Denise Milani Nippels

Haifa between mountain and sea

Wow that dreamscape the Bahai Temple and its gardens all illuminated under the night sky that run along the western flank of Mount Caramel ! Stuff to Scheherazade and the Thousand and One Nights, even in Walt Disney's most successful films would know them better. I do not know the effect on electricity costs, but it is great and in fact the UNESCO World Heritage site. Once again, Gaston has done his duty, that brought luck, because this is the view from the window of our room, a modest guest house stumbled upon the last time that behind closed shutters hid no other than this view. (By the way, the Guesthouse Hadadi we got to experience the fantasy Levantine, say Naples is not enough, the owner Andrew: Instead of just admitting he had not foreseen light near the bedside, in fact there was no outlet, with a scripted textbook opened all the rooms on the ground supporting he did not understand, things of this world, had stolen all the light bulbs at night. We laughed out loud).

to visit the Bahai gardens, wide open for the faithful, but only partially accessible to tourists and tour for free, of course, we devoted an entire half day. Appointment collective atop Nof Yafei being on top to 45 and then down, down you go walk to the Mausoleum. We never miss anything, the view from above in Haifa, care, precision and accuracy of every nook and cranny,

formal gardens with flower beds that can not be pruned more perfectly, seems to work on it one hundred gardeners, cherubs, statues, golden eagles, vases, fountains, fountains, gurgling water, lights galore and even a like the Parthenon, a library and study and documentation center and two other buildings, an administration office and others, The Universal House of Justice, the supreme body of government of the Bahai faith.

The central temple is the hub of the site, the Shrine of the Bab , considered the precursor. If I am not Wrong Bahai religion is the most recent in time, founded in the mid-nineteenth century, first preached equality and justice, humanity as a whole to evolve collective ideals of peace, harmony and unity. With rich syncretic fusion of the eight million Muslims in the Bahai world (two million in India alone) recognize and believe in Abraham, the Sakyamuni Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, Jesus, the prophets of the various religious path of history, Muhammad Ali in 1844 Iran has declared to be the 'Chosen and Bab, which is the Porta messenger of the prophecies and Baha'ullah, his prophet. The writings of the Bab, in fact, introduce the idea of \u200b\u200ba messianic figure, which will be embodied in 1866 by Mizra Husayn Ali, Baha'ullah . As history teaches us, the preachers of peace and noble values \u200b\u200bdo not really know because they are always socially dangerous and should be eliminated, so the faithful were tortured in the Bab, the Bab himself publicly executed in Tabriz in 1850, and Baha'ullah, the founder of the religion, had the divine inspiration in the Black Pit of Tehran, sadly known prison. After the exile in various places (Baghdad, Constantinople, Adrianople) in his last prison Acre Baha'ullah systematized and consolidating the new religion in his main text, the Kitab-Aqdas .

The Shrine of the Bab (his remains were brought from Iran to the Holy Land) Bahai gardens and off in a valley by the German Colony neighborhood with the way Ben Gurion, its main thoroughfare in the center, and this is another very interesting story that, in my opinion, deserves to be told: in the middle 800 in Germany, an organization of fundamentalist Christians, Lutherans founded a "Society for the gathering of God's people in Jerusalem." Are called Deutscher Templer , but they are the modern Knights Templar, a group small but determined not to be confused with the medieval knights of the Crusades, which in this case has nothing to do anything. Come to Palestine to live according to the Apostolic Messianic vision and thus speed the second coming of Christ on earth. To begin purchasing land in Haifa, where at the foot of Mount Caramel form their first community in the Holy Land. Streets and roads cut with a ruler, stone houses neat and clean, geraniums on the balconies, roofs, red as in the Bavarian Alps, nothing to do with the local architecture.

industrious and enterprising, are used in the construction of Jewish settlements and become most expert in the vines, in the oil and soap and then exported with great success throughout the world. Coexist peacefully with Arabs and Jews, but by good Teutonic fundamentalists and nationalists loyal to the motherland, when the time will not make any distinction between his love for Christ and that the Fuehrer, will love both. In 1942, it is expelled from Palestine by order of the British government representative and moved to Australia until 1947. Interestingly, if the so-called German Colony neighborhood of Haifa is inhabited mostly by Palestinians and Maronites total tourist vocation, the consideration of the district of German Templars in Tel Aviv called Sarona and, irony of fate, in the years of underground struggle for the independence of Israel became the headquarters of the Haganah, the military defense of the Yishuv, the community Jews in Palestine.

The fact is that under the houses and bucolic green, deep in the earth, there is a labyrinth of cellars very confident that at the time had served to age Templars of good wine. Yes, a simple change of use! All around the old town of Sarona that now wants to preserve, (you are restoring some of the 41 houses of the original core housing) rise skyscrapers, is the Kyria, a complex of government buildings, bases, Israeli Defense Command.

Lying like a mantle between the sea and Mount Caramel, Haifa seems to welcome the peaceful days that pass, far from the vortex of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for all eternity you questions. Live and work here I can see why many Israeli writers, views quiet space away.