Working Down the List

So sorry that the text that went along with this posting, disappeared. So here goes trying to remember what I wrote!

Earlier in the day I looked at the list of "things to do/see in Jerusalem" that many of you contributed to, and was pleased to see that we really had accomplished most of them in some form or another. But I also noticed that we went to a place that nobody had suggested - the Chagall Windows at the Hadassah Hospital (photo of one of them above)! But more about that later.

When we last posted we were relaxing at home on Saturday - a much quieter day of the week here - much less traffic, horns, sirens, city noises. But as sundown approached we decided to venture out for dinner. Since we were going to a fish/seafood restaurant(not kosher), we knew we could eat earlier (7 p.m.) - we are trying to get used to the late dinner hour here, but we are earlier eaters so off we went at 7:00. We were surprised to see that other restaurants on the street were open as well. So after dinner (sundown) we headed two blocks to the frozen yogurt shop for dessert, but they were not open (and most of businesses on that street were closed as well). So we walked to Mamilla shopping center - businesses there also closed - but it ends at the Jaffa Gate, so gave us our first view of the Old City Walls at night, so well worth it even though no gelato places open. But we also noticed that the place was filling up (close to 9 pm.) and standing in front of shops - sort of like the after Christmas (or should I say after Chanukah) sales at the mall. Shop keepers started arrived and getting situated and as a store would open people would pour in - tried to walk in one place and the aisles were so crowded we could barely move. We figured "our" frozen yogurt place would now be open as well, we headed back there to find them just opening (yogurt machines still needing to churn for a few more minutes).

As we sat outside of the shop, we noticed two police cars positioned at the end of the block. Was this just routine caution for the post-Shabbat reveling in this area full of restaurants and shops? Our question was answered within moments as we heard the chants, megaphones, and drums of protesters (the same high cost of housing issue that has been going on the whole time we've been in Israel - remember the tent city photo in Tel Aviv?) marching down the street. It started with student groups, but then expanded to people of all ages.

We read on line the next day that it was 10,000 people. At one point this tall "float" of signs had trouble making it under the power lines, and we all cheered when they successfully navigated their way. Since there seemed to be no end in sight, we figured our only way back home was to join the march for a block until we could veer off onto a side street down the hill back to Agron (the street that the house is off of). Once on Agron we didn't have to use the crosswalk at police had the street blocked off and the street was welling with protesters. They went on the Prime Minister's residence, but since then have set up a tent city at Independence Park (on Agron) - same place the gay rights event was at. Apparently quite the center of political activity!

On Sunday we had an early English tour scheduled at the Western Wall Tunnels, but first stopped at the wall. Here you can see the women's section

and men's.

Every crack/crevice is filled with folded up prayers - very hard to even find a place to add to and many fall out to the floor at the bottom of the wall, which begs the question of what happens to all the prayer notes? Apparently twice a year the Rabbi of the Western Wall and his team collect them all up and bury them on the Mount of Olives.

I did not take any photos of the Tunnel Tour as I would need a much better camera to capture anything decent. But it was a fascinating tour. We really appreciated that it started off with a relief map of the Old City, and then started adding/taking away to show the different versions of the city, focusing on the Temple Mount/Western Wall. Very helpful as it can all get quite confusing. The tour involves the archeological excavation under the streets of the Muslim Quarter that uncovered the original street level of the Western Wall, as well as the lower layers of the wall. Also the cisterns and aqueduct system. At the end the tour walked us back through the Muslim Quarter "above" where we just were.

Our next stop was the History of Jerusalem Museum at David's Tower/Citadel which is right next to the Jaffa Gate. What a great use of the space as you walk through exhibits of the chronology of the Old City. We had a 90 year old docent - who was able to navigate all the stairs; a few memory problems which he apologized for - but then later on the tour he would have the "aha" and fill us in on what he forgot earlier.

This was the site of the Dale Chihuly exhibit in 1999/2000. We loved his exhibit at the De Young a few years ago, so can only imagine how beautiful this place must have been, particularly at night all lit up with his installations. One piece in the entry remains

as well as these spikey plants below

After the tour we walked the walls of the citadel and went up to the tower to see the Old City from a different angle. All the TV satellite dishes, laundry, roof top decks, rooftop solar heaters are a reminder that thousands of people actually live there (close to 50,000? with most being in the Muslim Quarter).

Dome of the Rock seems dwarfed from this angle.

Monday we got to "relax" (no planning or decision making) as we put ourselves in the wise hands of our tour guide Susan. We successfully hailed a cab and put him on the meter (I think it was the same guy who turned us away on Friday when we said we wanted him on the meter; I guess he was in a better mood) and met Susan at the Israeli Museum, which has recently undergone a huge remodel/renovation. It is more of a campus with different buildings, courtyards, gardens.

We started out at this HUGE to-scale model of the Old City during the Second Temple period - so the same view we had of the Old City from Mount of Olives. I think we finally "get it"!

We then moved on to the Shrine of the Book - where the Dead Sea Scrolls are displaced. This odd looking structure is designed to mimic the lid to the jars in which the scrolls were found. The first scroll was found in a cave near the Dead Sea by a Bedouin boy in search of a lost goat. The story of how this scroll was sold, how others were found, bought/sold was fascinating even before you take a look at these ancient documents, from about 100 BC (1000 years older than any manuscripts previously found) and the Hebrew is still the same as today.

We also visited the Jewish Art and Life wing - Judaica from all over the world including four complete synagogue interiors from Italy, Germany, India and Suriname. We ended walking the grounds to appreciate some of the sculpture. I think the one below was entitled "The Earth Upside Down".

This apple core was a huge attraction for the kids

And a whole garden of Naguchi pieces with views of modern Jerusalem at every angle.

Close by was Supreme Court - it could not be more different from the US Supreme Court building! And a very different judicial system.

The building was designed to incorporate three basic concepts:

1) Inside and Outside - so tons of natural light

2) Old and New - architectural elements from Israel's history are throughout, including the interior stairway below that mimics a Jerusalem street, but with Jerusalem stone on one side, and modern white walls on the other, as well as the courtroom corridor

3) Lines and Circles - expressing the concepts of law and justice visually with, from Psalms, the lines representing the law ("You are righteous...and Your laws are straight) and the circles representing justice ("He leads me in the circles of justice").

We drove into the Jerusalem Hills/Forests to Ein Karem for lunch

and visited this monastery which claims to be built over the cave in which John the Baptist was born.

Very cute area, an artist colony at one point

as well as the "Well of Mary" - wait, didn't we see that in Nazareth? Either I am confused or there are many places in this Holy Land that claim to "be the site of". I think that both are true. Anyway, she did come to visit her cousin Elizabeth who lived here while they were both pregnant and she drank from the well. We did see a guy washing his face there...

Up we continued (by car) to the huge complex that is the Hadassah Hospital. No way to even capture a photo of these highrise buildings on top of the hill. Current construction is underway on a new building that includes 4 levels of surgical rooms that are below ground (bomb shelters) as history shows that operating rooms have been the target of attacks. Bomb shelters are included in all new construction (or remodels) - in fact when we went to use the public restrooms at the Supreme Court, they were located in the bomb shelter section of the basement. A fact of life and building design here.

The Chagall windows (there are 12 of them representing the 12 tribes of Israel) are in the hospital Synagogue (where our tour guide was married!) You can actually see the exterior of the arched windows in the photo above. Apparently when Chagall was approached to design one window, his response was "I've been waiting for somebody from Israel to ask!" and proceeded to donate his work and time (he helped design the synagogue as well) creating 12 windows instead of one, considering them his gift to the Jewish people of today, and of years past. They were real works of passion and he described feeling like his parents were looking over his shoulders as he created them. He went on to describe that "behind them were Jews, millions of other vanished Jews - of yesterday and a thousand years ago." The windows are not traditional stained glass, but rather layers of paint. In the 1967 war, four of the windows were shattered during the bombing. Chagall fixed all of them, but in one of the windows he added a piece of one of the shattered windows as a reminder of what had happened.

Our final stop of the day was at Mahane Yehuda market. But first, one of the big advantage of a tour guide is we veer a different direction and see things we never would have found, including this charming neighborhood south of Agripas Street.

Charming homes

garden lined streets and courtyards

markers on the homes with the photos and stories of who first lived there.

Every few blocks there was a tiny neighborhood synagogue.

Another very full day, but with a tour guide we see and learn so much more than when we muddle through on our own.

But muddle through we did on Tuesday as we spent the morning at Yad Vashem - the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes" Remembrance Authority. No photos (although wish I had brought my camera and taken photos of the exterior and garden exhibits. This was very different than the Holocaust museum in Washington DC. There is a building with nine galleries that tell the story of the Shoah (Hebrew word for Holocaust - translation is "Disaster") from the Jewish perspective. It goes in chronological and thematic order, and includes personal narratives from survivors as well as those that died (journals, poems, artwork, photos). At the end is the Hall of Names, a symbolic tombstone for those that died, with photos and "testimony" about them from family members. Behind the glass are thousands of binders on several storied shelving that include these testimonies - one of the goals of Yad Vashem is to put a name/face to all who died. There was also a Children's Memorial that is completely dark, with mirrors reflecting thousands of candles - a tribute to the 1.5 million Jewish children who were killed. As you walk through, you hear the names, their ages, and where they were from. The whole place was so powerful and we learned things we had not known before.

A little mind-numbed, after lunch we headed up to the nearby Herzl Museum which is dedicated the the original creator of the concepts of Zionism, although he did not live to see the creation of the state of Israel. Clearly an innovative and before-his-time thinker.

Tomorrow is Dead Sea/Masada! We will be toting large water bottles...