Dear Friends,
Welcome to the Tour With Jack blog. The blog is a way for you to be more involved with the Tour With Jack experience. I'm hoping that you will let me know what you like about the tours we run, what else you would like to see and also share your thoughts and experiences about touring in Israel with us at Tour With Jack.
For my part, I want to share with you the fun of being a guide: the funny things that happen along the way, the ideas behind the tours, the excitement of new discoveries and interesting stories and ideas I come across from the world of tour-guiding in Israel.
Here's a story from one of my tours. Archaeologists Ronny Reich and Eli Shukrun have been exploring the water systems in Ir David. They have challenged cherished views about the dating of a couple of well known features of Jerusalem’s history. They published evidence to suggest that “Hezekiah’s Tunnel” was built well before the reign of King Hezekiah and maybe 100 years before the Assyrian Siege of Jerusalem. More recently, they have shown that while Herod may have started the building of the Western Wall it was not finished in his reign. Here’s the Israel Antiquities Authority press release with photos.
Welcome to the Tour With Jack blog. The blog is a way for you to be more involved with the Tour With Jack experience. I'm hoping that you will let me know what you like about the tours we run, what else you would like to see and also share your thoughts and experiences about touring in Israel with us at Tour With Jack.
For my part, I want to share with you the fun of being a guide: the funny things that happen along the way, the ideas behind the tours, the excitement of new discoveries and interesting stories and ideas I come across from the world of tour-guiding in Israel.
Here's a story from one of my tours. Archaeologists Ronny Reich and Eli Shukrun have been exploring the water systems in Ir David. They have challenged cherished views about the dating of a couple of well known features of Jerusalem’s history. They published evidence to suggest that “Hezekiah’s Tunnel” was built well before the reign of King Hezekiah and maybe 100 years before the Assyrian Siege of Jerusalem. More recently, they have shown that while Herod may have started the building of the Western Wall it was not finished in his reign. Here’s the Israel Antiquities Authority press release with photos.
Reich and Shukrun came to this conclusion whilst preparing a path for visitors through a water channel that runs under the Second Temple Period street alongside the Temple Mount. Two thousand years ago Jews used it to try to escape from the Romans who were destroying the Temple and the city of Jerusalem. Now tourists can walk through this channel all the way from Ir David to the corner of the Western Wall. They come out just by Robinson’s Arch where the paving stones were smashed by falling masonry when the Romans destroyed the Temple.
My story took place in June last year – before this water channel was open to the public and before most of us even really thought of such a possibility. I was with my tourists by Robinson’s Arch explaining about the arch itself, the great staircase it supported and about the 4th Century inscription on the wall there. Suddenly, to our surprise, up popped two guys from a hole in the 2nd Temple pavement and asked if they could borrow a pen! It was a classic moment.
You never know what will happen next on a tour in Jerusalem. Every day, something new is discovered about the past. Come on a tour and learn more about the amazing history of Israel. Or, let me know what you want to see and we will try to make it happen!
You never know what will happen next on a tour in Jerusalem. Every day, something new is discovered about the past. Come on a tour and learn more about the amazing history of Israel. Or, let me know what you want to see and we will try to make it happen!
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