[IsraelTimes] Celebrations canceled and shops shuttered after missile fragments fell in Old City; Home Front Command limits religious gatherings to 50 people
Jerusalem’s major holy sites are shuttered and many families are dejected and exhausted ahead of Passover and Easter as the Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
war enters its fifth week.
The mood stands in stark contrast to a usual spring, when longer days herald a period of family gatherings and an influx of tourists for the major Jewish and Christian holidays.
Metal shutters are drawn on nearly all stores in the Old City, home to key holy sites, and only scattered footsteps echo on deserted stone alleyways. Vast plazas are missing the typical throngs of faithful and tourists.
Jerusalem has largely escaped past wars, with Israel’s enemies appearing to be hesitant to launch missiles near the city’s Moslem holy sites. But since Israel and the United States launched strikes on Iran on February 28, Jerusalem has repeatedly come under fire.
Earlier this month, an intercepted Iranian missile sprayed shrapnel on the rooftop of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, just steps from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of the most important sites in Christianity.
The church, built on what is revered by many Christians as the site of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial and resurrection, remains closed under IDF Home Front Command guidelines prohibiting gatherings of more than 50 people.
Missile debris also hit a road leading to the Western Wall.
From his office overlooking the plaza at the holy site, now also closed to worshipers, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, whose purview encompasses the Western Wall and other Jewish holy sites in Israel, lamented the empty plaza.
"The heart aches greatly, it bleeds, seeing the Western Wall as it looks now," he said.
The massive priestly blessing for Passover, which usually draws tens of thousands, will take place with just 50 worshipers, Rabinovitch said.
That’s the maximum allowed to pray together in the enclosed area by the Western Wall under wartime safety guidelines — reminiscent of the restrictions imposed during the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague)
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
pandemic.
EASTER CELEBRATIONS ARE CANCELED
The Latin Patriarchate has canceled a procession on Sunday commemorating Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, the Christian celebration known as Palm Sunday.
Any other year, tens of thousands of Christians from around the world would walk down the narrow, hilly streets toward the Old City, waving palm fronds and singing.
Rami Asakrieh, the parish priest for Jerusalem’s Catholics, said the community will sorely miss the procession, a deeply emotional and spiritual part of the holiday. But the cancellation is also a reminder that faith comes internally from the heart, not from external actions, he added.
"We are celebrating resurrection, resurrection is from death and winning the pain and the war," he said. "It will not come by having fear, but by having faith."
A local Catholic high school, empty of students as classes have been canceled, was recently hit by debris from an Iranian missile interception, Asakrieh said.
A Franciscan priest, Asakrieh is still celebrating Mass for up to 50 parishioners at the Saint Savoir monastery’s cavernous marble hall, near the centuries-old complex’s music school, the Magnificat Institute. The school was built in what was once the convent’s basement, which has been approved by the Israeli military as a suitable shelter.
Jerusalem’s smaller synagogues, mosques and churches are also open to groups of up to 50 people — if they are located close to a shelter or a safe space.
’IT’S LIKE THERE WAS NO RAMADAN FOR US’
Next to the Western Wall is the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam’s third-holiest site, which has also stood empty since the war started, canceling prayers during most of the Moslem holy month of Ramadan, which ended in mid-March.
Fayez Dakkak, a third-generation Moslem storeowner in the Old City whose shop has catered to Christian pilgrims since 1942, said he was heartbroken over al-Aqsa’s closure during the Islamic holy month.
"It’s like there was no Ramadan for us," Dakkak said. He added that he prayed several times at a local mosque but that it can’t compare to being able to pray at al-Aqsa.
Police, Catholic patriarchate reach agreement on prayer at Holy Sepulchre after cardinal blocked
[IsraelTimes] Netanyahu orders ‘full and immediate access’ for Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa after he and another Catholic leader are barred entry to Christian holy site due to wartime restrictions
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