library to host an exhibition on our precious manuscripts. It was hard work ... from physically moving exhibition stands and boxes to preparing the brochure. I had to translate some descriptions form latin into english. Now I am mentally exhausted ... I'll sleep early. Tomorrow I'll have to host the exhibition alone.

1.3K viewers at midnight???

Israel has banned all Hong Kongers, Macanese, Thai and Singaporeans from entering the country. Last week it demanded only a 2 week quarantine. This is serious. And just now we receive news that the Health Ministry is warning against fake news that cause alarm in the country.  

And talking about alarm, here's a photo shot of the spike of viewers of my blog last week ... 1.3K views. That's reason for alarm!!! All occurring at midnight!!!!

Winter's back

Painters in the street

Though I'm much better today, I still have to be careful. There were a couple of sniffles but no sneezing during the day. But it's not getting worse. That's good news for me. Been washing my hands all day, alcohol sanitising and keeping away from crowds.

It rained quite heavily for a short while yesterday afternoon and it drizzled a couple of times during the night. The temp. dropped and the morning was cold. It drizzled a few times again in the afternoon. So yes ... winter came back again. It's confusing everyone. No wonder people are catching colds. You never know what to wear. Too much ... too little.

There was a nice sight along El Wad street this morning while I was on my way to work. A couple of artists were painting the street. That's usually a summer thing ... but the artists were wearing thick coats. El Wad (meaning "valley") is the ancient Tyropean Valley that leads north-south across the Old City into the Pool of Siloam. It's so historical ... but most people just walk along it are oblivious to it's significance.

There's been no news about the border tensions. I guess the coronavirus is occupying too much of the headlines. 3 israelis onboard the cruise ship has contracted the virus and while they've been evacuated from the ship and on their way to Israel, we've been told they'll be quarantined in a hospital in Beer Sheva. Let's hope they'll recover soon.

And by the way, the number of viewers of the blog has returned to normal ... 12 to 20. That's a huge difference for the 1,360 last week.

Virus worries

Street blackout

And today my runny nose and sneezing is all over. I slept for 8 hours and took my cold medication ... drank lots of water ... and it worked. But even today while coming home from work (yes ... I work even on Sundays), 2 kids were walking past and remarked loudly "Chinese ... corona". At my age and years of living here ... I just ignore it. It's not worth the energy. There was a taiwanese student in Tel Aviv who experienced the same thing in the city and was all worked up and wrote a long post on the Tel Aviv Facebook page lamenting and winching about being a foreigner who's a victim of racism. Well ... get over it. Learn to live with it. We're guests in this land. We have no rights. If we do get anything, it's a privilege. If you value your student visa ... then just keep quiet and move on.

Armenian Catholic
Church

Yes everything is a privilege here .... even street lights. Every night I come home through the Muslim Quarter and the streets are all dark. Don't take for granted that streetlights are a right in every quarter of the City ... some have more rights than others.

I had a busy day first with Mass at the Armenian Catholic church, then a class, then a meeting and finally work in cataloguing some new books. Then a walk back home to clean my room and prepare the laundry for washing tomorrow. Monday is always laundry day for us.

Anyway the coronavirus epidemic is causing waves here ... first with a massive drop of tourists. Some source say it almost 50% cancellations. Also the industry is warning that house-building material will soon go up in prices .... and eventually all other goods. That's the result of too much dependence on Chinese cheap products.   https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Coronavirus-outbreak-threatens-Israeli-tourism-617716?fbclid=IwAR2zGyWHsk1S1JdEDn4AdX-8uCbp-WQAfE15UqWnxcaSPe2BppWLejREELE

Well the epidemic is serious enough to warrant a call from the rabbis to all jews to go to the Wailing Wall today to pray for its end.   https://israelb.org/2020/02/coronavirus-prayers-at-kotel-today/?fbclid=IwAR2JrVifQplPESnC78wZQspWu__QLAJ01kH77y1m3nRc1bRtxqi-sbPNZfY

No other headlines ... except for a simple statement in one newspaper "Winter is back". Yes the 16 degree weather has dropped back to 8 degrees. What is happening to the climate?