Tuesday, January 4, 2011

The day started out cloudy and cool, with prevailing breezes from the west (pretty typical for Jerusalem). This short touring day began at 9 AM with a visit to the Davidson Archaeological Center located inside Jerusalem’s Old City walls, at the southwest corner of the Temple Mount complex. The Center focuses on reconstructing the shape, function, and profile of the Temple Mount as it was in the time before the destruction by Rome in 70 CE.

One facet of the Davidson research center was a unique computer program, created by the Center and archaeologists at UCLA, was an interactive computer model of the Old City and the Temple Mount.

A trained operator/tour guide took us on a virtual tour of the Old City and the Southern Wall areas, which were, in actuality, the original entrances and exits of the Temple Mount precinct. In these walls, which today make up the foundation for the Al-aqsa mosque, you can see the original Herodian arches that allowed people access and egress to the Second Temple.

A partial arch, that you can see here, comes out from the far southern part of the Western Wall, and is called Robinson’s Arch, named after the archaeologist who, in the Nineteenth century, discovered it and theorized about its origins. The arch descends from the top level of the Temple to the street below, where there was a market place and possible location of money changers who would, in Second Temple times, exchange sacrificial animals for money of the pilgrims who would come to Jerusalem on pilgrim festivals (Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot) and not have the ability to bring their own animals for sacrificing.

The tour at the Davidson Center lasted until about 11 AM, at which time the group’s official tours stopped and we had the remainder of the day for walking, meeting, shopping, and relaxing. Some returned to the hotel for packing and sleeping. Others walked throughout the Old and New city of Jerusalem for shopping, bargaining in the Arab shuk, and eating the luscious middle eastern treats.

In the evening, we gathered for a farewell dinner in the hotel dining room. It was a time for reflection on the itinerary, on the exceptional people whom we met, gratitude for our guide Miri. . .

and our driver Dudi. . .

and our tour arranger Ari. . .

Most of all, there were kudos for our travelers who decided that coming to Israel at this (or any) time was worth their time, substance, and energies, and that their dedication to learning about the land and Progressive Judaism there was strong and growing.

Our travelers came on this trip with various motivations. Some came to connect with the land on an emotional level. Others came to learn about its history and its contemporary dynamic. Others were interested to learn about the presence and effect of liberal Judaism in Israel. All of these parts came together in the last few days, as we entered Jerusalem, Israel’s capital, felt the influence of its people and its institutions, and were able – as a group – to speak among ourselves and analyze the situation in which Israel finds herself today.

Each traveler had a different “high point” of their trip, and each traveler will relate differently to the various experiences we had and people we meet. As a group, we hope to maintain this blog as a place where people can offer their insights and their views, and we hope that our love for Israel grows through learning and contact with Jews in Israel.

We thank you for reading this blog and for keeping in touch, and we invite you to comment on these pages by clicking on the appropriate links.

We write this blog from Liberty Newark Airport on the way home from Tel Aviv, and we will post this Wednesday evening January 5. But the effects of Israel on our group will be timeless, and will lead to even greater exposure, discussion, debate, agree- and disagreements, and – we hope – a strengthening of the ties between Jews of Israel and the rest of the Jewish world.

Monday, January 3, 2011

The weather in Jerusalem today started out clear and cool, with no cloud in the sky and a light breeze blowing through. We had a later start today – we were on the bus at 8:30 – and drove to the Israeli High Court of Justice, or the Israeli supreme court. The building was designed by Mosheh Safdi, architect of many an Israeli and American project. Each area or passageway has some biblical verse associated with it that concerns the concept of “justice”, thereby keeping nearby at all times the demand for finding justice in every aspect of the work of the law.

Our morning experience was heightened by our speaker Anat Hoffman, former Jerusalem city councilwoman and, now, the director of the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), sponsored by the Israeli Movement for Progressive Judaism. IRAC has been struggling for equal rights for women, Arabs, secular Israelis and others who encounter difficulties with the separation of religion and government, an area in which there is less justice, perhaps, than there should be.

Anat Hoffman spoke especially passionately about the Women of the Wall, a group of women from all religious movements who simply want to pray at the Western Wall in ways equal to the men who also pray there. Each month, at the New Moon, the Women of the Wall gather to worship and to read Torah, but they are denied the ability to do so because of those in the religious parties who promote inequality in Jewish worship in Israel. According to the Rabbi of the Wall, women are not supposed to be heard, wear kippah or tallit, handle the Torah scroll, or read from it, and the Women of the Wall have been fighting for more than 20 years to win the right to do so. For more information about the Women of the Wall, you can go to www.womenofthewall.com.

From the supreme court, we traveled to the Israeli Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem. “Yad Vashem” is a Hebrew expression from the bible that relates to a monument of memory. “Yad” literally means “hand”, and “Vashem” literally means “and a name”. This citation relates, in the bible, to monuments of lasting memory, and this is why this institution bears this name. This monument of Janus Korjak memorializes him as a savior of children.

This is more than a museum: It is an archive, and a spiritual experience to relate the individual and collective histories of Holocaust victims and survivors. There are also monuments to the memory of the Righteous Gentiles, to the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust, and to the communities that disappeared from the map before and during World War II.

art of our experience there was participating in a service of memorial in the “Tent of Memory”, a large covered pavilion that serves as the central ceremonial assembly place for Yad Vashem. Led by Rabbi Biatch, each participant/traveler said memorial prayers – the Eil Malei Rachamim – and the Mourner’s Kaddish. But the prayers did not stop there. We also prayed for a better and brighter future.

Directly next door to Yad Vashem is the Mount Herzl and National Cemetery of Israel’s past leaders. Theodore Herzl’s body was interred here after being taken from Austria, and he is venerated as a founding visionary of the Zionist movement. Also buried here are Itzhak and Leah Rabin, Golda Meir, other past Prime Ministers and cabinet ministers, and soldiers from the seven wars that Israel has suffered through. Although perhaps not buried here, we also found a memorial to Hannah Senesh who, along with six other parachutists, returned to their native lands during World War II to try to infiltrate the Nazi regime and find information that would be helpful to the Allies.

We then traveled back to the hotel via the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, a complex that borders on the Arab town of Beit Jala. About ten years ago, residents of Gilo suffered through armed snipers from Beit Jala, and a wall was erected to protect the town’s residents. Only in the last few weeks have the walls begun to come down, a sign that the tension is eased and the hope for the end of violence was being fulfilled.

We also saw the affects of the separation wall on the landscape of Jerusalem. The wall snakes around Arab towns and protects Jerusalem’s residents. But the affects of the Wall’s presence have been to cut off natural neighborhoods from one another, and Arab land owners from their arable land. The route of the Wall is constantly changing in certain places, to accommodate the changing needs of the Jews and Arabs who naturally live so close to one another.

Our last stop was back at our hotel, where we heard from Rabbi Rich Kirschen, the new director of the Reform movement’s National Federation of Temple Youth’s Israel program division. He spoke about the experiences of a young American Rabbi immigrant to Israel – and his family – while becoming absorbed into Israeli society. He also spoke of the need for building many more bridges between Israeli and North American Jewry, a hope we heard expressed from a number of speakers. Many of us share that hope!

The day ended at 6 PM, and folks had a very relaxed supper.

Sunday January 2, 2011

This day began very early, with a 7 AM departure. We found out at breakfast that the Badgers had lost a very exciting Rose Bowl game in a 21-19 defeat, but still we knew that our town was proud of the home team.

Our first stop today was the plaza in front of the Western Wall of the ancient Jerusalem Temple, and Miri described the importance of the site and where it is today with the separation of the sexes, and the prohibition of the Orthodox of women’s minyans. We took time to approach the Wall, some placing notes in the wall’s huge Herodian stones, others criticizing the rule of the Orthodox in the place.

Then we entered the tunnels that were excavated along the western face of the Temple Precinct that extend in a northerly direction from the current Western Wall plaza. Each year more and more levels of the complex of staircases and passageways are uncovered by the archaeologists, and in each successive visit, we see that the wall of the Temple now extends to the Maccabean street level.

One facet of the tunnel is that it passes a place in the Wall that is directly west from the supposed site of the Holy of Holies, and now both women and men have found places to pray within the tunnel and along its pathway. The shrines are numerous, and the religious fervor is palpable.

The tunnels extend into the Muslim quarter of the Old City, and from our exit point, we walked through the Muslim, then Jewish, then Christian quarters up to the Jaffa Gate of the Old City.

We caught our bus to the newly refurbished Israel Museum (it was closed for a three-year renovation project, and just recently re-opened). We viewed a model of the city of Jerusalem in Second Temple times, with its Temple, residences of the Priests, and palace. We also viewed as a group the Shrine of the Book, the current location of some of the Dead Sea Scrolls. (Others are kept in the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem.)

We then took a few hours to guide ourselves through the museum, with its emphases on modern art and artists, archaeology of the land of Israel, and its historical and anthropological exhibits.

After lunch and purchasing at the museum shop, we traveled the short distance to the Knesset building. (The government does not permit cameras to be brought into the Knesset today, so we have no photos of it.) The Knesset is the seat of the Israeli government, and as a group we toured its reception hall (with large tapestries by Marc Chagall) and floor and wall mosaics also by Chagall, and also had the chance to sit in the gallery of the Plenum Hall where the Knesset members sit and deliberate the laws and policy.

Our final stop today was at the headquarters of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, and we had a conversation with Gil’ad Kariv, that organization’s executive director. He stressed to us the need for both democracy and religious values in Israel, and in close ties between the Israeli and North American Jewish communities. After a question by a group member, he said that he believed that the word “Diaspora” had outlived its usefulness, and that there needs to be a people-wide re-evaluation of the relationship between these two great Jewish bodies in today’s world Jewish community.

We then walked the few blocks back to the hotel, taking in – on the way – the campus of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s Jerusalem campus, built in 1964 on no-man’s land on the Israeli-Jordanian border, and today sits on one of the most expensive and desired places in the city.

We ended our day at about 4:30, and there’s more tomorrow. Lailah tov - Hebrew for "good night!"

Day 6 of Touring - the Beginnings of Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, and Masada

Saturday January 1, 2011

Our Shabbat day activities began after a night of violent rainstorms that buffeted our worship at Kehilat Tzur Hadassah, but the rains ended, and we began with a view of the Old City of Jerusalem from the east (with the sun on our back). Miri provided a historical and archaeological orientation to the city walls and its precincts, but the view was quite spectacular.

Our trip then turned east and south, toward the Dead Sea Valley. Our first encounter was a drive through the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve, where we saw ibex and hyraxes, as you see here:

These animals were simply walking near the roadway of the park, and seemed to have no fear of our bus or human contact.

Our next stop was the mountain of Masada, where beginning in the year 70 CE, more than 900 zealots defied the Roman siege for more than three years before the Roman army overtook the fortress. The Romans wanted to take the mountaintop because it was in the way of a prime trade route between Africa and Asia; for the Jews, it became a matter of survival of the religion and the people, to retain a hold on this place.

There are remnants of the three palaces that King Herod built in the century before Masada’s fall, as well as bath houses, food and water storage, worship, and the like.

From Masada, we traveled to Mineral Beach on the Dead Sea (a facility run by Kibbutz Ein Gedi and the Ahavah Company), and we all took a “float” in the Dead Sea. We also slathered mud on ourselves, took a dip in the sulfur mineral bath, and had a very relaxing and fun-filled time.

The day ended with us all returning to the hotel in Jerusalem tired but very satisfied. The weather in Jerusalem was mild – in the 40’s.

Good night, and be well!