The Israel Museum is a huge complex with several buildings. Since we had just over an hour we were not able to see a whole lot. Our visited started at the scale model of ancient Jerusalem from the time of Christ, or the Second Temple Period. What an incredible model this is. The detail is absolutely incredible. It was fascinating to see what many of the sites we view yesterday may have actually looked like. If it hadn’t been drizzling, and we had more time, it would have been nice to get a better description of how it was made, who made it and take more time to identify various present day sites. It would take several days to get through the entire museum, so we only looked at the model and the Shrine of the Book. This is where some fragments to the Dead Sea scrolls are on display. It is incredible to thing that all of those scrolls were preserved for so long…and in relatively good condition, considering they were there over two thousand years.
We went from the Israel Museum to Yad Vashem, Israel’s holocaust museum and memorial. What a moving place. The main hall has the history of the holocaust, beginning with Hitler’s rise to power. It continues through the placing of Jews into ghettos and eventually to concentration and death camps. As you go through, reading the information cards and watching some of the videos, it is easy to get a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. There are displays of personal items that were removed from the pockets of Jews who were murdered and the Nazis hurriedly tried to burn them but were unable accomplish the task. Other displays showed items that were removed from synagogues after all the Jews were deported, hundreds of shoes and other clothing items that were removed from prisoners just before they were herded like cattle into the gas chambers. That is just the first building, which could take at least two hours to go through if you were to look at most of it.
Then there is the Children’s Memorial which was built in memory of the 1.5 million children murdered in the holocaust. The memorial is a small building that has no lighting except for five candles that reflect in the mirrored walls making appear there are innumerable lights, as YHVH promised Avraham that his descendants would be more than the stars in the heavens. As you walk through this dark room (holding a handrail to guide you) you hear the name, age and nation of each child as it is read. It is not intended to be gone through quickly, one needs to take some time to walk around and listen to the names. There are a few other buildings and many outdoor memorials we did not have time to get to. This museum could easily fill up an entire day.
Since Thursday’s tour of the Old City was so full we did not have time to go to The Cardo, which is a shopping area in the Jewish Quarter. It is made from the old Roman shopping area. Cardo means heart and was so named because it originally rain through the heart of the city. Several tallis were purchased, as well as bags, shirts and other items. Our guide, Abi, promised us at the beginning of the trip that we would not go home with any money but several people still have some left, with only one more day to go.
Saturday, our last day of touring we will be going to visit the Dead Sea. There we will see Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, and we will visit Masada, the site of a former Herodian palace/fortress where the last remaining Jewish soldiers held out against the Roman army. After Masada we will relax at a Dead Sea spa. We will be able to float in the sea, cover ourselves with mud and just relax a bit.
(Due to having to be at the airport at 2:30 AM, there will not be a blog post Saturday night. We will try to post Sunday evening or Monday.)
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