Day 8 - Mount Zion & Yad Vashem

We awoke this morning, our first in Jerusalem, with anticipation of things to come in the City of David. Our first destination would be Mt. Zion and the traditional sites of King David’s Tomb, the Upper Room and Caiaphas’ house.

The Upper Room is right above the traditional site King David’s Tomb (how convenient!) and has changed hands from the early Christian church to the Persians back to the Church to the Crusaders and the Franciscans to the Muslims and finally back to the Franciscans. So we now have the remnants of a mosque on top of a Jewish holy site that is supposed to be the Christian holy site of our Lord’s Last Supper – most confusing.

Further on down Mt. Zion, we found Caiaphas’ house where we looked out towards the old city and the south entrance of the temple where the dome of the rock now stands. Beyond we could see Mount Scopus, the Mount of Olives and the Mount of Offense where Solomon built pagan shrines for his foreign wives. At the base of the Mount of Olives is an ancient graveyard and Tim reminded us of the word pictures that Jesus used to describe the Pharisees and teachers of the Law: white washed tombs.

I forgot to mention that our hotel, the King Solomon, is right next to the King David Hotel – what a coincidence! The King David happens to be the preferred accommodation of visiting dignitaries, heads of state and Hollywood stars. To give us a full appreciation of Jerusalem during Passover or other holy pilgrimages, President Bush decided to visit the city: streets were jammed, security was tight, people were edgy, and the routes to our hotel were blocked. In my imagination, it was just how Jerusalem would have been with Christ entering the city for Passover. It also meant that our plans would be altered and then altered again as the President wanted to visit the Israel Museum on the same day as us. He wanted to visit it on his own and we agreed that would be best.

This gave us more time for Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum, which definitely merited it. Pilar lead us with her passionate and sympathetic manner through the Children’s Memorial, Janusz Korczak square, Pillar of Heroism and the new Holocaust History Museum. We probably could have spent all day here; in fact, the staff came through half an hour before closing to inform me that they would be closing in 30 minutes and I was only 1/10^th of the way through the exhibit. Yad Vashem is a disturbing yet fitting memorial to the 6 million Jews who lost their lives in the holocaust. It reminds us just how thin our veneer of civilization is and how morally depraved unregenerate man really is. It also takes us all back to that time to show the culpability of all the nations, not just Nazi Germany.

We left Yad Vashem emotionally drained and some returned to the hotel to end the day early while others ventured on to Bethlehem. I did not go, so you will have to hear about Bethlehem from the others.

- Colin for Tim