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...

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!