Middle East - Anthony Ham [216]
Clos De Gat Winery (closdegat.com) Produces dark reds with flowery aromas. Look out for the 2004 Herel Syrah.
Chillag Winery (preker.co.il/israelwines/chillag/eorna.html)This winery’s rich and delicious Primo Merlot 2004 (90% merlot, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon) has won local awards.
Tulip Winery (tulip-winery.co.il/) Another award winner; try the spicy 2006 vintage Tulip Syrah Reserve.
Compiled with the help of Yoran Bar, Tel Aviv.
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Alcohol is available everywhere, but observant Muslims don’t drink at all and observant Jews drink very little. In city centres, though, there’s no end of bars serving up cocktails by the bucketful, local beers and an abundance of Israeli wines. The main brands of local beer are Maccabee, Gold Star and Nesher, all very nice indeed when served ice cold, while Taybeh Beer produces the only Palestinian brew, from the Middle East’s sole microbrewery in the West Bank (Click here).
Note that in both Israel and the Palestinian Territories, tipping around 10% of the bill is as much of an established practice as it is in the West.
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JERUSALEM
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Jerusalem, Israel’s ancient, enigmatic and stunning capital, is without doubt one of the world’s most fascinating cities, as well as one of its holiest, most beautiful – and most oft disputed. Here you’ll find an enchanting blend of religions, lifestyles and monuments to three of the world’s great monotheistic faiths, with a good bit of tension, turmoil and turbulence thrown into the mix.
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HISTORY
Jerusalem, originally a small Jebusite settlement, occupies the slopes of the biblical Mt Moriah, where according to the Old Testament Abraham offered his son Isaac as a sacrifice. In 997 BC King David captured the city and made it his capital, and his son and successor, Solomon, built the great First Temple. The temple was destroyed by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC and the Jews were exiled into the wilderness.
After 50 years, the Babylonians were pushed off the land by the Persians and it was under Cyrus the Great that the Jews were allowed to return and reconstruct a ‘Second Temple’, which was completed in 515 BC. Power shifted between subsequent invading armies until the Romans marched on Jerusalem in 63 BC, and installed Herod the Great as King of Judea. Herod launched a massive building campaign in Jerusalem, and the city was thereafter ruled by a series of procurators. It was the fifth of these, the renowned Pontius Pilate, who ordered the crucifixion of Jesus.
The swell of Jewish discontent with Roman rule escalated into the First Revolt in AD 66, resulting in the destruction of the Second Temple. A Second Revolt in AD 132 took the Romans four years to quell. The Jews were banished from Jerusalem and the Emperor Hadrian razed the city and rebuilt it as Aelia Capitolina, the basis of today’s Old City.
Christianity soon became the official state religion, forcing the conversion of many local Jews and Samaritans, and building work started on Christian shrines; work on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre commenced in 326. Jerusalem’s importance as a centre of Christian worship soon spread through the Eastern Roman Empire, until it was on a par with Antioch, Rome, Alexandria and Constantinople.
In 638, however, after weathering a short-lived Persian invasion and occupation, Byzantine Jerusalem fell to a new power: Islam, and the Dome of the Rock was completed in AD 691. But despite its significance to Islam, Jerusalem’s political and economic fortunes fell into decline, the result of its distance from the imperial capitals of Damascus and Cairo.
By the 11th century, Palestine had fallen to the Seljuk Turks, who stopped Christian pilgrims from visiting Jerusalem. Thus, between 1095 and 1270, Western Christians led a series of Crusades to deliver the Holy Land from Arab occupation. The Crusaders took Jerusalem in 1099 but lost it in 1187 to Saladin