Day Six - Free Day!

Today we had a test, a church service and then had a free day. It was good timing, we were all pretty tired and I think that about three quarters of our group has either been sick or started to feel sick at this point.

So after the test (which I did pretty well on) and our church service (which was really good) I went out with some people in our group to look around Jerusalem a little bit on our own. First we went to the citidel museum (It's called David's citidel, but it was built by Herod the great). It has a great view of Jerusalem and and pretty cool history of the city of Jerusalem.

(David's citidel)

After that we went up to Solomon's Quarries, which burrow a pretty good distance under. Just like David's citidel didn't have anything to do with David these quarries don't have anything to do with Solomon. A lot of these names came from the crusaders or muslims who came into Jerusalem from like 700-1200AD and they pretty much named everything impressive after David or Solomon or some other impressive sounding Old Testament king, when in reality most of the impressive stuff that they saw was built by Herod.

Solomons quarries were really cool, another Indiana Jones like experience (a lot less water than Hezekiah's tunnels). As one of the guys we were with said, it wouldn't feel like Israel if we didn't spend part of the day underground. They were big caverns that were quarried for stone to build stuff around Jerusalem (everything here is built out of stone. I dont' think I've seen a wooden building yet in Israel.)

(One of the big caverns in Solomon's quarries)

After Solomon's quarries we ran (literally) over to get a quick look of the Garden tomb (where Jesus wasn't buried) only to find that it is closed on Sundays. Then we headed back to our hotel and then the bus for an optional trip to Yad HaShem.

I am trying to think of the best way to describe Yad Hashem. The part of Yad HaShem that we saw today is a Holocost museum. But it is more than that too, they are very active in trying to find the names of the Jews that were killed in the Holocost, Gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews and I think the Nazis who killed them.

I didn't want to go to Yad HaShem. Honestly, I didn't want to spend my afternoon being depressed. However, everyone said that it is a place that you have to go to, that it really shows what modern Israel is born from and it tells a lot about the identity of the modern Jew. so I reluctantly decided to go. I'm glad that I went. It wasn't what I expected. I thought that it would be the kind of place that beat you over the head and shocked you into horror at what was done to the people in the concentration camps, it wasn't like that at all.

What it did was told the story of the Jews in Germany, Eastern Europe, France and anywhere else that Jews were killed. It talked about how the laws against the Jews began and how they progressed. How first there were restrictions on what Jews could do, then their property was taken and they were moved into ghettos, then eventually they were taken out and executed, taken to death camps, or taken into hard labor which killed many. All along the way it told the stories of individual people who left diaries, paintings, drawings, wrote songs, recorded songs... It was tragic, it was heart rending, I cried more than one time. But what Yad HaShem did most was affirm the humanity if the Jews that went through those things, it remembered them and their stories. And that was really powerful. We were only able to be there for a few hours but I think I could have easily spent two more hours there. After you exit the main exhibit you walk right out to a view that overlooks Jerusalem. There are no signs or anything but it is pretty clear that the message is that finally there is a place that Jews can come to be safe from the antisemetism that has followed them everywhere else, finally there is a country that Jews can call their home. It was definately powerful.

And that was it for today. We did have a lecture after dinner and I had to pack up my bags. Tonight is our last night in Jerusalem. Tomorrow we head south, we'll spend the night in Beer-Sheba (think Abraham) and along the way we'll see where David fought Goliath, where Samson did just about everything that he did and a few more spots as well. I'm not sure if I'll have internet tomorrow night, but if I do, I'll post about all of that good stuff (and probably some stuff that is boring as well). As always, thanks for reading.