This morning we started a little later. I could have used about 4 more hours of sleep. I don’t think I was the only one. We don’t have quite as busy of a day today though.
First we went to Mt. Herzl. We saw the tomb of Theodor Herzl, basically the father of Zionism. The military cemetery is there as well and the tombs of Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin and more.
Next we went to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum complex. The children’s museum is dark when you go in. It uses mirrors to reflect the light of 5 candles to make 1.5 million lights to represent each child lost in the Holocaust. As you walk through, the names of the children and where they were from are read off.
The museum itself is similar to others I’ve been in. But they have much more actual video footage from that time. And the video of survivors telling how it was are priceless. It’s hard to conceptualize what it must have been like sometimes until you hear it from someone’s mouth who was there. The focus of this exhibit seemed to be “why Israel must be.” I didn’t really need to be convinced.
After lunch, we went to the Machaneh Yehuda street market. Stall after stall of fruits, vegetables, nuts, meats, spices, breads, on and on. The sort of place I would shop every day if it was a option. Although I didn’t see any tofu. 🙂 I picked up a fresh pita with the green spice mixture on it for an afternoon snack.
Friday night, we walked to the Kotel (the Western Wall) for Shabbat. I didn’t take any photos for obvious reasons, but imagine the place wall-to-wall with people, probably 1/3-1/2 Orthodox. I looked briefly online, but I’d really love to see a good explanation of all the garb. The furry hockey puck hat is from where? What about the beige striped bathrobe? And so on.
Shabbat dinner at the hotel was packed. Apparently there are a lot of families that come in to Jerusalem just for Shabbat. So the dining room was packed with every sort of Jew. And the hotel had canvas partitions they set up around the Orthodox so they wouldn’t have to look upon anything “not kosher” at another table. There was singing all around the dining room. It was really wild.