Saturday August 11th 1945

After a good night’s cool sleep I rose early and went to the daily celebration at St. George’s, the ‘Anglican Cathedral’. After breakfast here we went round to Carlyle House to join a Church Army trip to Bethlehem. For the nominal sum of 20 mils (5 pennies) we were taken by truck along the Judean hills to Bethlehem and back by way of the Mosque of the Ascension on Olivet.

The hills are rock strewn and where not under vine, olive, almond or fig cultivation, reminded me very much of the rockier Yorkshire hills, under coarse glass. For example the fields where legend places the shepherds, watching their flocks, when the Angel appeared to them, is a flat but rock strewn area very like Lea Green. In the distance, rather further than the Wharfe, but seeming quite near in the bright sunlight, the depression of the Jordan – Dead Sea valley and beyond the long line of the Mountains of Moab. Hereabouts would be, also, the fields of Boaz, where Ruth gleaned. The higher slopes closer to the village are terraced vineyards, each with a small watch-tower.

On the way out we saw the Well of the Magi, where, says the legend, the Magi, having lost sight of the star after leaving Jerusalem, stopped to draw water. Looking into the deep shaft they saw the star, almost vertically above, reflected in the surface of the water. At the fork where the Bethlehem road leaves the Hebron road is the tomb of Rachel, a Mohammedan holy place, a domed building one of whose calls upon fame lies in its joint use by both Jew and Mohammedan. A little farther on we were shown running beside the road water pipes laid by Pontius Pilate’s orders, solid blocks of stone, with the centre laboriously cut out. Bethlehem itself, like the rest of Palestine, is built of very white stone. Some of the buildings are very modern, others are very old. It lies on a steep slope which drops towards the field of the shepherds.

In Manger Square we left the truck and went into the Church of the Nativity.

It is mainly ‘Church’ and there is very little trace of the Nativity left. Originally built with a huge rectangular west doorway, the Crusaders built a smaller, but Gothic arch inside the other. Today, however, everyone who goes into the Church of the Nativity must stoop and pass through ‘the eye of the needle’, a four foot square hole left at the bottom of the earlier and now built-up doorways. This course was taken as a precaution against thieves and Arab horsemen who frequently rode straight into the Church through the big doorway, which is a parable, perhaps!

The Greek, Armenian and Latin Churches each have sections of the church, and their own altars and chapels. From each descend passages leading down to the caves. Outside the church, in the village, we were later shown the modern better-class peasant houses with two or three storeys, the upper being the house proper, while the lower or cellar, was mainly underground and formed a stable. A gentle slope or even a flight of rough, shallow, stone steps led down, which apparently donkeys and oxen can and do manage to negotiate.

A series of caves, whose original purpose was probably similar run underneath the Church and are venerated by the Roman Church and dedicated to St. Joseph, the Holy Innocents, St. Jerome and so on. The Chapel of St. Jerome is said to be the cell wherein he worked at his commentaries and translation of the Vulgate. These caves are roughly carved out of the solid rock and give the idea of the original appearance of the Grotto of the Nativity.

The Grotto itself is a mass of ornate but fireproof tapestries and innumerable candles, sold by the Greek priests and left by the pilgrims. A gold star on the floor immediately in front of the altar marks the ‘exact’ (?) spot where Christ was born. The smell of incense and elaborate decorations make what is no doubt a fine place of worship, but give little, if any, idea of what sort of place it was to which Mary and Joseph came when there was no room for them in the inn. The Church Army guide led us in prayer and we left to visit some even wilder Latin Church architecture in the Milk Grotto where a few drops of the Blessed Mother’s milk are reputed to have turned the rock pure white. After lemonade in the YMCA, which incidentally is the gift of the Denton, Manchester YMCA, we watched with a professional eye two of our colleagues operating in Manger Square, and left by truck for Olivet.

The modern main road swings in a broad sweep right round the North Eastern corner of the old city walls and so we passed over the shoulder of Mount Scopus, and saw the modern Jewish hospitals, gift of the Rothschilds and others, the Jewish National Library and the Hebrew University, magnificent examples of modern architecture and ferro-concrete. Approaching the Mount of Olives from this, one sees nothing of the Garden of Gethsemane, but arrives suddenly in the little Arab village of Et Tur which is dominated by the Russian Monastery with its great tower. We visited a far less pretentious building. On the foundations of an ancient church, the Crusaders built a church dedicated to the Ascension of Our Lord. The Moslems found it ruined and repaired the octagonal walls, roofed it with a dome, added a minaret, produced the rock which bears the footprint of our Lord ascending (!) and set up business. We were allowed to ascend the minaret, from the top of which can be seen all Jerusalem, the Old City, sloping down towards the valley of the brook Kedron, and also, to the East, the Dead Sea and the distant Mountains of Boab, a very fine view. We then returned to Jerusalem.

After lunch, Frank and I made our way to the Damascus Gate and joined a trip organised by the AEC free of charge. The guide was, as Frank put it, unbelievably typical : grey hair going bald, soft hat which he was continually removing, light spectacles, a butterfly tie and a rather venerable appearance and strong accent, which sometimes made it difficult for us to follow what he was saying. As soon as he noticed our SDF badges he explained that his son had gone to Khartoum (in the RAF) and asked us about the place. I think, by the end of the afternoon, we had told him more about Khartoum than he had told us about Jerusalem.

First we walked outside the city walls to where a modern blast wall stood protecting an entrance marked with the familiar SHELTER sign. Once inside however, King Solomon’s quarries are unaltered. The whole of Jerusalem, seems at one time or another, to have been build of stone from these quarries. Huge, wide, slanting corridors burrow deep into the white rock for miles in every direction, right below the Old City. Underground, the virgin rock is comparatively soft and may be chipped quite easily with a penknife. Outside, however, on oxidisation it becomes extremely hard. Like the Bath stone, the method used for cutting was therefore to chisel out two thin vertical grooves and cut two strips of a very dry, strong wood to fit exactly into the grooves. This wood was then soaked by pouring water over it and, expanding rapidly, it cracked out a rectangular block of stone. The niches in which the lanterns of candles were placed for the masons to work by are still there. Today the only stone that comes out of the quarries is carved into ash-trays and other small articles, suitably inscribed.

From there we crossed the Jericho road, which runs round the outside of the walls, and went up to the “Garden Tomb” and the “Gordon Calvary”. In a vertical limestone scar, facing the city wall, are a number of caves, one of which, by the way, is “Jeremiah’s grotto”, where tradition had the prophet write the Book of Lamentations. However, there are two of these caves, close to the top of the scar, close to each other, both round and of the same shape, which might be taken for eyes. Starting from that, the markings on the rough surface of the cliff face form themselves into the outline of a face. Our great predecessor first suggested that this might be the “place of a skull”, for it is just outside the Damascus gate, which excavations show to have been a gate of the city, on the same site, in Roman times.

Further excavations at the foot of the cliff face later revealed tombs, one of which is about the right date, contains three graves and one of these may be seen plainly from the outside doorway, which is apparently unusual. The area surrounding was about that time a garden and vineyard, and there is a wine press, which has been excavated, a shallow paved horse-shoe shaped basin below ground level, with a deeper rectangular hollow, to collect the juice, at the open end of the horse-shoe. The “Garden Tomb Association”, to whom the place belongs, make no outright claims as to its authenticity, but the Franciscan RC guide-book to Jerusalem is very scathing on the subject. It does at least give one an excellent example of what a tomb in a garden, hewn out of the rock, was like.

Further up the Nablus road, near the “Anglican Cathedral”, we visited the “Tombs of the Kings”, actually the tombs of the family of Helen, Queen of Adiabene, very large and extensive and hewn out of the solid rock, perhaps the most interesting thing was a stone which rolled across the doorway and is still in working order. So we were assured but we were warned not to try it. Although the rounded millstone-like door is fairly easy to close, it is very heavy. Once closed, the stone is pressed against the solid rock on two sides, and as it is impossible to get behind it and push it open. Apparently an RAF party recently shut some of their friends inside, but were unable to re-open it and had to summon, of all people, the Jerusalem Fire Brigade. We walked back to the city and after tea Frank went to a cinema, while I went for a walk. In Jerusalem we, as in Egypt, are on GMT plus one hour, and due to the increased latitude the day is longer so that we have it light until about eight o’clock, which is a very welcome change from the tropical nights.

The Old City is out of bounds from five o’clock onwards, so I skirted the outside of the walls past the Jaffa Gate and down the Bethlehem road below Mount Sion into the valley of Hinnom. The walls are high above the road on the left hand side, merging into the rocky slope on which they stand. Just before the Sion Gate they take a right angle turn away from the road, and between the road, the walls on one side and the valley on the other, is Mount Sion with its many churches. On the right, as the road crosses the dry valley, it forms a dam in which a quantity of very dirty looking green water has been held. This is known as Birket es Sultan, the “Sultan’s pool” in Arabic. The Sultan Suliman II is said to have formed this little reservoir and the guide book stresses that, although its appearance is not inviting, the provision of any sort of water supply is very greatly appreciated by the peoples of the Middle East to whom water is more precious than Westerners can ever realise.

Across the Valley of Hinnom lies the Hill of Evil Counsel (where tradition places the counsel of John XI v.47) on the slope of which is the railway station, by the Bethlehem road. I left the Bethlehem road and turned sharp right into the new city. Juliah’s Way is a modern motor road carrying a fair amount of traffic down past the YMCA and King David’s Hotel. Why is it that a big hotel is so unmistakeable? There is something common about Shepherd’s, the University Arms and the big London hotels which is shared by King David’s and makes it impossible to mistake it for, say, a block of big offices. But I turned off to the left up King George’s Avenue, through the high class, ultra modern, residential architecture. Every style of building which has been developed in the last twenty-five years is seen there. The wealthy of every nationality, Jew and Gentile, live here, and about seven in the evening everyone seems to be out for a walk in the cool of the evening with their children. Everyone seems to have children, indeed about half the population seems to be under fifteen. Scraps of conversation that I heard were in Hebrew, American, English and many European languages. The faces were all European types too, the dark, sallow Jew, the British official, children with fair hair – everyone with wide open eyes, not like the Arabs in the south half asleep.

There is a park at the side of the Avenue which seemed to be the goal of many of the children. The majority were sitting on the grass, rather crowded. The lawns have been levelled out of the hillside and as the road runs on the higher side of the little park there is a drop of perhaps eight feet from the road on to the grass. Round a spot on the wall guarding this drop a great crowd was gathered. Prosperous American business men, Jewish mothers with prams, some Army officers, a few airmen and a large number of children were watching with intense interest (apparently) something which was going on. I squeezed my way through the crowd and found that a steady stream of small boys was doing a pole vault from the wall down on to the grass eight feet below. Perhaps this indicates a trait in the Jewish character – two or three of the boys at the bottom seemed to have the sport highly organised, and everywhere the children seemed to be far better behaved than English children.

From St. George’s Avenue I came down into the Jaffa road, the main shopping street, with Goldberg’s and Berman’s, Klein’s and Silberstein’s, it is obvious in which direction Palestinian commerce is turning. There are big modern shops, offices and cinemas, all (like the Houses) in white stone. All the streets were thronged with people and the Palestinian Police with their queer black, furry hats (like a cross between a tarbush and a Busby) were much in evidence.