Sabbatical 2015: October 2015

Wednesday, November 4

On this day we took an all-day guided tour of the Old City of Jerusalem. Our tour guide was Yael, referred to us by our friends Jack and Amanda. Yael had babysat for their kids many years ago in Los Angeles before eventually making aliyah (moving permanently to Israel) and becoming a licensed tour guide (which takes 2 years of training). We got started with her about 9:00 AM and except for a lunch break, ran non-stop until after 6:00 PM. At every point in the tour, she presented information in a compelling and interesting way. Sometimes it was a story. Sometimes it was interactive, where she would show us something and ask us why we thought it was the way it was to teach us to think like an archaeologist.

Aside from recounting our day, what follows are the notes that I took during the tour, so that I could remember everything she told us. Poor Yael. From the beginning of the tour, I had been furiously typing notes into my iPhone as she spoke, trying to capture what she was teaching us. After a couple of hours of this, she finally made some comment about the "work" I was doing, thinking I was in touch with the office or replying to e-mails or the like. I felt terrible - I had failed to tell her at the beginning that I would be taking notes and here she thought I was hardly paying any attention to her at all, when really I was keenly focused on her every utterance! I apologized and explained what I was doing: working hard to make sure I would not forget the Jerusalem that I was meeting this day. The family all chimed in insisting that I might be the best "student" she ever had on a tour. While that may or may not be true, the historical notes that follow are what I thought I heard Yael tell us, and I apologize to her if anything I attribute to her was incorrectly recorded.

Our tour started at the Mamilla Mall, right outside our apartment. At the street corner where we stood at the end of the mall, (the intersection of King David and Yitzhak Kariv), there are new buildings on three of the four corners (the Mamilla Mall being one). The fourth corner is a Moslem cemetery that is rarely visited and not well maintained. Yael gave us our first quiz of the day: "Why do you think the cemetery has not been relocated and that prime real estate used for more productive purposes?" The reason she gave is that Israel decided to make it a law that it would never touch any religious site belonging to any other religion. And so this cemetery, and other Moslem and Christian religious sites remain untouched in their current locations.

Yael had chosen to meet us at this end of the mall because of a jewelry store that was located there. However, she was surprised to find that, the name (and presumably the ownership) of the store had changed in the last month. The store had previously been Yvel Jewelers and she told us the story of this company. It was founded by Isaac Levy and he called it Levy Jewelers. Business was slow until someone suggested the problem was that the name was too Jewish. He reversed the order of the letters and business quickly took off, specializing in high-end jewelry. Eventually Levy needed to add more staff. As he had been a disadvantaged immigrant himself, he wanted to assist other disadvantaged immigrants to Israel. He targeted older Ethiopians - older ones, because he knew there would be programs and opportunities presented to the younger generation and Ethiopians because they are arguably the most disadvantaged class in Israel. He started teaching them jewelry making. Then he found they needed help with the language, so he taught them Hebrew. Then he found that a third of them needed glasses, so he provided that as well. He encouraged them to employ Ethiopian motifs in the jewelry they were making and taught them to make jewelry that was not high end so that it would have a bigger market. Then, to give them something to put on their resumes, he showed their stuff at a show in New York. The Ethiopian jewelry was a hit and the orders began rolling in. Yvel is now in its fourth year training disadvantaged immigrants to make jewelry.

Yael begins our tour at a jewelry store by a different name

We had noticed that one of the buildings in the mall had numbers written on every stone as if the building had been torn down and rebuilt in a new location. She told us that this was indeed the case. The buildings had historical significance because it was here where Theodore Herzl (a father of modern Zionism) had stayed during his one (!) visit to Israel. They were relocated to fit into the new mall. The idea was to sandblast the numbers off the bricks after reassembly, but the the mall was opened for business before all the numbers were cleaned off and the public thought the numbers were cool, so they were left on one of the buildings to commemorate the relocation/renovation effort.

Mamilla Mall musicians and numbered brick building

Build-by-number set

We walked to the far end of the Mamilla Mall and approached the Jaffa gate to the old city. Yael gave us a big talk on security and how we would not linger at the gate if she felt there was any danger. She pointed out security cameras and told us they were all over the old city, along with microphones eavesdropping on conversations. I guess Yael didn't see anything to concern her, because we were able to go through the gate quite slowly as she pointed out several interesting features. First, the fact that the door faces along the city wall so that anyone approaching would be at the mercy of archers positioned along the top of the wall. Second that the doors were quite heavy wood, but faced with metal to protect them from attack with fire. Third that there was a smaller door within the larger door, for times when the large doors must be closed to gain a higher level of security. And finally that once through the door, you had to make an immediate 90 degree turn to enter the city, which would slow down any attacking force.

Ready to go through the Jaffa gate! (Photo: Sandra)

This thing is heavy! (Photo: Sandra)

And you shall write [these words] upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates
(Photo: Sandra)

Despite the security-minded arrangement of the gate, adjacent to it, there was a huge gaping gap in the city wall with a road running through the gap. Yael told us this story. When the Ottoman Empire was in decline, the Sultan in charge of Jerusalem needed an ally against Russia. He bought the loyalty of Kaiser Wilhelm II by gifting him a piece of the Old City. The Kaiser came to visit and wanted to ride in on a horse, as was his practice, but to the resident Moslems, doing so would symbolically imply that the Kaiser was a conqueror, and this could not be allowed. The Kaiser was disappointed, but they worked out a compromise where he could ride in in his horse drawn carriage. However, the carriage could not make the 90 degree turn through the Jaffa gate, so the Sultan had a chunk of the wall torn down so the Kaiser could ride straight in. That hole in the wall is still there and renders the actual gate just a tourist attraction.

Once through the gate we stopped in a small alley that belongs to the Eastern Orthodox Christians. Here there was a lamppost whose base was a section of Roman pillar with a carved inscription in Latin. It included the symbols, "LEG X FR" which I recognized from Masada as meaning the Roman 10th Legion, who had come to Masada from Jerusalem. Here was the evidence that they had indeed been in Jerusalem. As we stood in this Christian alley, Yael told us that in the 1800's, many Christians thought that the second coming of Jesus was imminent and that 12,000 Jews from each of the 12 tribes were needed as part of the process. They began to build businesses, housing and other infrastructure in Jerusalem to absorb the necessary 144,000 Jews. She pointed out the ceiling above us which was painted in the European fashion, though unlike in Europe, it had no images of people, so that it would be acceptable to Jews, since Judaism would regard such images as being idols.

The Roman 10th Legion was here! (Photo: Natalie)

European ceilings, sans faces

We walked past the Tower of David, also known as The Citadel. It was named for King David because it was long thought to be his burial place. While this was later disproved, the name stuck. Just past the Tower of David, was the police station. There is a control room in the police headquarters where all the video and audio feeds from all over the old city are scanned by a computer program that knows how to detect suspicious activity and bring them to the attention of a human for review and possible intervention.

The gated police station entrance

Just beyond the police station is an entrance to the Armenian Quarter. Yael told us that the Armenians were among the earliest Christians and came to Jerusalem before most others, grabbing a big chunk of real estate. She pointed out that the alleyways we were following had very few doors opening onto them and most of those were closed and locked. There were no stores (but for one small market that did not advertise its presence). Yael told us that only Armenians are allowed in the Armenian Quarter, and they get into it via other paths. The path we were on was simply an easement for non-Armenians to get across the quarter to other parts of the Old City.

Just passin' through

We eventually emerged into the Jewish Quarter. Our first stop was a section of Roman street called the Cardo. There were columns lining the street, separating it from a Roman sidewalk. They are no longer there, but there would have been shops along one side, and a roof would have been suspended between the columns and the shop walls. We were on a cross street looking down on the Cardo from above. In 1967 the Cardo had been buried by centuries of accumulated dirt up to the level where we were standing. In the Roman street was a sewer grate. Though it was modern, it was constructed to look like an original Roman sewer grate. I had once learned that the Romans constructed drainage for their roads, but it was very impressive to see it first hand in such an ancient ruin.

Note recreated round sewer grate to left of first full pillar

We descended some steps onto the Cardo itself and followed it into a section where the ancient roof had been partially reconstructed. There were no shops in the reconstructed section, but a life-sized mural at the end of the street depicted what the Cardo may have looked like, including people, animals and commerce.

Ok, line up! Ancient pillars to the left, modern to the right!

Note the time-traveling pomegranate in the foreground of the mural

Further along, there was a section with a mosaic on the wall, which was a recreation of part of a larger mural that appears on an excavated floor in Jordan. The mosaic is a stylized and symbolic map of Jerusalem during the Roman Empire. You can see two Cardos, each depicted with columns. The image is not a perspective drawing and the columns and buildings are shown as if they were lying on the ground. When Romans conquered a town, they would convert it to the Roman style, turning the main North-South street into a Cardo. Jerusalem was a problem in that its streets were not laid out very grid-like and there was no obvious main boulevard to select as the Cardo. The Romans found two candidates for the main boulevard in Jerusalem, and so declared the one on which we were standing to be the Cardo Maximus and the other, which runs along the western side of the temple mount, the Cardo Minimus. On the left side of the mosaic is the Damascus Gate plaza with a single column in the middle of the plaza. The Romans would have set a bust of the Emperor atop the column. As the Emperor was deemed a god, it was expected that upon entering the gate, all visitors would bow to his likeness. This was a problem for Jews, as it would effectively be bowing to an idol. There was much debate among the sages of the time to find an acceptable way to enter Jerusalem. It was finally suggested that, "If your sandal is broken, you must fix it." The solution was to unstrap one's sandal prior to entering the gate of the city, then after walking in through the gate, to bend down to refasten the strap. To an observer in the Roman Legion, it would appear that you are bowing to the Emperor, when in fact all you were doing is tying your shoe. Conspicuously missing from the mosaic is a depiction of the Temple Mount. Yael told us that by this time, the mount was a trash dump, and given that status, would not have been included in the picture.

Cardo Maximus runs across the center with Damascus Gate pillar on the left

Continuing on down the Cardo, the architecture turned Crusader, easily identified by peaked archways. There were also a number of modern shops selling artistic Judaica, similar to the Artists' Colony in Sefat.

Modern art for sale in ancient Jerusalem

Leaving the Cardo, we continued on and came to an excavated ruin of a very thick wall, called the Broad Wall. It was built by Hezakiah to defend against the Assyrians, and encompassing extensions that had been made to the city since the previous wall had been built. As this wall extended into new territory, it often intersected with existing homes and other structures, which were taken essentially by the "eminent domain" procedures of the time. We could see the remains of a house that was just missed by the wall.

Excavated Broad Wall, remains of house on left side, foreground

Not far from the wall, we came to the center of the Jewish Quarter, where there is a large open plaza in front of the restored HaHurvah synagogue. There is a British mailbox in the plaza, placed there during the Mandate, but still used as an active mailbox.

Mandate mailbox

Meet me at the plaza for lunch!

There were a number of restaurants surrounding the plaza and we chose one for lunch that was called simply, "BBQ." We got shwarma and other meaty dishes. The place was crowded and ordering lunch was chaotic, with two energetic Israelis behind the counter managing to keep everything moving and the orders correct. Because Yael regularly brings tours there, they know her and we got a little special treatment. Yael told us we could pay after we ate and I was amazed that 45 minutes later, the guy who had taken dozens of orders since ours remembered exactly what we had ordered without having written anything down.

A meat lover contemplates his prize (Photo: Natalie)

We moved on to the site of a ruined, but not particularly ancient shul. There had been a Chassidic aliyah in the 1800's. They had built a shul, but it took many years to complete because they didn't have much money. When Kaiser Wilhelm II was touring the city and came to the shul, he admired it, but noted that it was missing a ceiling. The intent had been to cap it with a dome, but there hadn't been the funds to do so. The Chassidim managed to appeal to the Kaiser to fund the completion of the synagogue; however, in the 1948 War of Independence, the Jordanians destroyed it.

Roofs: easy come, easy go

Across the alleyway from the ruin was a compound belonging to the Karaite Jews. This sect rejected the rabbinical interpretation of the Torah (the Talmud), and instead read it literally. In the 9th century, they were gaining influence, eventually attracting at least 30% of the Jews to their way of thinking. The Rabbi Saadia Gaon managed to turn that around and the influence of the Karaites subsequently declined.

Yael pointed out an "ambucycle" motorcycle ambulance parked on the narrow street. This motorcycle was part of a volunteer organization called United Hatzalah. Members of this organization serve as paramedics and are able to transport medical supplies quickly through the narrow streets of the city much faster than a conventional ambulance could. While the motorcycle cannot transport a patient, it has all the equipment needed to stabilize a patient until transport arrives, often as much as 15-30 minutes later! The result is that lives are saved when they might otherwise be lost simply because of heavy traffic.

Shin for Shadai?

Our next stop was the Wohl Archaeological Museum, which contains the excavated ruins of some homes likely belonging to wealthy families during the Herodian period. When we purchased tickets to enter, they offered different ticket packages for combinations of other sites round Jerusalem. We bought a package that also included the Jerusalem Archaeological Park Davidson Center, excavations at the South-West corner of the temple mount. The Wohl Museum Herodian site has a modern yeshiva built on top of it. The yeshiva building is supported by modern pillars rising out of the excavation. In this way, the land could be used in a productive manner while the archaeologists continue to work on the excavation, and that which has already been excavated can be toured by the likes of us. While in this museum, Yael pulled out some maps she had brought with her. One was a topographic map showing the peaks and valleys of Jerusalem. Interestingly the valleys form the Hebrew letter shin, which she had highlighted on her map, suggesting G-d's own signature on the holiest place on earth (in Hebrew, the letter shin by itself can stand for Shadai, one of the names of G-d).

The excavation we were in had been a hillside, but the excavation was mostly level. We were starting at the top of the hill and the ruin of the first house we visited was of a bottom level of the house. The upper levels of the house would have been destroyed and removed. Moving forward through the museum, the next house would have been lower down the hill, so the excavated layer was of a higher story in the house than the previous. There were four houses all together and all were well appointed and were positioned near the bottom of the ramp that would have been used by the Kohanim (the priests) to enter the Temple Mount.

Map showing Temple Mount with the 4 excavated houses in red near bottom of preists' ramp

What was once a really nice house

It is likely then that these homes belonged to Kohanim. There was a display of carved stoneware dishes, as well as pottery, stoneware being a much more expensive accoutrement. There was a display of stone pillars, one of which was Corinthian, with elaborate carvings. There was a beautiful tile floor that was covered with dust from the dust storm. Yael poured some water onto it so we could see the colors more clearly.

Partially washed tile floor

Who needs molding when you have Corinthian pillars in your house?

These were clearly multi-storied homes

Restored menorah drawing recovered from house

Burned wood remains from 2000 years ago!

One piece of evidence that would suggest that these homes belonged to the Kohanim, was a drawing of the 7 branch menorah that is described in the Torah and would have adorned the Holy Temple. Only the Kohanim would have ever actually seen the menorah. The Arch of Titus in Rome depicts the Romans taking away the artifacts from the destroyed second temple. Among these artifacts is the menorah. The menorah drawing found in this house has a different base than the one depicted in the Arch of Titus. The Torah is not specific about the appearance of the base. There needs to be an explanation for the discrepancy between the two images. One possible explanation is that knowing that the Romans were going to seize the artifacts from the temple, the Jews built a fake one and hid the real one. Since no one but the Kohanim had ever seen the real menorah, it would not have been important to make the fake identical to the original, and in fact they may have wanted to make it look different so they could distinguish the real from the fake. Another display showed burned wood that dates to the time of the destruction of the second temple. The Talmud tells us that the temple was destroyed on Tisha B'Av (the 9th of the Jewish month of Av) in the Jewish year 3830, which is the year 70 CE, so we can know exactly when this wood was burned.

Me, upon learning the theory about the menorah etching in the Kohanim's home
(Photo: Natalie)

We left the museum and continued on to the Kotel, the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall. The Kotel is the western retaining wall of the temple mount. While it was not the wall of the Holy Temple itself, it is considered the holiest site in Judaism because it is the nearest point to where the temple stood that is under Jewish control (the Moslem-controlled Dome of the Rock stands on the top of the temple mount where the Jewish temple once stood). In front of the Kotel is a large open plaza. We had to go through a security checkpoint to get to the plaza. Prior to the Six Day War, this area had been covered with homes and shops, but when the Jews captured the Western Wall in 1967, they cleared the area and created the open plaza. Off to the side was a large metal tank. If anyone leaves a backpack, purse or package unattended near the Kotel, the police send out a robot to pick up the package and deposit it into this tank, where it is then blown up.

The Kotel on the right with the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount

View of the wall from the plaza

That tank is the bomb!

Since we don't know G-d's e-mail address, it is a custom among Jews to write prayers on small pieces of paper and slip them into the cracks in the wall. While Yael waited in the plaza, the rest of us took pen to paper and then approached the Kotel. One does not have to be an observant Jew, or even a slightly practicing one, to be awed by the Kotel. While there have been many disputes over the centuries as to who controls the land, no one disputes what this wall is. To be Jewish and to stand at that wall 2000 years after our temple was destroyed and our people exiled is certainly a miracle. One cannot help stand there and ask, "Why am I here," much as one would ask such existential questions while gazing at a star-filled sky on a dark night. Our time at the Kotel was not spent together, but rather alone, each having our own personal experience. David stopped at the Chabad table to put on a tallis (prayer shawl) and tefillin (boxes containing sections of the Torah that are worn on the head and arm by Jewish men) and then got down to some serious davening (praying) at the wall. I slipped my small pieces of paper into some cracks and spent a few minutes focusing on where I was and what it meant to be there.

Writing notes to G-d (Photo: Natalie)

Benjamin at the wall

David at the wall

When we had all finally gathered again, we went to the entrance of the Davidson Center excavation and there began a very long and heated discussion in Hebrew between Yael and the guy in the ticket booth. It appeared to me that there was something wrong with the ticket package we had purchased at the Wohl Museum and that he wasn't going to let us in. After 10 full minutes of loud argument, he finally let us in. As we walked away from the ticket booth Yael explained. She had told him that we had purchased combo tickets at the Wahl museum. The ticket guy then spent ten of our precious minutes lecturing her on the fact that a "combo" ticket gets you into four sites and that we didn't have "combo" tickets because our tickets were only for two sites. He had been arguing semantics for 10 minutes, but it was completely irrelevant since the tickets we had purchased did in fact allow us to enter the Davidson excavation!

As we walked into the museum, Yael had us stop and used Natalie's, Benjamin's and David's heads and arms to illustrate how King Herod had renovated and extended the temple mount for the second temple. He had built arches to support a large platform on which the temple and two other buildings stood. We watched a short film showing what it would have been like to be a Jew coming to the temple on one of the festivals to offer a sacrifice.

A human model of the temple mount construction

Access was restricted to Jews only, and they first had to bathe in a mikveh (ritual bath), of which there were several surrounding the Temple Mount. On the south side of the mount, a broad set of stairs lead up to 3 arches, entry ways (now sealed) to tunnels that led up to the mount and the first view of the temple. The stairs are not evenly spaced. Yael asked if we could walk up a normal flight of stairs while doing other things, like checking e-mail on our phone or having a conversation with someone. She suggested that the uneven steps may have been placed there to force one to concentrate while ascending to the mount, as the purpose of doing so was serious and of the greatest import.

Following a meal in which bread is eaten, observant Jews recite the Grace After Meals, called Birkat Hamazon in Hebrew. A different preface to the grace is said on Shabbat and on holidays than is said during the normal work week. We refer to this preface by its first words, Shir Hama'alot, which means "song of ascents." As we ourselves ascended the steps, Yael helped us to translate the words of Shir Hama'alot:

A song of ascents. When the Lord will return the exiles of Zion, we will have been like dreamers. Then our mouth will be filled with laughter, and our tongue with songs of joy; then will they say among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for these.” The Lord has done great things for us; we were joyful. Lord, return our exiles as streams to arid soil. Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He goes along weeping, carrying the bag of seed; he will surely return with songs of joy, carrying his sheaves.

The steps up to the southern wall, the wall itself, the Kotel (Western Wall) and all that had been excavated in the Davidson Center were all remnants of the second temple. There had of course been a first temple, the temple built by King Solomon. It had been destroyed by the Babylonians and the Jews taken back to Babylonia as captives. Eventually the Jews returned and the second temple was built. In this context, the words of Shir Hama'alot had quite a lot of meaning as we translated them from Hebrew while on the southern steps to the temple mount.

Having returned to Zion from our exile in Babylon, we now sing as we ascend the steps of the temple mount. Passing through the three archways, we would have entered dark tunnels leading up to the top of the temple mount. As we came out of the tunnels, we would be facing the large white temple of G-d. At this latitude, the sun would be behind us in the southern sky, reflecting blindingly off the white temple, as if in a dream. We would be carrying in our arms sheaves of grain, the first fruits of our harvest, as a sacrifice to G-d.

Though it was now dark out and the three archways sealed up so that we could not pass through, we could not help but feel as if we ourselves were climbing the steps to the temple to offer our own sacrifice.

The steps up to the temple mount (Photo: Natalie)

One of the three arched tunnel entrances, now sealed

Moving on, Yael showed us the huge Herodian stones that were used to build the wall. Each has a margin carved into it, with the upper margin a different size from the lower so they would know how to orient it in the wall. The sides of the stones were so flat and precise that no mortar was needed to join one stone to the next. At the corners, the long side of the stones were alternated between southern wall and western wall, the way you would do with Lincoln Logs or Lego in order to give the structure strength.

Turning the corner to the western side, we saw where the Cardo Minimus pavement had been broken by stones from the destruction above being hurled to the ground. There was a particularly big crater underneath the Robinson arch, indicating that the whole arch must have dropped at once. To break the building stones apart, the Romans pounded wooden wedges between them and then wet the wedges. As the wood absorbed the water, it would expand and force the stones apart.

The view down the Cardo Minimus along the western side of the temple mount

The remains of the Robinson Arch above our heads...

...and the destruction to the Cardo pavement where the arch came crashing down

We explored some excavated mikvehs into which we could descend. While we stood in the mikevehs taking pictures, we heard two loud explosions. Yael didn't get excited by them, so we kept calm, but it was obvious she was wondering whether or not it was serious. By now it was pretty dark, so it was time to leave. As we were heading towards the exit, we then heard what sounded like automatic gunfire. But after a bit, the pattern of the sound didn't seem right for gunfire. When we got to the exit, we saw they were setting up a stage and equipment for some event. The explosions had been the setup crew dropping something heavy and the automatic weapons fire had been a cart being rolled across the stonework pavement.

Looking down into the mikveh (Photo: Natalie)

Looking up from the mikveh (Photo: Natalie)

We exited the city through the Dung gate and got on a free shuttle to the First Station, which had been the first train station in Jerusalem. They have since moved the train station and today First Station is a cool hang out with restaurants, live music and a kiddie park. It is heavily used by the non-religious, but the restaurants are kosher. We were joined by Yael's children, Yasmine, Eden and Eiton. We had a very nice dinner and then walked a little more than a mile back to our apartment. By the end of our visit to Jerusalem, we all felt that this day had been the highlight of the whole trip.