Israel Discovery
Day Six – 1 Dec 2009
Weather: Sunny, 17 with cool wind.
I was up at 7 and down to breakfast for 7:30. The offerings were fairly basic but the scrambled eggs were back to normal. Luckily, I packed both my light jacket and a sweatshirt in my backpack – I would need both.
We started the day with a visit to the Holocaust Museum.
We first visited the Children’s Memorial which was very very moving. On the outside is a number of columns that were broken to signify 1.5 million lives that were cut short.
We walked down a short tunnel then entered a darkened room which required that we hold on to a railing as we walked. Inside, there was a large area where four lit candles were reflected so that it appeared that dozens of candles were floating in the air above us as a voice announced names and ages of children who had died in the Holocaust.
It’s hard not to be choked up.
From there we walked along a path where trees had plagues commemorating people who had died in the Holocaust.
We entered the main museum and Zvika gave us a commentary in the first couple of rooms. The museum has a central triangular corridor with several displays blocking the way and forcing you to go through the displays to the left and right. It started with the rise of Nazism and noted the major events as the Holocaust unfolded, using photos, film, eyewitness accounts and artifacts. The display even included the Auschwitz Album which I had learned about on my tour of Auschwitz in June. An SS officer had taken a number of photos at the camp and after liberation, the album was discovered by a woman (who found her own picture in the album).
Zvika gave us an hour to explore the museum and although one can spend an entire day there, it’s easy to get a feel of it in an hour. As I noted after my visit to Auschwitz, how anyone can deny that the Holocaust occurred after visiting this site is beyond me. Just the eyewitness accounts alone are chilling.
After the Museum, we proceeded to the site of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Outside the site is a model of Jerusalem 2000 years ago.
It was more impressive than mini-Israel. From there we went inside to see the Dead Sea Scrolls. Zvika gave us the story of how a Bedouin boy looking for a lost goat found the Scrolls in a cave inside ceramic jars. Dozens of scrolls were recovered, the longest some 8 m long. What fascinated the scholars is that the language is Hebrew and very close to the language used today and they found it was very close to the Torah as it exists today. We were able to see several scrolls which are kept in a darkened building which itself is sprayed with water on the outside to help keep the humidity at the right level.
From here, we drove to Bethlehem for our second optional which visits the church of the nativity. I took it primarily as an opportunity to visit the West Bank settlement. Zvika was not permitted to enter the West Bank (by the Israeli government, not the Palestinian one) so we were met at the gate by Anwar.
We followed Anwar through the security gate and through the wall to the other side.
The wall is massive. Easily twice the height of the Berlin Wall and surrounds the settlement. (Interestingly enough, when Israel constructed the wall, it did so on Palestinian land, not Israeli land and that reduced the size of the West Bank).
The Wall does have its uses – like a spot to advertise your menu.
The town of Bethlehem is not unlike many other local settlements, complete with Subway and Maytag businesses etc. We started the visit with lunch at an empty restaurant. Not everyone choose to eat, unsure of the cleanliness of the kitchen. Four of us ate the meal and didn’t have any adverse effects.
After lunch, Anwar brought us to the church. We entered through a low doorway (made so low so that the Turks could not ride their horses into the church) and descended into the area where they say Jesus was born.
There is a star on the location of his birth in a small cavern which everyone wanted to touch and the ‘barn’ was next to it where he said Jesus was laid after he was born.
Kind of reminds me of the tourist trap on Patmos where the tour guide seemed to know where John laid his head when he slept. I think the site needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
Anwar took us back upstairs and through a door to a neighbouring Catholic church and down more stairs to an area where apparently the bodies of the children killed by Herod were laid. After a short commentary, Anwar led us out and down a set of stairs where we waited for the mini-bus. A teenager tried to sell us postcards until a security guard shouted out to him from above. The kid hid off to the side and kept trying to sell us the postcards while peeking out to see if the security was still watching. He got no takers.
Anwar then did what far too many local guides do…he took us to a store to shop. There was no doubt that he was getting his cut. He followed us around in the store and tried to sell us the olive wood carvings and jewelry. It didn’t have much else of interest. I bought nothing but did have an interesting chat with Anwar on the state of the West Bank and the settlements. The West Bank was part of Jordan until 1967 and much has since been returned to the Palestinians, but Israelis continue to settle the area (why they would want to settle such a volatile area, no one has told me). The settlements have checkpoints to keep the Palestinians out.
Anwar returned us to the wall by 3 pm. We got hounded by people selling postcards and necklaces. Whatever you do, don’t show them your money. I gave one $5 for a necklace but he saw that I had another and followed me up to the gate asking for the other $5.
Yup. I now have two necklaces.
Optional opinion: a must regardless of your religious conviction. I had little interest in the church, but was very much interested in it as a visit to the West Bank. It was a unique opportunity to see the separation between the Israeli and Palestinian people and the security between the two sides.
We met Zvika on the other side and returned to the hotel. Since we had the dinner last night, we had the night free to explore the area. With the sun disappearring by 4:30, I dropped off my stuff in my room immediately and went out to shop with a couple of others. We walked about three blocks to Ben Yudin street – a pedestrian shopping area. I have to admit, for a city like Jerusalem, it was disappointing. Compared to the city centres of so many European cities, this one really doesn’t offer an awful lot to tourists. I had a hard time just finding a Jerusalem t-shirt .
We got some supper at McDonalds and returned to the hotel by 6:30. I think it’s going to be an early night. Tomorrow is a full day at the Old City.
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