The weather was another beautiful day as we started out. The high was
supposed to be about 62 and there were no clouds in the sky. After
breakfast, we started out later than usual, at 8:15.
Our first stop was at the Jerusalem Museum to see two things: a 1/50
scale model of Jerusalem in 66 AD and the Shrine of the Book (Dead Sea
Scrolls).
The scale model was an opportunity to see a bird's eye view of the
city in the time of Jesus and the years up to the Jewish rebellion. It
was outdoors and the plaza with the model provided great views over
the city. There were three walls, the old walls, the second walls
(existing at the time of Jesus) and the third wall that was built in
the early 60's AD by Agrippa I, grandson of Herod. The model was built
during the time that the old city was under Jordanian rule, so there
are a few things that are not completely accurate. There is a theater
and hippodrome that may not be accurate because no ruins have been
found of these. We could see where Herod extended and enlarged the
temple. Herod also added the second walls.
From there, we entered the museum section that housed the Shrine of
the Book. This basically tells about the discovery of the Dead Sea
Scrolls (photos of the Bedouin that found them) and then you see
several of the scrolls. There are other documents that are not the
Dead Sea Scrolls, but they are some very old books and manuscripts.
The museum is very dark, so that the scrolls will not be damaged by
the lights in the rooms. The two clay jars that contained the Isaiah
scroll (and others) in Cave #1 were also on display. The Isaiah scroll
dates back to 100 AD.
Our next stop was to a mountain that is the highest spot in Jerusalem.
We drove past the military cemetery to a place called the Valley of
the Community. This is a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust and
the communities that were either wiped out or affected by the
Holocaust. You enter through a large passage way. The entire park is
open –air and is a map of Europe, but the lines of the countries are
made of massive stones that are about 20 feet tall. The limestone is
rough and massive, so you feel overwhelmed as you pass through. In
each country area or room, the name of the country and the names of
the communities are etched on the walls (in Hebrew and in English).
Jacob told us that almost 90% of the Polish Jews were murdered.
As we walked through, we came to the Ukraine area. A Cantor was there
to sing some songs for us. He sang a Psalm, a song in Aramaic, another
song and closed with a Hebrew song that is sung as people enter into a
funeral.
From this, we rode to the Holocaust Museum, which is also at the top
of a mountain (near the cemetery). This is also on a mountain top with
beautiful views of Jerusalem. We started the tour by seeing some of
the trees planted around the park. They are in honor of people that
helped the Jews during the Holocaust. We saw the one for Schindler (of
Schindler's list). Then we walked up to an area especially to remember
the children that were killed (1,500,000). Inside the tall building,
that was almost completely dark, you walk into an area that has
mirrored walls and 1 ½ million points of light (to be like stars).
Each light is to represent a candle for every child lose. As you walk
through you hear a continual list read (in English) of every child's
name, age and country.
Then we entered the actual museum. It is in a long building and you
sort of zig-zag yourself across two main aisles. There are photos,
videos, artifacts and all types of explanation of the horror beginning
with Hitler's rise to power and through the war. We had about 1-1 ½
hours to go through this on our own. It was very crowded, so some
things were hard to see and experience, but you were able to get the
main idea about how horrible the whole thing was. But it is still hard
to grasp how this happened in a supposedly civilized world. It is
almost like a sure sign that there are evil people in this world, even
today. It also made me appreciate the religious freedom we have in the
USA.
We had time to have lunch in the café there at the museum and then we
boarded the bus to meet our guide into Bethlehem. Jacob was not
allowed to go into Bethlehem because Israeli Jews are not allowed in
there since 2,000. Our driver could go (Aaron our regular driver was
not with us today because his bus was in the repair shop). We picked
up a Palestinian Christian guide before we passed through the security
gate and wall into Bethlehem.
As we rode through the streets of Bethlehem, we learned a few thing:
Bethlehem means bread (wheat was grown there); there are two
Bethlehem's in Israel, but this one is Bethlehem of Judea so we know
Christ was born there; Bethlehem is 25% Christian (down from 50% in
2,000 – immigration of non Christians has caused this); the population
is 50,000 and it is really like a suburb of Jerusalem. We also learned
that until the 4th century AD, followers of Christ were called
Nazarenes.
As we drove down the main street, a herd of sheep and goats crossed
the street in front of us, followed by a shepherd on a donkey. The bus
was parked in a parking area and we walked up a hill to see two
churches: The Church of the Nativity (Greek Orthodox, Armenian
Orthodox) and St. Catherine's church (Roman Catholic). The churches
are literally right next door to each other (walls touching).
The Church of the Nativity is the oldest continually operating
Christian church in the world. When the early Nazarenes started
worshiping on the site (where Jesus was born), the Roman Emperor,
Hadrian built a temple to Adonis at the site to stop the worship. In
333 AD when Constantine's mother, Helena came to the Holy Land to
build churches for Christianity, she had the temple torn down and the
first church built on this site. This church was destroyed in 529, but
rebuilt by Justinian in 540. The entrance was not very impressive. It
was explained that the original entrance had two large doors. Because
of a structural problem, one door was closed off and a room was added
to the front to give support. The crusaders lowered the opening of the
foor to about 48" to keep people from riding in on horses and camels.
We entered, through the very low door into the Nave. The original
floor mosaics from this church are still seen through a hole in the
nave floor (about 42" below the current floor). On the side upper
walls there are still gold mosaics from the Byzantine period. They are
some what damaged from the gold being valuable (and stolen) and the
wood ceiling (original) leaking over the years, but still very pretty.
At the altar area of the church, we went to a small Greek Orthodox
chapel (with icons) and went down several steps below the high altar
in to a small space to see two things: The original rock where Jesus
was born (covered with marble and a 18 point star – silver with a hole
in it so you could touch the rock below); the manger he was born in
(this was protected by a screen and covered with an ornate cloth).
Both of these had candles lit all around them. Some of the other
pilgrims were bringing taper candles to light candles at these two
objects/things.
After our group saw the rock and manger, we gathered at the end of the
very small room and Katherine read the Christmas Story. We then sang
"O Little Town of Bethlehem".
Back upstairs, we had some time to look at the Nave and take photos.
Then we went out a side door into a cloister that was connected to
this church originally and now adjoins the front cloister of St.
Catherine's (Catholic) church. The original Corinthian capitols from
the Crusader period were still there on some of the columns of the
cloister. The Catholic church dates from the 18th C. In the courtyard
is a statue of St. Jerome. He is the first person to translate the
Bible (I assume to Latin). He did it in Bethlehem so he could better
understand the places he was "writing" about.
We walked back down hill to the bus, passing a Star & Bucks Coffee
shop. (Wonder if Starbucks knows about this one!) Back on the bus, we
were taken to a shop that sells olive wood carvings, mother of pearl
items and jewelry (things like the Jerusalem Cross pendants, etc.). We
had about 45 minutes to shop. Gerald and Charlie went outside and were
"befriended" by a young boy selling flutes made of reeds. He gave them
each one when they would not buy from him. Several others on the bus
ended up buying from him. He told Gerald he had two sisters, two
brothers and his mother. His father was killed by the Israelis.
We rode the bus back to the gate. We had three Israeli Army men board
our bus to look around before we crossed back across the border. The
bus took us back to the hotel where we either rested or walked around
in the hotel area before we met at 6:30 for our evening reflections,
Bible verses and prayer.
At dinner, since it is the Sabbath, the tables were set with a sesame
roll at each place and a small bottle of sweet wine at each table. We
saw other Jewish groups open the wine, pour it in the one wine glass
on the table and pass it around.
After dinner, we went back to start packing for our return trip home.
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