Today was our last morning in Jerusalem. Just in case we needed an extra incentive to leave, the worst weather EVER set in. Rain, wind, and COLD dominated most of the daylight hours. Fortunately, today was mostly an inside day.
Our first stop was the Yad Vashem. This is Israel’s memorial to all the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The name is from part of a Bible verse from Isaiah:
‘I will give them in My house and in My walls a “Yad vaShem” (which means a place and a name), better than sons and daughters; an everlasting name I will give him, which will not be discontinued.’”
This museum is amazing. I don’t like museums, but I’m glad I saw this one. (Now I want to see the one in D.C.) When you get to the end, there is a room full of books that look like notebooks. This room is huge, tall, and round. The number of books is overwhelming. In those pages are all of the victims they know about. This place is well designed, but also overwhelmingly sad to go through. They have done a good job of publicizing personal stories of society’s everyday people/victims and connecting the history of Europe’s fall to the Nazi’s cause.
Outside is a memorial to all those non-Jews who risked their lives and social standing to protect Jews. It is called the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations.
Very touching:
They have a children’s memorial that is separate from the Museum Building. It has been made from a cavern that was hollowed out. A dark hallway leads you to a room full of flames.
The couple that started this lost a son, but they didn’t want to remember just him. They knew they did not suffer their tragedy alone.
It’s estimated that 1.5 million Jewish children died during the Holocaust. So they light one flame there, and it’s surrounded by a prism of mirrors that reflect this one flame 1.5 million times. It’s like looking into a night sky when you can see all the stars. Just imagine the face of someone you know for each of those stars and that image is this memorial. As you walk through it a child’s name, age, and homeland is heard one after the other until you leave. It definitely makes a statement.
The Israeli Museum was a quick bus trip away. We saw the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Shrine of the Book. They are kept in a building that feels like a clay pot. I was told that’s to replicate how they were found (incased in things of this nature in the caves of Qumran.)
There’s a 21,520 square foot model of Jerusalem at the museum that’s pretty cool too. (But it was outside. Picture coats, hats, scarves, and sideways rain in our faces.) This reconstruction dates back to the Second Temple Period, which ended in 70 B.C.E. With our rain, even the model’s Pool of Siloam (where Jesus healed the blind man) was full of water. The city changes a good bit from the model’s presentation by the time Jesus is born, but our handy guide was able to point out how, when, and (of course) why on the model.
We spent an hour more visiting the rest of the museum before heading to Jericho.
Jericho
Jericho is the lowest city in the world and the oldest city in the world. This is where the story of Zaccheus takes place. To get to it one has to drive through the Judean Wilderness.
Let’s talk about this for a second. Wilderness. I have pictured for all of my life Biblical story characters stuck in the woods when they were stuck in the “wilderness”. Folks, there are no woods! There are no weeds even. These are giant mountains of sand/rock one after the other. Seriously the most lifeless place ever.
It reminded me of a quote I heard by Thomas Dineley about the Burren in Ireland. "The Burren affordeth not a piece of timber sufficient to hang a man, water in any one place to drown a man, or earth enough in any one part to bury him." Being in the wilderness to me is what an aunt must feel like when he finds himself in the hills and valleys of a child’s sandbox.
Surprisingly there are nomads here! In the middle of nothingness there will be a metal tent-like apparatus set up with trash and random belongings scattered around it.
While I’m on this subject of the land let me say that so far in this country I am on a mountain or in a valley. I have seen no other options.
So Jericho. By the time we got there it was blue skies again but still cold.
We had lunch here (with cats again), saw a tel of Ancient Jericho, and then went to a neat place to look at Hebron glass. This is beautiful, very strong Phoenician style glass.
Peacocks outside the Jericho Temptation Restaurant
I’m going to revisit this “tel” for a second. It is the oldest archeological evidence found in the world and it is estimated to be from 8000 B.C.E.
That’s a crazy wow factor!
Tel, Ancient Jericho
It was announced to the bus that our driver would be leaving us at our next site for two days and that he would be having the bus cleaned. This is good news. The rain plus our crew created a flora(l) scent all our own that needs to be removed.
Next stop, Dead Sea.
Love to you all!
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