Israel: Jerusalem

The next day we went on a tour of Old and New Jerusalem. After being stuck in holiday traffic there the day before I was expecting the same, if not worse, today. We met our tour guide in Tel Aviv and headed to Jerusalem. Rather than driving all around the city and getting stuck the bus dropped us in the Old Section of the city and we just walked everywhere. Our guide wasn’t all that great. He walked too fast, weaving in and out of all the people and not really making sure everyone in our tour was keeping-up. He also didn’t say very much and when he did he spoke very quietly. We did see the Dome of the Rock from the outside. Our guide said that no non-Muslims - especially Jews  - were allowed to enter it and then showed us a covered path that non-Muslims had to take to enter the Dome. We were getting conflicting information. I’m not really sure if Christians are allowed to enter the Dome of the Rock or not. I know Jews can’t. We walked throughout the Jewish and Muslim Quarters and saw Israeli police and soldiers at the spot when the two quarters meet. That's really the only time we saw any patrols. We walked underground for a very short time seeing the old market and then went through different bazaars. We then went to the Wailing/Western Wall. It was only the second time we had to go through any security while in Israel. You had to put your bag on the X- Ray machine and then walk through a metal detector.  It was very crowded and our guide only gave us 10 minutes. Women had to go to the Female side and Men to the Male side. I had to cover my head with a skull cap (there was a bin of them where people who had just come from the Wall took their’s off and threw it in the bin where those of us just entering the Wall had to pick one of the “dirty” ones to wear. Not the most hygienic. There were so many people on the male side that I didn’t make it to the actual Wall.

After the Wailing/Western Wall we saw different sections of the Christian Holy Sacraments (on the Via Dolorosa) on our way to the Christian Quarter and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where Jesus was crucified. While waiting outside the Church we heard the Muslim Call to Prayer which was pretty loud. We then went into the Church. It is one of my favorite places of the whole trip. It was very large and beautiful (on the inside.) The outside looked sandy and plain. I even got to touch the stone where Jesus was laid after he died so his body could be cleaned.

After the Church we walked to a restaurant in the Muslim Quarter. It was clearly for tour groups, but was such a small room. There was a buffet lunch – although not as good as the one in Jericho. The owner was annoying and pushy. When we left we saw 5 different tour groups enter the same restaurant and I remember thinking there wasn’t enough room for all of them in that small place. After lunch we walked to our bus and left the Old Part of Jerusalem and drove to Vad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and Museum.

I used to work at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC and had long heard about Yad Vashem and how great and big it was supposed to be. I have to say the grounds of Yad Vashem are much larger than the USHMM, but the actual exhibit building seemed the same size. Our tour guide wasn’t allowed to say anything inside the Museum and so he told us a time to meet him at the exit. I have studied the Holocaust for a long time and so was telling my sister what happened during it, but I wonder what the majority of people in our tour group learned, if anything, since there was no guide to help them. The one aspect I did not like at Yad Vashem was the Children’s Memorial. The outside was very nice, but then you walk into a completely dark room with only a few candles and you have to walk throughout the memorial holding the railing and not being able to see. Once outside you could see the different trees and memorials to the Righteous Among The Nations (the non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust.) I won’t say I “enjoyed” Yad Vashem   - especially when you consider what the museum is about, but I will say it was one of those places I always wanted to see for myself and am glad I finally got to go. That was our last stop in Jerusalem and we were then brought back to our hotel in Tel Aviv.