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23-JUL-2008

Two Stories
by jrdu

Inside the prison, inside the prison city of Akka, (modern day Akko), this room tells two stories. This prison was significant in the Jewish people's struggles to form the country of Israel. The government of Palestine imprisoned Jewish freedom fighters here, and the government of Israel has now rebuilt the prison to be a museum of that fight and that age.
Here, also, 70 years earlier, Baha'u'llah was imprisoned by the Ottoman Empire at the behest of the Persian Shah, in order to snuff out the embryonic Baha'i Faith. The skylight, and the marked off portion of the floor, (which shows the building condition at the earlier age), mark the place where Baha'u'llah's son fell to his death.
Baha'u'llah gave that son the title of "The Purest Branch". To escape the cramped conditions of the cells, where 70 people were stuffed into two small rooms, The Purest Branch would climb up to the roof and walk back and forth engaged in meditation and prayer. On one such occasion, he fell through a skylight onto a wooden barrel which pierced his ribs. In the Baha'i Archives, the contents of his pockets when he died are displayed: five pebbles.

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pengu1n 16-Aug-2008 17:02
While the building is interesting historically, from a photographer's perspective it's a treasure! You picked a great angle. I love the multiple arches, the curves repeated in the doorways, windows, and even the fenced-in area. The B&W is a nice treatment for this one. -Karen