When we got there, this yellow car needed to park. Unlike in the US when a car parks at the side of the road, this one parked on the sidewalk, like all the other cars did! ROTFL! And I think *I* am a lousy parker!
The British were in charge of "Palestine" until the UN declared it the state of Israel in 1948. It's long for me to explain, but basically, this prison used to be a hostel for women who made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land from Russia (before it became communist and religion was outlawed). The British converted into a prison. The prison is pretty interesting because of this fact. They did not ruin the basic design, just added elements to it. The British used this for Jews who were political prisoners, common criminals, and Arabs. (The Arabs were kept separate from the Jews.) We saw a synagogue that they had in the prison. Reb Aryeh Levin used to visit the prisoners. Leah shared many beautiful stories about him. One story is a very haunting one ... The British mixed the political prisoners with the Jewish criminals. R"L, there was a man in there who had murdered his wife. The other prisoners didn't like him, and were upset that he was in their cell. At one point he decided he wanted to put on tefillin. When he did, he put the tefillin on the wrong arm. The other prisoners thought he was just mocking them. When asked why he did that, he said, "I can't put tefillin on the hand that I used to kill my wife".
When we left, I got very excited because I noticed a "dogwood" tree like we have back home. Then Leah told me that it wasn't a dogwood, it is an almond tree! How cool to see the actual tree blooming exactly the way all my kids learned in kindergarten (thank you Moran Perel!).
After the snack, we needed to catch the Light Rail. We passed a store with a very nice address ...
We had some time to kill, so we went to Yad LaKashish gift store. This is a very unique store. All the stuff in there is handmade by seniors. I picked up some really cool gifts. www.lifeline.org.il
We wanted to grab a snack, so we headed off to Machane Yehuda. This is similar to the other shopping areas, but it seemed to me to be a bit more upscale. We passed some gorgeous modern architecture on the way there. I was happy to have some "healthy" food. Muffins made with whole wheat and a healthy form of sugar, etc. The food was yummy and the service was great. On the way there, we passed an interesting restaurant ...
And here is yours truly riding the Light Rail --
When we arrived at our stop, we headed to the Gush Katif musuem. Let me tell you. I visited a lot of places, and they all touched me different ways. This was different. This one literally broke my heart. First, I met Shlomo Wasserteil, curator and director of the musuem. Now it just so happens that this past summer, one of the frum magazines ran an article commemorating the 10 year anniversary of the expulsion. (It turns out he had family who lived in Richmond for a year. With Yidden, the world is sooooo small.) I remembered reading about him.
If you live in a bubble and have no idea what I am talking about, in 2005, Israel gave part of its land, Gaza, to the Arabs. They physically came in and removed the Yidden who were living there. The communities in Gush Katif were very homogeneous. They lived together with harmony and love, all types of Yidden. They were very self-sufficent, exporting $60,000,000 a year! To watch the videos of the expulsion was excruciating for me. You see Yidden crying and clinging to the shul, and you see young IDF soldiers crying as they have to remove them and the sefrei Torah. The people wrote messages to the IDF on their homes. One teenager said, "I never understood about Hashem wanting His house back until I lost mine. I hope Hashem gets His house back quickly so I can get mine back." (I am not quoting directly; trying to remember the quote.)
Gush Katif had 10,000 Yidden living there. Now adays, people say that if we give back Yehuda and Shomron (Chas v'shalom!), then we will have peace. However, 10 years later, 300 families STILL do not have homes! Yehuda and Shomron have 550,000 Yidden living there. Where do people expect them to go??? Of all the places I have been to, and all the places I have seen, this was the more painful to visit. Visiting the Kosel, you see the destruction the Romans did. The churban is awful, but it is not like this. This was with our hands. Yiddishe soldiers doing something as awful as this, it is too much to bear. It is so hard to wrap my brain around this. Before the expulsion, 6000 rockets landed on Gush Katif. One Yid, only ONE Yid, lost their life. Since the expulsion, over 18,000 rockets have been launched.
What did we get from doing this? We destroyed communities that were living the Zionist dream. They took barren land and made it bloom. They lived together in peace. So, so, so heartbreaking.
On our way to the Israel Museum, we stopped at the Shuk so my mom could get a quick look at it. We passed this interesting painting on the side of the building.
Leah told me that there are more around the country. They were painted by French artists. (Again, it seems to me that Israel has an intense concentration of incredibly talented artists!)
The Israel Museum is a huge complex. One of the most famous exhibits is the Dead Sea scrolls. One of the things on my to-do list was seeing the replica of the second Bais Hamikdash. I think that is 50:1 scale.
Seeing this huge model really helped me understand the walls around the city. I knew Jerusalem was a walled city. But I didn't understand how come the whole place is considered a wall city. I saw the wall around the Old city, but what about the rest of it? Leah explained how there was one wall, and a second wall, and a third wall. Now in the first picture, you can see a wall around the entire city. There is a second wall near the bottom, and a third wall going up from there. (I hope I got those correct!) I was AMAZED to see how far Leah, Shmueli, and I walked on the Ramparts Walk! I saw Ir Dovid and how far we went down to the pool in the tunnel tour. When we walked around the other side, I saw how long the Western Wall is, and where the bridges they spoke about on the Kosel Tunnel Tour actually was. This mode was made in the '50s, if I remember correctly. (I'm sorry; I'm so tired and I can't remember everything correctly.)
We saw the Dead Sea scrolls, but there was no photography allowed there. At least, so I thought because there were signs up saying that. (We found out later you can take pictures without flash.)
Next we went through the Tanach archeology. We saw posts and vessels and other things. There is a stone that they found talking about Dovid Hamelech. We saw proof after proof after proof that what it says in the Tanach happened. (Not that I doubted it; it is just cool to see science acknowledge what we already know.) One thing that I have found very comforting on this visit is that I am living history. I am walking into the places where my ancestors walked. We spent a very long time going through the archeology. When we got to the end, I discovered so many stunning pieces of Judaica. Sadly, we were tired and hungry at this point. There was one way we could do it justice. So now it is on my to-do list when I return. (Yes, I HAVE to come back.) Stunning clothes, shuls, kiddush cups, menorahs, pesach stuff, etc. A stunning sukkah they got out of Germany before the shoah ...
Tomorrow is a very long day, 12 hours of touring, so I am going to sign off here.
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