Completing Our Tour of the Old City

The Roman-era Cardo (a.k.a. an ancient shopping mall) in the Old City

On Wednesday, got an early start on our last major tour of the Old City. First thing in the morning, however, I gave a very-well-received going away sermon at the synagogue.

We saw seven sites in or near the Old City by noon! Our morning started with the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Christian Quarter. The Church is believed to the location of Jesus' crucifixion, as identified by Emperor Constantine's mom in the year 330.

Inside the Church.

Following the Church, we visited the Armenian Museum. The museum building itself is beautiful but the exhibits include many photocopied articles or enlarged and grainy photos. Jen and I were the only visitors that morning and as soon as we'd paid our five shekel admission price ($1.25) the caretaker turned on Armenian music that flowed throughout the museum. As soon as we left, the music was turned off by the cartoon-watching caretaker/ticket seller.

The courtyard of the Armenian Museum.

We then proceeded to visit the grave of Oskar Schindler in a cemetery just outside the Old City walls that appears to be primarily a cemetery of Arab Christians. Nonetheless, Mr. Schindler has a beautiful location.

Schindler's Grave

Schindler's View

Nearby Schindler's Grave is King David's Tomb and we paid our respects there in separate men's and women's sections.

Then we proceeded across the street to the awkwardly named museum, The Chamber of the Holocaust. This museum is underground and quite dark. It includes marble memorial plaques on just about every wall. There are photocopies of photos and articles taped to the walls and display cabinets along with artifacts brought by survivors themselves to Israel. It is said to be the world's oldest Holocaust museum and there is a certain special significance in its jumbled appearance. At the museum there is also a courtyard dedicated to destroyed communities called "The Courtyard of Annihilation."

Our sixth stop on our tour of the Old City was the Four Sephardi Synagogues - all four are connected and were built collaboratively. All four are beautiful and more information can be found here.

Inside just one of the four synagogues.

Our final stop and the big highlight of the day was the Tower of David: Museum of the History of Jerusalem. This is an incredible museum built into an old guard tower on the wall of the Old City. From the top of the tower one can see across the city and to the mountains on the Jordan side of the Dead Sea. It's a beautiful building and has very nice exhibits but after a year of living in the city, Jen and I realized that we should have gone there first and not last - we had visited all of the places that the displays discussed so for us it was a quick tour. I highly recommend visiting this museum upon your first arrival in Jerusalem.

The view of the Old City from the Tower of David. The Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount is in the background and behind that is the Mount of Olives.

Our next up over the next two and a half weeks we're here is a tour of the northern part of the country and at least one more day trip to Tel Aviv!

Leaving the Old City for what might be the last time this trip...

Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha'atzmaut

Yom Hazikaron (Israel's Memorial Day) and Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israel's Independence Day) are back-to-back days on the calendar. This year, they began on Sunday night and continued until Tuesday evening.

Yom Hazikaron is observed throughout the country with great solemnity since everyone is/was a soldier or has a relationship to a soldier. Everyone knows a family that has been affected by the death of a soldier in the line of duty or a victim of terror. Yom Hazikaron is the day of remembrance of those who died for the country.

We attended the official national Yom Hazikaron ceremony at the Western Wall on Monday night. We stood on the side of a dirt hill adjacent to the wall in order to see the ceremony of lowering the flag, the speeches by officials (including the Acting President of the State and the IDF's Chief of Staff), memorial prayers, and the emotional singing of the national anthem, Hatikvah. The crowds of people at the Wall reminded me of our stumbling upon the IDF Ceremony at the Wall last August. I didn't really understand all of the words the speakers were saying but I got the gist.

The crowd begins to gather at the Western Wall for the Yom Hazikaron ceremony.

At exactly 8 p.m., as the ceremonies were starting, the sirens sounded nationwide, announcing the start of Yom Hazikaron and causing everyone to stand still in memory for the minute of the sounding of the siren.

On Monday, my Ulpan class was not canceled but it was a shortened day for Yom Hazikaron. It was my last day of Ulpan. Only seven students out of nearly 25 showed up. In fact, only two Israeli Arab students came to class. The rest stayed away either due to the difficulty of getting across town due to security or due to not wanting to participate in Yom Hazikaron. We spent the morning talking and learning about Yom Hazikaron and then, at 11 a.m. was the nationwide two minute memorial siren for Yom Hazikaron. I observed the cars and buses on the street come to a full stop and drivers and passengers getting out to stand in memory of the more than 22,000 soldiers killed as well as those killed by acts of terrorism. After the siren, the teachers held a half-hour memorial ceremony. It was a very nice ceremony and it included poems, readings, and the emotional singing of Hatikvah.

The rest of the day on Monday, Yom Hazikaron, was fairly quiet - traffic was light and many shops were closed. In the evening, we attended a lecture by the parents of Alex Singer, an American who immigrated to Israel and joined the IDF and was killed in Lebanon in 1987 in Lebanon. It was a moving talk and made us feel like we really knew Alex and his family. We bought the book of Alex's letters and drawings, Alex: Building a Life and I'm currently about half-way through. I highly recommend it.

After the talk, we transitioned from Memorial Day to Independence Day with lively services for Yom Ha'atzmaut. The entire country transitioned on Monday night from a time of remembrance to a time of celebration - it's an amazing process and incredible to see. After the services, sung to the tune of many Israeli songs, we had a BBQ at the synagogue.

The country goes flag-crazy for Yom Ha'atzmaut

After the BBQ, Eve, Steve, Jen and I headed downtown to Ben Yehuda Street to see the city's main Yom Ha'atzmaut celebration. There were many celebrants wearing blue and white or even Israeli flags. People carried flashing-light things, plastic inflatable hammers, and some kids were attempting to spray people with some sort of aerosol "snow." However, police and soldiers quickly confiscated the fake snow form those who used it. Jen mentioned that she couldn't imagine being a kid and having four men with machine guns approach you from each direction to take your can of snow. Throughout the night there were numerous fireworks displays throughout the city.

A guy in flag.

On Tuesday, a national holiday when everything is closed, outdoor BBQs are the theme of the day. Gan Sacher Park in the western part of the city was filled with families barbecuing on tiny grills usually just inches from the ground. Many families established tents in the park for their day-long celebrations. In the U.S. the Fourth of July is a popular day to be in the park but most will barbecue at home and then go to the park afterwards in anticipation of the fireworks. In Israel, the fireworks are the night before and everyone remains in the park the following day and barbecues there as well.) Some families even brought couches to the park and we saw one family with not only couches but also a television powered by a generator!

Tables, chairs, couches, and even a TV and generator!!!

A more typical family gathering.

In the afternoon, Eve, Jen, and I went to the area around City Hall for their "Living History" Independence Day event. People were dressed up from periods of the city's history and performing skits or playing music. While there, we discovered the Underground Prisoners Museum - it is a museum that shows what life was like for prisoners during the British Occupation from 1917-1948 in Israel. Also at the prison is the cell of Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barazani who were condemned to hang by the British but instead chose to blow themselves up with a grenade concealed in an orange peel in 1947. It's an amazing story - Haaretz has a summary.

The City Hall displays included a manikin dressed as one of the "ninja" police as we like to call them. The Ninja Police usually ride two to a orange motorcycle and they both carry very big guns and are part of important motorcades (they are very effective at stopping traffic) and they provide security at high-profile events. In a nationwide survey, I'm sure they would be selected as the "Coolest (but most intimidating) guys in the country."

The evening was very quiet with shops and restaurants closed and few cars on the street. It was a wonderful ending to two very important days.

Our own flag display on our balcony. See the neighbor's flag in the background?

Old City Day

We got an early start on our day of touring in the Old City. First, we went to the Wohl Archaeological Museum. While most museums are a collection of artifacts from different places, Wohl is a museum built upon and around the remains of three Second Temple Era mansions.

Our second stop was the Old Yishuv Court Museum, a museum that displays home life in the Old City through periods of Ottoman and British rule. Also there is the Ari Synagogue, where kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria was born and lived until the age of 20.

Our third stop (and, of course, there must be mystical meaning behind this) was at the model of the yet-to-be-constructed Third Temple. The Temple Institute is a local organization that would like to build the Third Temple on the Temple Mount despite the fact that at that location are two of Islam's major shrines - the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Nonetheless, should there come a time when the Third Temple is built, The Temple Institute is ready to step in and ensure that sacrifices resume forthwith!

The Burnt House was our fourth stop of the day. It is another museum built on top of a discovery. Here, archaeologists discovered a Second Temple Era home with a plethora of artifacts remaining from the time of its destruction in 70 CE by the Romans. There's also a very interesting movie. We had the opportunity to listen to the movie in English through headphones while speakers all around us provided the audio of the movie in Spanish for a few dozen young tourists from Brazil (I know, but the movie probably wasn't available in Portuguese!)

After stop number four we went to Moriah, the most dangerous place in the Old City! It is almost adjacent to the Western Wall and anyone who goes into Moriah usually comes out with several bags of purchases. It's like Costco - you can't go in without spending $100. We spent nearly an hour there and did considerable damage purchasing things we just have to have to take back to California.

After we ate lunch on a bench overlooking the Wall and the glistening Dome of the Rock, we went to the Jerusalem Archaeological Park & Davidson Center. Adjacent to the Western and Southern Walls, and including the area around Robinson's Arch, this park and center is stunning. Completed in 2002, the Center uses computer technology in a great film showing the area as it was during Temple times. This was my favorite site of the day.

Our sixth and final stop for the day was Dormition Abbey, one of several locations said to be the final resting spot of Maryam bat Joachim (a.k.a. Jesus's mother), which we stumbled across while trying to visit the neighbors, the final resting spots of King David and Oskar Schindler (which were both closed for the day). Then, we headed home since the Old City was shutting down for Shabbat.

Here's my favorite photo of the day, the view of the Southern Wall from the wall of the Old City.


Shabbat Shalom!

Playing Tourist

Since Jen and I are headed back to California in just over three weeks, we have to see everything we have yet to see. We have a list on the refrigerator and are slowly crossing things off, one site at a time. Since our trip to Eilat and Petra, we visited the Islamic Museum, the Time Elevator as well as the Monastery of the Cross.

The Islamic Museum, or more properly the L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art, is in our neighborhood and contains an impressive collection of art and artifacts. It's very worthwhile, especially on these long Shabbat afternoons, when the museum is both open and free!

The Time Elevator is a somewhat-cheesy but worthwhile, Star Tours-style ride that takes the rider through re-enactments throughout Jerusalem's several thousand year history. The monastery, which is in our neighborhood, is said to have been built on the spot where the tree which became Jesus' crucifix came from. Therefore, the valley where it is located is known as the Valley of the Cross.

On Friday, we're planning on seeing a plethora of sites throughout the Old City. We still have eleven things in Jerusalem that we haven't yet seen! (Not to mention eight places in Tel Aviv, too!)

I'll remain in Hebrew Ulpan only through Thursday of next week and then, over our last two weeks, it is time to pack, visit places around the country, and start getting ready to go home! I'm already starting to miss Jerusalem and Israel but definitely look forward to being back in California.

Yom HaShoah, Part 2

As you recall from my previous post about Yom HaShoah, at 10 a.m. on Yom HaShoah, a siren sounds for two minutes and the whole country stops. The blog Jewlicious has posted an amazing video showing those two minutes in the center of Jerusalem. It's worth a watch!

Additional Ukraine Information

Anna, of Anna and Jamie, my Ukrainian traveling partners, has posted a lengthy three-part series on our trip. It's a fantastic day-by-day account that is not-to-be-missed! It includes additional photos, too. Check out part one, part two, and part three! Thanks Anna!

Yom HaShoah

Last night began Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Martyrs' Remembrance Day. I was not aware of the wide-ranging impact of the day on general Israeli society.

I invited myself to dinner with Steve at about 6 p.m. last night and he called me while we were each on the way there to tell me that our first choice restaurant was closed. I reconfigured my appetite but when we arrived at restaurant number two, the security guard at the front door didn't want to let me in because they would close at 6:30 and it was already 6:20. I managed to get in and Steve told me I still had a few seconds to order so I did, and quickly. Steve told me that most stores, including the 24 hour convenience store nearby, were also already closed due to Yom HaShoah. I was awed and impressed that this day was so widely celebrated.

At 8 p.m. the official memorial ceremony took place at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum and educational center here in Jerusalem. Most of our television channels simply displayed a memorial candle but others carried the event live. I watched most of the event and it was incredibly moving, even though it was all in Hebrew. I surprised myself by understanding the gist of what was being said, for the most part.

This morning, classes, work, and business went on as usual until 10 a.m. At exactly 10 a.m., air raid sirens were sounded for two minutes and everyone stopped anything they were doing and stood at attention in memory of the Holocaust. Cars on streets and highways stop and the occupants get out and stand on the street during the siren. It was an incredible experience, seeing the city come to a complete stop. The sirens will sound again next week for Memorial Day, a.k.a. Yom Hazikaron.

While Jen and I lit a 24 hour memorial candle at home, our synagogue here didn't have a special service or program for Yom HaShoah, as is common in the United States. There were some lectures but there was no liturgical program.

A Day Out of Israel - Petra

We have been in Israel for nearly a year and we have just started to really travel...yes, we suck. So we decided that since our stay here is nearing its end, we had better get our tushies in gear and start touring. Top on our list of places to visit was the Israeli resort town of Eilat and the wonder of the world, Petra which lies in Jordan.

We took one of the city-to-city buses from Jerusalem to Eilat on Wednesday and thus sat through a 4 hour and 15 minute bus ride. For some reason, the first half of the trip nearly made everyone on the bus severely car sick, so we all had to pull out some plastic bags and have them at the ready "just in case." Luckily, the second half of the bus ride was much better and on the return trip we had no such problems.

We only really had the afternoon to spend in Eilat which was certainly not enough time to do everything. However, we did find time to walk along the rocky beaches and spend a bit of time snorkeling. I could go on for paragraphs and paragraphs about this, but I think this post will be too long already if I just focus on Petra. Let's just say that the water was the clearest I have ever seen and the fish were wonderfully colorful.

The next morning, we were picked up at 6:30 am from our hotel for our day-trip to Jordan to see Petra. Our friend, Eve, organized the trip and made reservations for a group of 13 of us to use Eco Tours. (It was a great trip and I recommend using them.)

Surprisingly, even though we were headed to an Arab country for the day, the scariest thing about the whole trip was our 10 minute ride to the Israel-Jordan border because the tour company picked us up in a safari jeep. Which means that we had to sit in the back of a jeep without seat belts and really feeling like one or many of us could fly out the open back or sides of the jeep. Eve had warned me about this part, but I had sincerely thought she must have been exaggerating. I quickly learned that she was not. As scary as it was, we all clung together and made it safely to (and later from) the border.

Since cars and buses are not allowed across the Israel-Jordan border, we were dropped off and then went through passport control on the Israeli side. Then we had to walk across a lonely, barren, no-man's land to get to the Jordan passport control. It was a strange feeling to be walking between two such countries.

Everything preceded smoothly and our Jordanian tour guide picked us up in a very large, comfortable, air-conditioned bus for our journey to Petra. It was about a two hour bus-ride from the border to Petra.

Immediately after getting off the bus, we all made a mad dash to the visitor's center's bathrooms (thank you, Eve, for reminding us to bring a roll of toilet paper!!). Then we were off to begin our 6 mile, 6 hour stay in Petra.

I have to admit that I knew very little about Petra before going there. I, of course, had seen the Treasury's fascade in Indiana Jones but I had not known that Petra itself used to be a city that contained about 25,000 people. The entrance to the city is a 900 meter (about half a mile) beautiful natural canyon, called the Siq. One of the amazing features of the Siq is that the people who lived here, built a water system that travelled all along both sides of the walls, carrying fresh water into the city.



The rock here is sandstone. Of varying degrees of hardness, sometimes the stone can by easily cut by a fingernail while other times is can only be cut using a chisel. One of the most amazing things about this sandstone are its natural colors. The varied minerals contained in the stone, each have their own vibrant color. In areas protected from wind and water, the colors are magnificent.


Petra was founded by the Nabateans, who lived in Petra beginning about 6th century BCE until the Romans took over the area in 106 CE. Most of the carvings are from the Nabateans, although there is still strong evidence of later Roman construction and development.

The Nabateans were a people who believed more strongly in the afterlife than they did in the present life (similar to the ancient Egyptians). Thus, they spent a lot of energy and time on their burial places. Within Petra, over 500 burial places have been found. Some of these are simple caves with very little adornment on the outside.

Some have the common "crowstep" design on the top which represents the body's climb to the afterlife.


A number of other crypts are extremely ornate. The "Treasury" (mis-named because some people thought there was treasure up in the urn at the top) is the best-preserved crypt. It was built as the final resting place for a king. It has three large rooms inside that were also carved into the rock. Although you can't see it in this picture, the details of this carving are astonishing. The pillars are smooth, there are wine glasses representing the days of the week, flowers representing the days of the month, and the details at the top of the columns are just amazing. The whole thing was truly breath-taking.


After walking for two hours and then having a quick lunch, our group decided to climb the 800 (Matt only counted 735) stairs that led to the Monastery. It took us a good hour to climb up - and what a tiring hour that was! However, once up on top, the Monastery was beautiful to behold and the views all around were awesome.



Of course, then we had to climb down the 800 (or 735) stairs back down and walk all the way back to the bus. There were options along the way to take a horse (for the first 800 meters), a horse-drawn carriage (which ran and looked extremely bumpy), a camel (which also ran), or a donkey (up the narrow stairs...and they ran too!). However, we walked to whole way and were nearly constantly almost run over by these running animals and contraptions. As I kept looking at either my feet to make sure I wasn't tripping over old rubble or gazing at the wonderful fascades, I often found myself nearly nose-to-nose with a running camel and then had to literally jump to the side. I think people were taking bets that I was going to get run over before we got back to the bus.

Anyway, we had an absoltely fabulous time and still can't quite fathom that we saw something so truly amazing. I highly recommend the adventure for everyone!

Passover in the Ukraine

I returned earlier this week from my trip to the Ukraine during Passover, to help participate in Passover Seders in Jewish communities there. My experience was absolutely incredible. I was traveling with my friends Jamie and Anna, a married couple from California. Ukraine is the world's fifth largest Jewish community in the world (following Israel, the U.S., Russia, and France - about 300,000 to 500,000 Jews) but it suffers from a lack of professional rabbinic and cantorial leadership. There are only two progressive (non-Orthodox) ordained rabbis in the entire country. Trips like ours allow the Ukrainian Jews to meet other Jewish people from elsewhere in the world and the trip says to them, "You're not alone."

Jamie is a cantorial student and he fortunately decided to bring his guitar because all three communities where we participated in the seders wanted us to help provide music. I was surprised as to how much we'd be singing across the Ukraine.

We arrived at the airport in Kiev and met our translator Tanya and then proceeded to Lutsk, a city in far-western Ukraine that was a Polish city for most of its history. On our second day in Ukraine we traveled 150km to the northeast to a small village where Jamie's great grandfather emigrated from before World War II. We met with the "mayor" of the village who told us about the Jewish community of the village and directed us to an old Jewish cemetery. After quite some time searching in the forest, we came upon the cemetery, overgrown and badly damaged by looters through the ages. It was a sad thought thinking that likely no one would ever repair that cemetery and eventually, it would totally disappear.

We met the Jewish community leaders back in Lutsk and discovered a vibrant community with passionate paid and volunteer staff who provide a plethora of social programs to that community's small Jewish population. We spent a day preparing our singing act for our seder in Lutsk and then performed.

We lost Tanya and gained Victoria when we arrived in Lviv, a city of 700,000 but merely a few thousand Jews. Lviv was once known as the Jerusalem of Europe and nearly a third of the city's population was Jewish before World War II. There, we did not find such an energized community. Like Lutsk, the Jewish community in Lviv obtained a pre-Nazi synagogue for their use about 6-7 years ago but unlike Lutsk, Lviv has not renovated nor have they even provided electricity to the building.

We didn't need to practice our repertoire in Lviv - we were old hacks already. We saw some of the city, including the impressive memorial for the Lviv ghetto and the road that took the Jews of Lviv to concentration and death camps. The bright light of Lviv was the Jewish pre-school with about a dozen Jewish children who are learning Hebrew and Judaism form a group of dedicated teachers. They performed a Passover seder/play for us and for their parents. It was incredibly adorable.

We had to start the seder in Lviv at 4 p.m. because without electricity, the former synagogue-turned Jewish community center and synagogue would be too dark much later in the evening. From Lviv we took an overnight train to the capital and most populous city (approximately 3.3 million) of Kiev (leaving Lviv at 10 p.m. and arriving at 7:30 a.m.). The three of us were in a four-person sleeping room and were very cramped but it was a fun experience and we all slept pretty well, all things considered. I wouldn't recommend the bathroom on the train, however.

We arrived in Kiev and met up with the other groups of students from throughout the country and heard of their stories. Some interesting things came to light. We realized that the vast majority of the young Jewish people in Ukraine that we met did want to make Aliyah (immigrate) to Israel but remained because extended family (especially parents) wouldn't make the move. We also learned that older Ukrainians, even those who are Jewish, miss Communist rule and despite the ban on Judaism, would like to see those days return to the country.

We met with the rabbi of Kiev and talked about our experiences and had a very nice Friday night Shabbat service among their small congregation. We heard many new melodies for familiar prayers. On Saturday night, the Kiev community hosted their large Passover seder our hotel and, as with the Lutsk seder, there was dancing and music between the third and fourth cups of wine. The seders in some cities are really very large parties to celebrate Jewish identity and awakening after decades under Soviet rule. In Kiev and Lutsk, it was amazing to see such dynamic communities that are only about 6-7 years old as no one could even think about practicing their Judaism until after Ukrainian independence in late 1991. After that, it took years to start learning and to start coalescing into a real community. It was wonderful to see communities growing and developing.

On Sunday we visited Babi Yar, the site of the massacre of over 100,000 Jews just outside of Kiev during the Holocaust. We recited the Mourner's Kaddish there for all the victims and made our way back to Jerusalem.

The "official" Soviet Babi Yar memorial statue. Dramatic figures appear to be falling into the ravine.

The new children's memorial at Babi Yar to the more than 40,000 children murdered there.

The memorial at Lviv to the ghetto and final route out of town for the Jews of Lviv.

Kiev's gorgeous architecture. Lviv is also a beautiful city.

A Kiev church.

Workers unite. As statue in Kiev.

The political situation was tense while we were in Ukraine after the President dissolved Parliament and the Prime Minister attempted to belay that order. The red flags are the Communist Party.

Natural Gas, The Hard Way

On the roof of our building sit our apartment's two small tanks filled with natural gas. They're about triple the height of the propane tanks used in the U.S. for barbecues. They provide the natural gas we use for the stove; everything else is operated by electricity. Most apartments have such "balloons" (as they're called) and so there are quite a few sets of these gas tanks on our roof.

It's not a comforting feeling, thinking that an errant lightening bolt or errant Katyusha Rocket could cause serious problems when combined with such tanks above our heads. Nonetheless, there they are.

Our landlord promised us that we would need to replace at least one balloon during our year here. She gave us instructions of how to call and that we needed to ensure that the roof would be unlocked when they arrived.

Well, sometime in January it happened. We could not light the stove. I went to the roof to turn off tank one and turn on tank two and we were able to start cooking. No problem.

The next day I called "SuperGas" (but it's pronounced "souper-gazz") to order a replacement tank. SuperGas said they'd need to come out for a safety check first. So I scheduled that and they came about a week later. The technician found a small leak (what, exactly is a "small" leak when it comes to gas?!?) but repaired the hose. He told us that we would also need a new protective hood for the tanks because we were missing one.

I checked with the landlord who said, sure, order a new cover. So I did and the cover was installed in early February. Then, I had to call to make an appointment for the tank. Interestingly, they couldn't pre-schedule the gas appointment until after the hood was installed. I was told that the tank would arrive a few days later and so I told them I would unlock the roof.

The tank did not arrive and I don't know if delivery was ever attempted. I tried again. No tank. I tried again. No tank. I tried again. No tank. There was a lot of roof unlocking and locking going on but nary a tank to be found. Unfortunately, it was late March and Passover was approaching so that meant I was leaving for the Ukraine.

So, what had to happen? About three hours after I left for the airport to fly to the Ukraine, tank number two expired on the day before Passover - a week-long national holiday. Jen was a trooper and played the role of native Israeli and made many calls to the gas company that day and kept calling until the tank was delivered. And so they were. Now we have two full tanks of precious fossil fuels for our cooking enjoyment. Finally!