A Day In Jerusalem

"Say little and do much."

-The Talmud

On the 15^th of July I had the pleasure of going with my kibbutz to Jerusalem. It was a short sojourn, maybe close to an hour.

We first went to the Knesset, where we were given a tour by a guide who honestly reminded me a lot of the character Salad Fingers. A nice guy though, we got to see the declaration

As well as the art by Chagaal, although frankly the whole building, reminiscent of a Greek temple, was built into the building itself; from the doors to the floor to the walls. All of which were gorgeous. 

I had to wait for the Rabbi taking a selfie to get out of the way. Yes, he had a selfie stick.

The security was intense as anything!

He's telling us to stay away from the window.
Saw him leaning against said windows when we went inside.

We sat for what was supposed to be a Knesset meeting, but only one representative showed up for the conservative party, while no one else did. So the meeting was rescheduled for an hour later, and we ended up having to miss it. The guy who rescheduled it was not happy pretty much nobody had showed up.

We then went right after to a national cemetery for the military, located on mount Herzl. It was pretty saddening, something like 90%, maybe more of the graves I saw were either the age of, or under the age of twenty-one. When you see row after row after row of graves all with somebody around twenty or nineteen, it kind of gets to you, it’s just too young.

We saw the grave of the founder of Zionism and Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin; the Israeli’s have a culture where when they want to leave something in memory at the grave, they leave a rock. 

Which is why it was so surprising when we made the tour among the soldier’s graves and came across a path of graves which were bedecked in flowers, memorabilia and photos of the soldiers who had fallen. One in particular was crammed full of such. Israeli heroes are less remembered for valorize, and more for sacrifice and attitude while doing so.

We then had a meager lunch of Tuna Sandwiches and some kind of pastrami and I believe turkey, but it could well have been chicken. For some reason nobody here has heard of chicken salad, and there is no roast beef, but ham is sold galore. There is more Turkey than chicken, which confuses me because I imagine chickens are easier to raise. The forbidden fruit/meat is well abound.

After lunch we went to a very annoying ‘museum’. It was less in the format of exhibits, and moreso done in the format of moving from room to room where objects were on display while a play was put on telling the struggle of Herzl and his creation of Zionism. I say it was annoying because every few minutes the video of the play would shift to another wall, forcing you to constantly keep randomly switching which wall you were watching. These museums are pretty common in Israel, from what I understand. It was supposed to engage you, but did nothing to stop our youngest member of the kibbutz from falling asleep.

After the museum we went to the City of David and went underground through the excavated ruins. One thing that surprised me, while walking through what is believed to be the palace of David, there was a heck of a lot of stray cats. One even perched on the tallest pillar. I entitle it the king of the cats.

We continued, delving deep underground, eventually reaching a tunnel built over 3,000 years ago when Jerusalem faced besiegement by the Assyrians. We walked through the tunnel, which connected Jerusalem to the Gehon, the city’s primary source of water. It was extremely dark, and required flashlights while cold water was at a few points up to our waist, while at other times around our ankles.

When we emerged it was to a small pool under what is today a mosque while the head imam chanted for the beginning of that part of the day’s prayer. It was around 2 p.m. I have to say that it was a very cool experience walking through a man-made cavern, barely wide enough to fit a person, but was so old and because of the cold water condensing on the walls that the beginnings of stalactites had begun to form. Imagine a stone ceiling, flat and worn smooth from people passing that stalactites were growing, and so many people had passed each stalactite had been chipped off. At some points the tunnel ceiling could whump you on the head, while at others it towered far, far above. Makes me wonder a little why it was built like that; I can only guess and imagine to that, though.

Afterwards we went to the wailing wall. The men and women are separated. You have to cover your head; so I just continued to wear my military camouflage hat. I saw quite a bit of some of the craziness I had heard of, made a prayer of my own and then deposited the prayers I had brought from the United States to put for people who would not be able to come.

Some of the prayers already put in the wall had fallen out, so those around me I put back in. It is believed that if you place a prayer in the wall it will come true, especially so. I don’t know, but it seemed to me if your prayer fell out of the wall then perhaps it didn’t come to pass. Maybe it was impossible for it to, or maybe it was the case that it had come true already and was let go. So I reasoned it that if it was the case it hadn’t come true by putting it back maybe I gave it a second chance, and if it had come true, maybe it might again for that person or another.

Sometimes I like to make up my own superstitions, and that’s one I like. Mainly because I wasn’t sure if it was alright to touch or handle someone else’s prayers, so at least that puts it in a positive light.

After this we continued our tour of the old city. We concluded at the former site of where the main street was during roman times, which was quite impressive; the site was what seemed to me about five stories lower than ground level, meaning the ground level was around that much lower back then.

We then got food, dashing through the streets in our group looking for shwarma, instead we found ourselves in a shopping district. Despite running out of time we dashed back where we were supposed to meet, I did not have money with me, so somebody bought me a burger while everyone else was getting them, which was very kind. Unfortunately we were so rushed, and another customer took my burger, that they had to make me another, and the one I received was not fully cooked. That’s ok, I still think it neat after traveling so far, and having had a quite interesting day to end it on a note of history, and then after a funny and semi-dramatic hunt for food ending my day eating cuisine something I would expect to get from the Burger Joint back in the U.S.

We saddled back on the bus as the sun set, and soldiered home to the Ulpan Kibbtuz Naan.