Jerusalem

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Jack took the day off and we went to Jerusalem. The drive took longer than we expected because of traffic and more importantly because they don’t believe in street signs in Israel. When you get to an intersection you will see signs that point to the neighborhoods that a road may lead to and conveniently not give you the name of the street. Since the maps have street names, the signs are very little help. Also, Jerusalem is built on hills so there are no streets that are straight, parallel of take you directly from one major point of interest to another. We had planned to go to Yad Vashem first, but before we know it we were heading to the Old City.
We parked at the Damascus Gate which is between the Christian and Muslim quarters and feels like it is in the Muslim Quarter. One guide book said the best way to experience the Old City is to “get lost” and without a good map and in a maze of tiny alleyways we did just that. The stalls sell a mix of goods for locals and schlocky goods for tourists. It took us more than ½ hour and asking 6 people for directions to get to the Western Wall. I always find it very moving to be at the site of the Second Temple which was destroyed in 70 CE. Like most tourists (pilgrims), I wrote up a prayer and placed it in a crevice. I know that within Judaism personal prayers aren’t expected to yield results, but it feels good to follow this tradition. Part of what moves me is feeling connected to 2,000 years of Jewish tradition that is centered on this specific spot.
We found our way to the Museum of the Tower of David and spent time wandering among the ruins. The “Tower of David” is actually a minaret that was built as part of a mosque in the 1600’s, but mislabeled two hundred years ago and the name has stuck. The oldest part of the building dates back to Herod in the early part of the first century CE. The interior courtyard is beautiful and serene in the midst of the hubbub of the Old City. It is a familiar stop and I know exactly where the guidebook from a previous trip is on my bookshelves at home.
Our next stop was Yad Vashem which had undergone significant renovations; in fact a new main museum was constructed since our last visit. Visiting Yad Vashem is not fun. The new building that was designed by Moshe Safdie is mostly underground with a skylight running along the top to let in daylight in every part of the museum. It is symbolic of a permanent cut in the ground just as the Holocaust left a permanent scar in the Jewish population. The light is the light that needs to illuminate what happened. In every area there are recordings of testimony from people who survived the Holocaust in that particular place. The hardest thing for me was the letter from the man in charge of the Lodz ghetto who under orders from the Germans informed the families to turn in all children under 10 to be killed. Had I been born twenty years early in any of the countries that my great-grandparents fled, I would have been powerless to protect my children from being murdered. The Memorial to the 1,500,000 Children who were murdered which was funded by a couple whose 4 year-old son was murdered in Auschwitz had not changed. You walk into the dark with small lights like stars that seem to surround you while the names, ages and place of death for children are read out loud. I don’t know how long it takes to read all the names, but I don’t think it took more than 10 times that amount of time to kill most of these children. After 2 hours we were drained and unbelievably sad and left to return to Haifa.
The route we used included roads that tranverse Palestinian territory. Along the roads in these areas there are barriers of various types - wire fences, solid walls and razor wire. The effect is unsettling. On the one hand you feel like you are in a prison and on the other you know these barriers probably saved a lot of lives. Your damned if you do and damned if you don't.
There was a formal CJP dinner at the hotel. “Formal” in Israel means you don’t wear jeans, but it does not mean that a tie is required. Israeli men seem to favor black slacks, black shirts and black jackets with no tie. The evening was long and the food really bad. We joked that the theme of the menu was the Diaspora with eggrolls, pot roast and reportedly something Mexican. I skipped the hot foods and stuck with salad. Actually, I preferred the food on the Air Force Base. There were 100 – 150 people, 50 from the US and the rest from Haifa. The best speaker was the Mayor who was a hoot, but the rest was b.o.r.i.n.g.

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