Jerusalem - Part 1

After the work week, I took a day trip to Jerusalem.  Our first stop on the tour was the Mount of Olives, where we had a beautiful view overlooking the old city.  The gold domed building is on the site of the original Temple in Jerusalem - Temple Mount.  A Jewish temple has not been on the site since the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in the first century.  The current building with the gold dome is a mosque, known as the Dome of the Rock.

 

The Mount of Olives is covered with cemeteries and tombstones.  It is believed that when Christ returns, he will come through a gate in Old Jerusalem that faces the Mount of Olives.  So many Jewish people want to be buried facing that gate.  During our visit, a van pulled up with these very ultra Orthodox Jews who came to visit the cemetery and pray. 

 

Jerusalem was the only place in Israel where I saw many people dressed like this, in traditional clothing.  It was not common in Tel Aviv, near my work location or in Nazareth and Galilee, where I visited the next day. 

Another view of the Mount of Olives from below.  The trees near the bottom of the picture are where the Garden of Gethsemane was located. 

 

We drove around the city to reach Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.  You may remember that in the last month I have visited Auschwitz in Poland and the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam.  I may be a little worn out on the Holocaust (don't take that the wrong way - it can be depressing!). 

 

So the hour we spent at the museum was sufficient for me, but it was a really nice museum with TONS of information - it would be easy to spend an entire day there.  Not only do they house the museum, but also a research center where they are working to locate the names of all the people who died during the Holocaust.  It is an impressive project and there is one room full of books with the names they have identified.  This is the outside of the museum complex.

 

Another view over the city of Jerusalem from the museum - you can see how mountainous the area is and how green - not the desert I had expected. 

 

Finally, within the museum complex they had these small plaques placed in the gardens.  Each one if the name of someone who helped save Jewish lives during WW2.  These people are known as "Righteous Among the Nations" - they mention this at the end of Schindler's List and there is a plaque for Oscar and Emily Schindler, although it was too crowded to get a picture of it.  Here is an example.  More than 20,000 people have been recognized.