Sunday, July 8, 2012 Yad Vashem and Israel Museum

Didn’t have to be on the bus until 9:30 this morning!  That was heaven!!!  Then we went to Yad Vashem the Holocaust Memorial Museum.  This is a necessary visit for all, but a difficult one as well.  We started out visiting the Valley of the Communities.  This stone structure consisted of seemingly never-ending trails with the names of the communities of Jews destroyed during the Holocaust.  It was impossible to go through this labyrinth without being choked up.  Then we proceeded to the memorial to the children lost in the holocaust…somewhere in the number of 1.5Million children killed.  This memorial was a walk-through in the dark, lit only by 6 candles reflected in endless mirrors.  As you held on to the railing to walk yourself through this maze, in the background was name after name of children killed along with their ages.  Of course you never hear a repeat as this loop of names goes on and on and on.  Such senseless tragedy…for no reason.

Yad Vashem is modern and tastefully done to have you wind through room after room after room of facts and film clips and artifacts and records and people’s memories.  You wind through all of this for a long long time and you wander out at the end into the opening and fresh air of ISRAEL..in all its beauty and glory.  The photographs taken here can’t express the feelings you get as you exit into the most beautiful skyline of Jerusalem.

We left Yad Vashem and went to the Israel Museum.  An enormous museum that you could easily spend an entire day at!  But we had a 20 minutes bite to eat and then began our tour there with a visit to the 50:1 scale replica of Jerusalem in Ancient times.  It was so cool! We got to see all of Jerusalem then and how it compares to now.  Right next door was the building housing the Dead Sea scrolls.  I was really interested in seeing these as I have had discussions about them in many of my religion classes at CWRU.  i was so excited!!!!  Of course they don’t look much differently then when I looked them up online….but that didn’t matter to me one bit!

The main museum halls were unending!  We only had 90 minutes or so in them so you had to pick between archeological artifacts and art and/or recreations of Synagogues from all over the world with remains of the actual buildings themselves.  My favorite area covered the life cycles, birth and marriage and such.  But also the ancient Judaica breast plates for Torahs, etc. was incredible too.  I walked until my feet said they were just DONE for the time being!!!!

We returned to the hotel and had a visit from a representative from Women of the Wall, regarding women being allowed to pray wearing Tallit and/or Tefillin and even having Torah services there as the men do.  Currently, if women do this, they can be arrested and jailed and/or fined.  I didn’t know that and, of course, the other day, Friday, I was there at the Wall carrying my velvet bag of Tefillin thinking I was doing a wonderful thing by bringing them to Jerusalem when I know their owner, whether it was my dad or my grandpa, had never been.  Wouldn’t that have changed the flavor of my vacation if I’d have gotten arrested!  They’re only doing this occasionally and the women they are targeting are those they hope to stop “instigating” anything.  What ends up happening if/when this happens however, is it calls attention to the issue and more women show up to participate.  They’ve gone from being 12 or so women to upwards of 200 so the plan of attack is backfiring I think!  The feminist in me, of course, supports these women.  Ancient and Ultra Orthodox do not, however, support this in any way and, unfortunately they’re being allowed to speak for everyone at this time.

After this, I wandered off to Ben Yehuda Street to shop and people-watch and meet up with Dafna and Michael Peled, friends from many years ago!   Kenny and their son Matan were classmates and buddies and when Kenny came for his Birthright trip he extended and stayed an additional week with them.  I was so happy to see them again.  They look the same!!!!  Their 3 kids are all grown up now; Uri, who was just 4 years old when I met him in the USA is now 17!!!  Na’ama has grown to be a fine young woman completing her military service and now entering Hebrew University.  Her proud parents were beaming as they spoke of her and her brothers as well.  Matan is studying Computer Engineering in Haifa.  He is so smart, I know he will go far!

They drove me home and it’s now after midnight.  Will try to upload the last of the pics and hit the bed as we are going to have a Torah Service tomorrow morning at Robinson’s Arch just outside The Wall, then we get to visit the City of David, where Jerusalem began, and go underground into Hezekiah’s Tunnels, and, eventually the Western Wall Tunnels as well where we will get to see and touch The Wall where it continues underground!