Yerushalaym Shel Zahav

Yesterday we were taken on a trip to Jerusalem where we went to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, Independence Park, Ben Yehudah Street, the Time Elevator, the Old City, the Kotel (Western Wall), and the excavated tunnels under the Muslim Quarter where you can see more of the wall, plus cisterns (including one that still holds runoff and rain water) and the stone of the mountain itself.

To describe the whole day would take too long and I'm sure some of you have many other things to do today, so I'll try to make this short.  So let a short (by my standards) description of each location suffice for now.  I'm sure I'll return to them later and will, at that time, write more.

Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial:  While there is a museum on site, it is important to remember that the Holocaust Museum is not the only notable structure in this sprawling complex.  Yad Vashem is more a collection of memorials and resources including the Garden of the Righteous, the Children's Memorial, and the largest Holocaust Archive in the world, open to the public.  We had very little time there, but even if we had had more than two hours we would not have been able to see everything there.  I've been there once before and even though everything in the museum was the same it was all just as heart-wrenching, poignant, terrifying, and magnificent as before.  It helped that we had a personal guide who turned the entire museum into a narrative, and managed to do it all in little over an hour.  That, in and of itself, was a feat.

Independence Park:  It was a park, and as far as I could tell there was nothing uniquely special about it.  We had lunch there and I took some pictures, all of which will be up later when the Internet connection is a little more reliable.

Ben Yehudah Street:  You're familiar with State Street in Madison?  Well, imagine that, but in Israel.  It's not hard to navigate since nearly all the signs are in English, and you don't have to worry about those pesky cars driving through your walkway (a.k.a. the street).  You do, however, have to be on the lookout for speeding bicyclists.  If you missed the Kippa shop back there where you really really wanted to buy that awesome New York Giants kippa, fret not, because look, there's another one up there.  And another.  And another.  Right next to the Judaica shop which we've already seen four times.  It's like State Street in more ways than one.  Anywho, we spent some time there, I bought a scarf, and my friend and I searched every jewelry store for a particular bracelet she wanted.  No luck.

The Time Elevator:  This is a kitschy amusement aimed at school children and tourists, but with a historical and educated bent.  It's an attempt to present the entirety of Jerusalem's 3,000 year old history in 24 minutes. I can't necessarily say I learned a whole lot there, but it was a fun experience.  The only things missing were the 3D glasses and Smell-O-Vision.  I enjoyed it more for the technical and visual creativity than for the poorly-presented history, but like I said, it was an experience.

Old City: Up until 1860, the entirety of Jerusalem remained within the two-thousand-year-old walls of ancient Jerusalem.  Finally, people were paid to start living in neighborhoods outside the safety of the walls, and thus began Jerusalem as we know it today.  Inside the walls, there is a fascinating juxtaposition between the new and the old.  The streets are made of cobble stones and bricks, all the buildings are made of the unique, white Jerusalem stone (a form of limestone found on those mountains), and there are neon signs above the doors advertising Bonkers Bagels and Rova Pizza.  Still, there is no mistaking its age, nor its significance in the Jewish world.  Why else would I have heard so many languages other than Hebrew spoken by religious Jews throughout the narrow streets?

HaKotel (The Western Wall):  Before I go into an inevitably long emotional narrative, let me first explain what this thing is to which Jews worldwide flock.  To my non-Jewish friends, yes, it is a wall.  A big, giant, thick wall at the Temple Mount.  But this is not the only part of the Wall remaining.  There are great expanses that are just as easy to access, to touch, to pray at, if you are so motivated.  But it is this point along the Wall that has gained so much significance because it was the closest portion to where the Jewish Temple stood.  "But wait, isn't the Wall part of the temple?"  No!  I thought it was, too, until my first trip to the Kotel in 2009 when I learned that this holy place is simply the remains of the wall of the platform on which the temple stood, and even at that there were a few walls in between.  So quite frankly, 2000 years ago this expanse of white brick was the edge of a grand stage, not the main event itself.  But, like any Summerfest concert, you'll try to get as close to the lead guitarist as possible without being carried off by the guards.  Usually, the edge of the stage is about as far as you'll make it.

I am not going to say the Wall itself has any mystical powers.  I'm not even going to say that touching the stones somehow made me closer to G-d.  It is, after all, a wall.  But surrounding me at that wall were complete strangers who, oddly enough, are family.  Each person, praying individually, laughing or crying as their emotions dictated, was part of my extended family.  All the people who had touched those stones before, turning them darker and smoother with the passage of time, were also part of my family.  And all the millions of hands that will touch those hallowed stones after me will also be from the same mishpacha.  It's not that my own experience was so significant but that it was part of a larger collective experience: that of the Jewish people.  Being there was like being woven into a large blanket with different strands of color all around me.  The warmth of the blanket enveloped me as I became part of it (conflicting metaphors, I know - but isn't Judaism and religion in general a paradox?).  Being at the Wall is, for the Jewish people, the single most important statement in any culture, society, ethnicity, or family:  I am not alone.

The Tunnels:  Alright, now for the not-so-emotional stuff.  Like I said, the Wall is merely a small portion of a much larger expanse of wall remaining from the Western side of the platform on the Temple Mount.  Just as the Pyramids in Egypt are mind-boggling, so too is this wall.  Allow me to say HOLY HUGE BRICKS, BATMAN!  A project like this would be an outstanding endeavor today with all our machinery and technology.  I can't even imagine how it would be realistic 2,000 years ago.  And I'm not the only one: there is one particular OUTRAGEOUSLY LARGE stone in the wall, seen from underground, that is estimated to weigh 12 tons.  Even archeologists have yet to figure out exactly how that one got there.

We walked through the underground tunnels where I was exceedingly thankful for my [lack of] height, and we saw artifacts from the time of King Harod, and even a working cistern.  Pretty cool, eh?  No, not cool.  Outstanding.
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So that was yesterday.  Awesome, powerful, emotional, fun, and exhausting.  I'll admit, I was thankful for the relative calm today.

P.S.  I really should have taken that Translation course in the French Department at school - speed-interpreting is fatiguant, especially when you don't know all the words.