All of these images are of Jerusalem flowers, and all except the roses are wildflowers that grow in this desert city. Several will be included in my forthcoming exhibition, forthcoming exhibition at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem opening in May, i>Into the Land of Seeing— which is focused on Jerusalem of Memory, Jerusalem of Gold, Living Jerusalem.

Flowers, trees, birds, and a ram represent the natural world in the Living Jerusalem segment. By the way, the flowers called Red Everlasting, here have another name, Red Blood of the Maccabees. The capers grow wild everywhere, and when you see photographs of the Western Wall with some greenery between the ancient stones, many of those green plants are capers. They have a lovely flower, but lots of thorns. Wild almond trees blossom everywhere here starting as early as January, and the flowering often lasts through March, as it has this year.The aloe, which has wonderful healing properties, grows here as well and is mentioned several times in the Bible.There are a number of varieties which attract the iridescent sunbirds, tiny birds that look very much like hummingbirds (which only are found in the western hemisphere) and behave in much the same way, but are not related. Also the sunbirds, which do hover like the hummingbirds as they sip nectar, do not have their ability to fly backwards. We have roses all year in Jerusalem. They are most prolific in spring, but we even have roses in winter, though far fewer on each bush. The windflowers are often passed by—they grow wild and are quite lovely when they open, and their seeds are carried by the wind.

Like many of the other visual delights in Jerusalem, which include the skies, all manner of natural beauty including the very shapes of the hills and surrounding desert landscape, as well as the variety of the architecture, the spring flowers inspire my creativity in the rendering of these digital photographic images. I have been photographing this place, Jerusalem, for 13 years and expect I always will.

Red Everlasting

Almond Blossoms

Aloe

Caper

Windflower

Roses