Tower of David Museum (Roman Krivochenitser)

Tower of David Museum

13 July 2008, tour leader Barak Zemer
Report submitted by Roman Krivochenitser

We began our journey through the Tower of David Museum by talking about the Return to Zion that took place under the Persian rule a few short decades after the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. In 526 BCE, Nehemiah and the Jews returned to Jerusalem to reconstruct a the Temple on the site of the First Temple on the Temple Mount, thus commencing the era of the Second Temple. Construction begins in 535 BCE and the Temple is dedicated in 515 BCE. Five centuries later, King Herod (“the Builder”) (73–4 BCE) greatly expands the Temple. (Thus, it is more accurate perhaps to speak of two Second Temples. Herod's popularity within the Jewish population had begun to wane and the construction of the “most beautiful structure in the world” was to help him save face with his people. The Herodian temple compound consisted of a massive vaulted platform with an area equal to twenty-seven American football fields. This Temple is destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE in the wake of the Jewish revolt against their rule. The Roman Caesar who conquered Jerusalem, Titus, issued a coin bearing the words “Iudaea Capta,” “Jerusalem is Captured” to let it be known that the Romans are now in power. Angering the Jews further, the Roman Legion put their symbol, the boar, on top of Temple Mount. This systematic repression of the Jewish population and the calculated denigration of their religion caused wide outrage within the Jewish community, which led to what became known as the Bar Kochba Revolt (132-135 CE). The Romans were once again able to quell the revolt, killing thousands of Jews. They destroyed the last Jewish independent Jewish city, Beitar, in 135 CE on Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the month of Av. According to tradition, this is same day that both of the Jewish temples were also destroyed.

The early Romans were pagan until 324 CE when Constantine decided to convert to Christianity and make Christianity the official faith of the empire. This change was largely inspired by his mother, Helena, who came to Jerusalem to seek out the path of Jesus and had a series of visions that told her where significant events of Jesus' life and Passion had occured. She found the Holy Cross upon which Jesus was crucified on and erected the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the Golgotha, the site of the crucifixion. Constantine also moved the capital of the empire east from Rome to Byzantium (later known as Constantinople and now Istanbul). Thus commenced the time period known as the Byzantine Era. According to the last words of Jesus, Temple Mount was not to be rebuilt and it was left in ruins, converted into a garbage dump by the Christians. The only day that Jews could visit there was on Tisha B’Av, the day the holy Temple was destroyed, as a symbol of their humiliation and God's disfavor.

During the sixth and seventh centuries, the Byzantine Empire was engaged in clashes with the other superpower of the time, the Persians--to the diminishment of both. Thus weakened, they were easy prey for the raiding Muslim conquerers exploding out of the Arabian Peninsula beginning in the fourth decade of the seventh century and conquering in the space of a few decades the entire Middle East, North Africa, Spain and the Balkans.

According to the Qur'an, Jerusalem is the third holiest city after Mecca and Medina because the rock upon which the Dome of the Rock sits (the same rock upon which according to Jewish tradition Abram was commanded to sacrifice Isaac and upon which stood both the First and Second Temples) is where Mohammed ascended to the heavens, and tradition maintains that an indentation on the rock is the footprint of the Prophet. Similarly, the Qur'an mentions a "night journey" in which Allah took his servant (Muhammad) "from the holiest mosque (Mecca) to furthest.” Muslim interpreters held that the reference was to Jerusalem. Indeed, initially, attempting to establish his claim as a continuation of the revealed religions of Judaism (and Christianity) Muhammad established Jerusalem as the first qibla, direction of prayer for Muslims. It was only later when his mission to the Jews was largely rejected that he changed the direction of prayer to Mecca. In comparison to the position of Jews under Christianity, Jews fared much better under Islam, and were allowed to return to Jerusalem and worship at the Western Wall and the Mount of Olives.

At the end of the eleventh century, the Pope announces the Crusades to liberate Jerusalem from the heathens (Jews and Muslims) and retake Jerusalem for Christianity. The Crusaders go on a rampage, killing many thousands of Jews on their path through Europe to the and Muslims in their path to take over the city. However, they do not destroy the Dome of the Rock or the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. Instead, they convert the structures into Christian churches, renaming the Dome of the Rock "Templum Domini" and the Al Aqsa mosque "Templum Solomani" (mistakenly identifying it with the site of Solomon's Temple).

In the 1287 the great Muslim leader Saladin defeated the Crusaders at the decisive battle at the Horns of Hittin and drove the last Crusaders out of Jerusalem in the name of Islam. This time period became known as the Mamluke Era. The Mamlukes were slave soldiers, kidnapped by Muslim leaders from Mongolia and raised from childhood as warrors. Eventually they seized power and ruled over the empire. In the early 16th century they were defeated by the Ottoman Turks, continuing Muslim domination of the holy city. Much of the city wall we oberve today was by the Turks.

Europeans began to enter the scene as the Ottoman Empire began to decline. In 1869, the Austro-Hungarian emperor, Franz Josef II, came to Jerusalem and built the first road to the city. A short time later in 1898, the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, came to the city and the part of the wall adjacent to the Jaffa Gate was taken down so his carriages could enter Jerusalem. The same year train tracks were first laid in Jerusalem, connecting it to the port city of Jaffa. This European infiltration went hand in hand with the decline and eventual collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1917 in the wake of World War I. At this time, the empire was carved up among France and England, with the latter being assigned a Mandate over Palestine (including the territory of today's Kingdom of Jordan) by the League of Nations. . At the beginning of the Mandate in 1918, Jerusalem’s population was mostly Arab. Although the British tried to restrict immigration, Zionism was quickly picking up steam and near the end of the Mandate the population was 50% Jews and 50% Arabs. The British were increasing caught in the conflict and turned over responsibility for resolution of the conflict to the UN. In 1947 the UN passed a partition plan calling for the establishment of a Jewish and Arab state in the area west of the Jordan River. The Jewish community in Palestine accepted the terms of the plan, but the Arabs rejected it and began to attack Jewish forces. With the pullout of the British, David Ben-Gurion declared the independence of Israel on May 15, 1948 and the new state was immediately attacked by five invading Arab armies. Our tour of the Tower of David Museum concluded with the British Mandate Period. We did not have the opportunity to learn about the development of the modern state of Israel yet. However, we did see the changes that Jerusalem had gone through over the centuries and the important hold the city has on the adherents of the three Abrahamic faiths.

Jewish Exodus Out from the Old City and the Period of the British Mandate (Avram Finerman)

Jewish Exodus Out from the Old City and the Period of the British Mandate

13 July 2008, tour leader Barak Zemer
Report submitted by Avram Finerman

~Turkish Period and Mishkenot
Barak started by informing us that during the Turkish period the old city was in horrible condition. Since this location is very holy to Jews, some pious individuals overcame the difficulties, and went on religious pilgrimages and immigrated to be buried on the Mt. of Olives. At the same time the Ottoman Empire was weakening and the British and other Western powers started to gain power in the area, which allowed the Christians to make compounds outside the city walls primarily for religious pilgrims. These events also led up to founding of the first Jewish community outside the city walls in 1860. This community was named Mishkenot She'ananim, meaning safe dwelling. The community had a locked iron gate and a large stone wall for protection of the new community. All of the windows face the Old City to make it the focus.
The philanthropist, Moses Montefiore, donated all the money to build this gated community. The reason he did this was to have someone to remember him and mourn his death because he had no heirs. He ensured this place would be extremely sanitary and tight security and he put up regulations to ensure that it would be more desirable that the old city. In the end, twelve of the families were Ashkenazi and twelve Sephardim to ensure no biases but at first, it was hard to convince them, until there was a huge famine in the Old City and they knew this would be much more comfortable. Sir Montefiore was the manger of the society and decided to bring most of the construction material from England. He wanted a "New Jew" who would work in industry, so he brought a windmill, but it broke quite often and took a long time to fix which was a big problem. Now a carriage Sir Montefiore used in Europe serves as a memorial for him. Later the British did not like that the Jews could spy from the windmill so they blew the top off it. (Trivia note: It was here that our tour guide Barack proposed to his wife.)

* British
When Jerusalem was conquered from the Ottomans in December 1917, Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, sent General Allenby a message: "I want Jerusalem as a Christmas present for the British people." The Ottoman Empire’s mayor of the Jerusalem area had an order to step down and he decided to have a ceremony handing over the city of Jerusalem to the Christian world. This Ottoman Empire really struggled on whom to give the ceremony to and went to five people until finally reaching the cornel of the British because everyone else said they were not official enough. The Jews of Jerusalem celebrated as well when Allenby walked through the Jaffa Gate into the Old City because of the British promise of a Jewish State under the terms of the Balfour Declaration. The day was seen as especially propitious as because it was the first night of Hanukkah, the Jewish holiday celebrating independence from the Seleucid Greeks. At the beginning of the British Mandate, Balfour participated in the dedication of the Hebrew University. At this time, a British officer with the surname "French" was stationed on a hill near Mt. Scopus, which until this day is referred to as French Hill. (The Hebrew name for the hill is actually a misnomer as it translates "The French Hill.")

Some interesting facts:
• The British declared Jerusalem as their capital during the Mandate.
• The British found themselves facing a large wave Jewish immigration due to growing European anti-Semitism and the promise of a Jewish homeland.
• Private Harry Potter of the British is buried in the British military cemetery atop Mt. Scopus which we walk by everyday on our way to campus.
• Mishkenot She'ananim is built atop a Second Temple burial ground.

* King David Hotel
The Mandate given to Britain included the areas both to the west and east of the Jordan River (Cis- and Transjordan, respectively. In order to reward the Hashemite clan of Arabia for their support during the First World War, the British decide to carve Jordan from part of their Mandate. The hotel's construction was financed by wealthy Cairene Jews and opened in 1931. This was the period of Arab riots protesting Jewish immigration that resulted in British White Papers limiting Jewish immigration. From 1936 to 1939, a decline in tourism allowed the British to rent the southern wing of the hotel for administrative and military headquarters. In 1946, angered by the restrictions on immigration and lack of movement on British departure from Palestine, the Irgun underground, after issuing a warning the British ignored, bombed the hotel and 91 people died—both soldiers and civilians (some of who were Jewish). Since the foundation of the State, nearly all visiting dignitaries stay at this hotel (including U.S. presidents and other celebrities). With the rich history of this building, Israel has ensured the preservation of the building's original appearance. For more information, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel

*YMCA International Building
This YMCA, located across King David Street from the King David Hotel, opened in 1933 and set out to be an oasis of tolerance for members of the three monotheistic religions. The building was designed by Arthur Loomis Harmon, a partner of the same architectural firm that created New York’s Empire State Building in 1931. He included in the design religious symbolism: thus, for example, the twelve windows in the auditorium's dome to symbolize the number of the Israelite tribes, of Jesus' disciples, and of the original followers of Muhammad. The building aimed to connect to the past by having the foundation of the building replicate the ancient Herodian stones of the Old City. The purpose of this building was ultimately to unite the Jews and Arabs under their Mandate. Along with this, some Christians hoped by bringing back the Jews the second coming of Jesus would occur. For more information, see:
http://www.jerusalemymca.org/ENG/Building/Building.html
http://www.jerusalemymca.org/ENG/History/History.html

* Palace Hotel
The British allowed Jews and Arabs to build but the Palace Hotel was the only successful place the Arabs built. After many years of deterioration, the question was the balance of preservation vs. rebuilding of the hotel. It was decided to leave the outside but tear down the inside. A quote on the original outside says we should build as they have. The hotel took only one year to build, but the Arab uprising prevented it to succeed and just like the King David Hotel, it become a British military compound and completely rented out. During the occupation of the Palace Hotel, the British cared less about the Arab-Jewish conflict and instead only cared about their personal safety. During the 1930’s during upware- partition plan for the Jews and Arabs the British used this Hotel.

* Ben Yehuda Area during the Turkish Period
Rabbi Mikhala Sheva decided to build a settlement outside the city wall and bought the land with seven families and they registered it with the secretary. Then they raised enough money to build one house to start and had a raffle to see who would live in it. The Rabbi continued his program in 11 areas and died very accomplished yet very poor. This community had streets with a width large enough for a donkey with to sacks to pass through.

* General Post Office
During the Mandate period, a regular and efficient postal service was organized. In the Central Post Office on Jaffa Street, a mural depicts heavenly Jerusalem and the return of the Jews from Babylon to Zion. Then it shows families of farmers rebuilding the city. In the building, the British decided to use the languages of Hebrew, Arabic, and English, which became the official languages of Israel. During this time, the British also made a law that all buildings must have Jerusalem stone on the outside. In addition, they banned new buildings adjacent to the Old City in order to preserve its ambience. Finally, the city center became centered upon the Postal Service.

*Break for Lunch* at Kikar Safra (site of Jerusalem City Hall)

*Women’s Hostel – Prison during the British Mandate
The British took over the Russian Compound and converted the former women's hostel into a prison. This prison at first was just for thieves, but then they used it for the political opposition, especially for members of the Jewish underground. The Jews felt they needed to care for themselves so that is what made them create the Jewish Underground “Defense Haganah,” The British made it illegal to possess or use weapons, so if anyone was caught, they could face death or a life sentence. The main Jewish underground organization, the Haganah ("defense") was very popular among the Jews of Palestine and most chose to affiliate with it. In addition to the Haganah, there was two other Jewish underground groups--Lehi and the Etzel—that were deemed terrorist groups by the British. These groups opposed each other, reflecting the division within the Jewish community as to how to move toward statehood. Barak described how one would need to go through a series of three checkpoints in order to reach the prison. However, within the prison the prisoner’s main concern was their friends, family, and the status of their underground. Within the cells, the prisoners obtained a mat to sleep on, slippers and a blanket and nothing more, except for one inmate who received a bed and mattress because he kept order in the cell. Then we learned that the lowest member of the cell slept by the bucket used for human waste. The goal of many of the underground prisoners was to escape, so they continuously thought of escape methods to go back on duty.
Special treatment was granted to prisoners convicted of lesser crimes and these were housed in a cell adjacent to the bakery oven—this was desirable because the winters were freezing and there was no other source of heat. These prisoners also got the privilege of more outdoor time. The Revisionist leader, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, was among those arrested for possession of weapons. Many of the other Zionist leaders were arrested as well, which made the Zionist leaders nervous upon how the underground would do without them. With the Arabs riots in 1939, immigration became extrememly limited for Jews who wanted to leave Europe because of Hitler’s rise to power. Initially, Germany sought to solve its Jewish "problem" by allowing its Jews to emigrate; they were able to score a large propoganda victory and prepare the way for the Final Solution when no country would accept them. After that, Jews started illegal immigration into Palestine. The reaction of the new Yishuv was to destroy the infrastructure of the British to fight against the White Papers that limited immigration.
Some prisoners escaped by building tunnels with extreme caution and with the help of Jewish guards. We were told a story about a rabbi named Aryeh Levine would always come to be with the prisoner on Shabbat always and how beloved he was both by religious and secular prisoners. The Rabbi would memorize prisoners' messages to convey to their families because the prisoners could only write letters once a month. This Rabbi was even able to convince the British to build a kosher kitchen.

Some other interesting facts about the prison:
• Poor sanitation so horrible that mice ran around and mousetraps were set up nearly everywhere.
• Most of the prisoners only got a half hour of time outside in the yard. During one of the play times in 1947, there was an Arab- Jewish riot within the prison and that forced the British to separate Jews and Arabs.
• Two Jewish prisoners, Me'ir Feinsten and Moshe Barazani, facing execution, blow themselves up with a grenade smuggled into the prison within an orange. Menahem Begin was so moved by their action that he had himself buried next to them on the Mount of Olives.

Ottoman Decline and European Infiltration (Kallie Eisenberger)

Ottoman Decline and European Infiltration
8 July 2008, tour leader Barak Zemer
Report submitted by Kallie Eisenberger

Today we continued through time to the four-century period of Turkish rule in Jerusalem, which began in the 16th century and lasted up until the end of the First World War. We began the tour by noting that the majority of the visible Old City walls are relatively new for Jerusalem, about 450 years old, and were built by the Turks. We learned that throughout this entire time period Jerusalem was relatively unimportant and was not even the capital. We were left wondering why then did Suleiman the Magnificent, the great Ottoman builder, order the construction of the wall?

One tale describes how every night Suleiman went to sleep while his wife sang to him. One night, however, she had a sore throat and couldn’t sing for him and on this night he had a nightmare. The king dreamt he was in a field with four starved lions and when he appeared, the lions realized they finally had food. He had this dream four times a night for four nights in a row. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore and decided to consult medical professionals—Muslim clergy, but no one could cure his nightmares. At last, he went to a Jewish rabbi and asked for help. The rabbi explained that the lion is Judah (the symbol of that tribe and later the kingdom of Judah) and, essentially, the people of Jerusalem, who are also starving. The king says that he will give them food, but the rabbi answers that this is not enough and that he must do something else for them. In order to protect the Jews, Suleiman rebuilds the Old City walls, and decorates one of the gates with four lions (the Lion Gate, which we viewed and entered through on our tour the previous day). Here again the theme of myth versus reality comes into play. While certainly not everything in this story can be true, there is some historical significance here as well. For instance, we are able to understand that not only was this a hard time for the Jewish people in terms of food, but also in regards to security.

In order to see the types of people living in Jerusalem during these four hundred years, we must take a step back and examine the consequences of a historical event in 1492, the expulsion of all the Jews of Spain by its Christian rulers. These Jews, known as the Sephardic Jews (from the Hebrew word for Spain) were welcomed by the Ottomans into their empire because of their business prowess, their facility with languages, and their international mercantile connections. As the Turks controlled Palestine at the time, the Jews were allowed to once again travel and settle in Jerusalem. A monument of this time is the four Sephardic synagogues in the Old City, from which we learn a lot from merely examining the outside of the buildings. Their true identity was camouflaged so as not to elicit Muslim antagonism. For example, there were no marks to distinguish it as a synagogue and there is a hemispheric protrusion in the exterior wall pointing towards Mecca in imitation of the prayer niche in a mosque (the mihrab). Most significantly, the building stands below grade and is lower than the nearby mosque as one of the regulations at the time was that no Christian or Jewish place of worship could be taller than a mosque.

After making our way around to the other side of the synagogues, the Elijah the Prophet Synagogue, Barak related to us another piece of folklore. One day the community of Sephardic Jews was gathered for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, but there were only nine males present. According to the Jewish religion, there must be ten adult males present in order for communal prayer to take place. The congregation waits and waits and just before the final hour at which prayers must begin, an old man enters the synagogue and everyone prays. No one asks the man who he is but, because he is a stranger, they want to invite him home after services. The problem is that when they look around to invite him, he is already gone and they realized that his man must be the prophet Elijah, who had ascended to heaven and is also the harbinger of the messiah. Thus, they named the synagogue after Elijah and preserved the chair he sat it, which survived until the Jordanians destroyed much of the Jewish quarter and its synagogues after the fighting in 1948 when they took control of the Old City. From this story, despite its fantastic quality, we do understand some truths about this early period of Muslim rule. We know that, because this was such a small congregation and everyone knew their fellows, that there must have been few Jews in the area during this time.

A relatively large influx of Jewish immigrants came to Jerusalem during the time of Ottoman rule because of religious reasons and because the Turks opened the border, making it easier for Jews to travel. This immigration, sometimes of entire communities, resulted in a significant need for housing. Because the Arabs owned the land and because demand was increasing, the price for housing went up. For example, Jews from Holland and Denmark purchased land in order to create housing for their members. Later on in the nineteenth century, European Jewish philanthropists donated money to create welfare housing known as Batei ha-Mahaseh. This was to be the last housing built in the old Jewish quarter.

Next we visited the Tiferet Yisra’el (“Glory of Israel”) Synagogue, which we learned was built in the middle of the nineteenth century by the Ashkenazi, or European Jews, after the Sephardic community was already here. Again, the synagogue revealed to us through its architecture a significant decrease in Turkish power relative to European empires, as this synagogue would have been much taller than the mosques in Jerusalem.

We also visited another famous 19th-century synagogue, the so-called Hurva Synagogue, which is currently being reconstructed. This place was once a beautiful representation of Jewish existence, and yet its name means “The Ruin.” Why is this? During the 1700s the Ashkenazi Jews come to Jerusalem to get ready for the coming of the messiah and want to build a synagogue. In order to do so, they borrowed money from other European Jews and Muslims. Because of the poor living and sanitary conditions in Jerusalem, however, the Ashkenazim began to die very quickly and the donations stopped coming from Europe, meaning they were stuck with a debt to the Muslims. The Muslims are able to identify who is an Ashkenazi due to their distinctive clothing and would ask every Ashkenazi Jew they came across for the money. Finally, in 1721, the Arabs burnt down the provisional, wooden synagogue—hence the name “The Ruin.” Later, the Ashkenazim want to come back but are afraid that they will again be asked for the money they owe, so they change their style of dress to that of the Sephardic Jews, and this is the style of clothing still worn today. Rothschild eventually gave the donation to build a large stone structure on the same site but the name stuck. This synagogue was blown up by the Jordanians during the 1948 war. In 1967, Israel gained control of the Old City and initially left the destroyed structure with only a commemorative arch, but during the past few years the city has decided to rebuild the synagogue as it appeared in its heyday.

Our next stop was to the Courtyard of the Old Yishuv, an old Sephardic Jewish settlement museum with several different apartments from various time periods. Our first time period was from the 16th century, where the whole room was about the size of a dorm room. The families during this time were very large, possibly ten people or more, and they all slept in the same room at night, storing the mattresses behind a curtain during the day. There were twenty of us in the room, and we barely fit, so it was hard to imagine an actually family living there. The courtyard in the middle of the building seemed to be the only relief people had from their tight living quarters, but even this was congested. We skipped ahead to the period of British rule, which began in 1917. In this room we found a typewriter, a teapot, and china and realized that living conditions had greatly improved. How did this happen?

About 200 years into the rule of the Ottomans, the Turks empire declined in power, and living conditions in Jerusalem were horrible. As a result of this and the Napoleonic Wars, which signaled to some Christians the end of the world, missionaries came to Israel. Schools and hospitals sprang up around Jerusalem, as no European country wanted to be outdone by another. It was also around this time period that Protestants began to travel to Israel, believing that they the Jews should in fact come back to Israel, but that they should also be converted to hasten the Second Coming of Christ. This, of course, made the Jewish leadership and Jews in general very uncomfortable, as they did not want to be influenced by Christianity. Jews were warned by their coreligionists that if they stepped inside a missionary hospital and died there, they would not be allowed to be buried in a Jewish cemetery. This was a great threat considering that most 19th century Jewish immigrants came here to die and be buried. There were, however, positive Christian influences here that the Jews did not mind. For example, there was no mail or post office under the Turks until the Austrians established one, no road or railroad lines from the coast until the French constructed them. We visited the Anglican compound and Christ Church established by Anglican missionaries in the mid-nineteenth century.

Towards the end of the 19th century, another significant event occurred outside of Jerusalem that signaled the coming of a change from several different perspectives. In 1898, the Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany was traveling to Jerusalem and a section of wall adjacent to the Jaffa Gate was knocked down to make way for his carriages. This reveals the prominence of Germany on the world stage. A second important fact about the Kaiser’s visit was Theodore Herzl’s anxiety to meet with him. As one of the founding fathers of Zionism, Herzl hoped a meeting with the Kaiser might advance Zionist aims. Although the two men did meet very briefly, Herzl did not receive any promise of support, and a photo was not taken of the encounter. Instead, we saw a very famous photomontage of the two men together (the Kaiser on horseback with Herzl before him on foot) created for Zionist propaganda purposes from two separate pictures of the men. Herzl’s readiness to meet the Kaiser further highlights the fact that at this time the Zionist leadership was desperate to receive support for their cause from the European empires.

Our tour ended with a visit to the Russian Compound, just outside the Old City walls. Once again, there were a great number of Christian religious pilgrims coming from Russia during the 19th century, and thus the Russian government decided to build a compound in order to house them during their pilgrimage. Another church was constructed in the area, similar in style to those seen in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia, highlighting again the importance of European influence at this time.

Holy Christian City (Eric Dropkin & Becca Steinman)

JULY 7, 2008

Chapel of the Ascension
Today, we began our tour at the Chapel of Ascension located on the top of the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives, where the church is located, is holy for all three monotheistic peoples: Jews, Muslims, and Christians. All believe that the Mount of Olives has a part to play in the return of the messiah. The chapel itself is a beautiful place with a famous footprint located inside the church. This footprint is where some people believe Jesus ascended to Heaven. There used to be two foot prints but it is believed that the other was stolen as a relic. A reason for this is because Christian have made pilgrimages to sites containing relics in order obtain penitence and thereby be relieved of purgatory. In the late 4th century the Byzantines erected the church, but then in the 7th century the invading Muslims destroyed the church. Muslims usually left other holy sights alone but this church was an exception. Then the Crusaders rebuilt the church and later Saladin came into power and turned it into a mosque. You will see the color green all over mosques. This is because the color green represents the prophet Muhammad. The structure of the church is circular and used to have its center open to the sky to allow for Jesus' return to earth, but when it was turned into a mosque, a dome was erected to cover the open space. The building is circular because the holy site is on the inside, whereas in most other churches, the altar faces east; this faces inward toward the holy site of Jesus’ footprint. For more information, see http://www.sacred-destinations.com/israel/jerusalem-chapel-of-ascension.htm

Mount of Olives Cemetery
We continued out tour with the Mount of Olives Cemetery. There are an estimated 150,000 Jewish graves located here, including some dating back to the First Temple period. Between 1948 and 1967 the Jordanians were in control of the Mount of Olives and desecrated the cemetery. They would use the tombstones for building roads and steps. See the tour report The Jordanians even constructed a highway through the cemetery. In the cemetery we looked at the mass grave of the Jews who had held out during the siege on the Old City. Due to not being able to get anything in or out, they had to bury their dead within the city which some consider a huge sin. Later in 1967, their bodies were dug up and reburied in the Mount of Olives Cemetery and given IDF status post mortem. There was the grave of a 10-year-old boy who used his knowledge of the city alleyways to send messages back and forth. We were also able to see graves of soldiers, young and old, even the grave of the Rabbi.

The Jewish Settlers House
After going to the Mount of Olives Cemetery, we continued our tour by going to a neighborhood next door. Within the area of the Mt. of Olives, the houses are almost all exclusively Muslim. We were very lucky to get to see the home of a Jewish settler. The house was bought by a Jewish family in secret using off-shore brokers so the owner could claim no knowledge of the sale of his house to Jews. Whenever a house is sold to a Jew in an exclusively Palestinian or Muslim community, the high price paid for the house is usually accompanied by a plane ticket. This is because if the person selling the house does not flee the country, he can be killed because his neighborhood feels as if selling a house to a Jew is betrayal. In this case, the original owner did not use his plane ticket and he was found stabbed to death 10 days later. The Jewish settlers living there have their own security with guards posted around their home. The State pays for the security that we saw. This dates back to when Sharon was Minister of Housing and decided to pay for protection of Jews who had purchased homes and moved into the Muslim quarter of the Old City. This has translated into the state of Israel paying for all security for families that move into Muslim neighborhoods. We were able to sit and listen to the settler tell us about living in the neighborhood and how important his home is to him. He has one of the best views around! He overlooks the whole Old City and it was a breathtaking sight!

Dominus Flevit Church (The Cry of The Lord)
From the Jewish settler’s house, we continued our Journey down the Mount of Olives until we reached the Dominus Flevit Church. It was used as the second signal point to announce new months. The Pope built church 2,000 years after death of Jesus. He decided on this location because the church is located at the same height as the height of the second temple. Once they started digging they found remains of an early Byzantine church. The mosaics on the floor are intertwined with the originals that they found. The architecture is built to resemble a tear, and it faces west instead of east. Because the church is rarely used, the services are lead by pilgrims and very rarely lead by clergy. Here we also saw old gravesites. When a person died, usually within 24 hours, the body was put in a cave. A year later the bones were collected from the cave and then placed in boxes and buried. We were able to see many of these stone boxes and even a cave where they were found. For more information, see: http://198.62.75.1/www1/ofm/san/TSdomin.html

Garden of Gethsemane
We continued from Dominus Flevit Church to the Garden of Gethsemane (derived from the Aramaic words for "olive press"). The Garden of Gethsemane is located at the foot of the Mount of Olives. This is the place where it is believed that Jesus and his disciples prayed before the night of his crucifixion. This is also where the Church of All Nations was constructed. The church was built by donations by many Christian nations—thus the name. In the church there is no artificial light. The only light that is used is from the windows. Light imitates the sorrow. Here too a Byzantine church was found on the spot they chose and the original mosaics are integrated into the current design. From the Garden of Gethsemane we could see the Golden Gates through which it is believed that the Jewish messiah will walk . However, the Muslims built a cemetery in front of the Golden Gates because it is believed that the Messiah will not be able to walk through the cemetery because it is not pure. Therefore, this should stop the coming of the Jewish Messiah.

Via Dolorosa
We continued our tour by visiting the Via Dolorosa. Many people believe that this is the same path that Jesus walked on his way to his crucifixion carrying the cross on his back. The problem is that the city was destroyed after Jesus walked, so the route is not the same. The path goes through the Muslim quarter, so you have a Christian road surrounded by Muslim buildings. However, there are 9 sites on the Via Dolorosa, which are part of the 14 Stations of the Cross. The other 5 are found where the Via Dolorosa ends, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Today pilgrims come from all over the world to walk the Via Dolorosa.

Church of the Holy Sepulchre
We concluded our tour by ending at Stations 10-14 at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Here each of the Eastern denominations and the Roman Catholic church (know here as the Latin Church, and represented by the Franciscans) has their own area to take care of within the church. Because of how holy this place is, there are many arguments about territory inside the church. There was a fight over the last step leading up to the room where Jesus was cleaned. However, it is not any domination that holds the keys to the church. It is a Muslim family and the keys have been passed down through the generations. Each denomination holds a ceremony to lock the doors. Because of the issue of territory within the church, in the nineteenth century the Ottomans implemented a status quo agreement, freezing in perpetuity the division of space and responsibilities within the Church. During this time, a group was using a ladder to renovate the outside. Therefore, the ladder was included in the status quo and the ladder is still sitting there today. It is now known as the Ladder of Toleration. We continued by touring the church. Everything was so beautiful with many pieces of art everywhere. We viewed two mosaics near Golgotha (the site of the Cross): both the crucifixion and the binding of Isaac, which Christians view as prefiguring the sacrifice of their Lord. We also saw parts that remained from a Byzantine church. Constantine changed the Roman Empire in the 4th century with the major support of his mother. She at the age of 80 came to search for holy sites of Jesus. She used a mix of faith and politics to uncover the different Christian holy sites. She looked for where pagan statues believing that the Pagans were trying to cover up holy Christian sites. She went into a cave and found 3 crosses. After she placed a dead boy on one of the crosses and the boy was resurrected, she came to believe this is the crucifix that Jesus was nailed to. We were able to see all of the different denominations within the church and were able to marvel at all of the history and beauty. For more information, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre

Biblical Text and Natural Context (Zack Colman)

Biblical Text and Natural Context
3 July 2008, tour leader Barak Zemer
Submitted by Zack Colman

Today’s tour was dedicated to exploring the natural surroundings in the Judean Hills to the west of Jerusalem, and included a visit to the Avshalom Cave (also called Soreq Cave) and the biblical landscape reserve known as Ne’ot Kedumim.

The Stalactite Cave Nature Reserve is a 500-square-meter cave on the western slopes of the Judean Hills outside the city of Beit Shemesh. What would a cave chock full of stalactites and stalagmites have to do with the history of Jerusalem? Aside from the fact this cave has existed long before the time period we’re covering, it has pretty much nothing to do with our course. But we enjoyed it, although I’d venture to say the on-site tour guide, who managed to turn every curve and peak into an important historical figure, had far more fun. It’s interesting to put the time period of the cave and that of Jerusalem into perspective, though. As our regular tour guide Barak has so often pointed out, “America was born yesterday compared to Jerusalem,” but Jerusalem was created just as I typed these last words in comparison to the cave. Jerusalem, a city with thousands of years of history, is just a drop in the bucket compared to a cave that claims formations more than a million years in age.

After the caves, we traveled back to the Land of the Bible when we arrived at Ne’ot Kedumim, the world’s only biblical landscape reserve. The idea here is to link biblical text with natural and agricultural reality. To quote from their website (http://www.n-k.org.il/public/english/what/what.htm): “By reuniting text and context, Ne’ot Kedumim opens up before the visitor Israel's nature as the idiom of the Bible. The symbols, prayers, and holidays of the Jewish and Christian heritage, observed and preserved for thousands of years, blossom in a new and colorful dimension.” Everything here was grown in biblical times, including the seven species that symbolize the fertility of the land promised to the Israelites (Deuteronomy 8:8): wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates. We also sampled the fruit of the native sycamores (about the only thing ripe at this time) and the grapes (which, as we found out, were not so ripe… and had seeds). Led by our Israeli guide for the day, Galit (a PhD student in clinical psychology who has been working at the site for ten years), we collected herbs and plants that we were later able to incorporate in the biblical meal we prepared, including hyssop or za’tar) (which we ground up with a mortar and pestle), capers, grape leaves, After hiking about the landscape where we able to see an actual wine press, olive press, and cistern in operation 1700 years ago, we were set the task of preparing a meal over open flame and with minimal supplies. We learned what it was like to prepare a meal, which seemed an arduous process that could consume an entire day. Considering it took up to three hours to make flour, which was done by grinding wheat in between two large, stone circles, blood and sweat probably were significant ingredients to every meal.

Had we been making the meal in actual biblical time, though, it would have been more difficult for another reason. This year is the final year of the biblical seven-year agricultural cycle known as the shemitah (literally, “release”) year. Among the places in the Bible we find the procedures to be followed is Leviticus 25:1-7: "God spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai, telling him to speak to the Israelites and say to them: When you come to the land that I am giving you, the land must be given a rest period, a sabbath to God. For six years you may plant your fields, prune your vineyards, and harvest your crops, but the seventh year is a sabbath of sabbaths for the land. It is God's sabbath during which you may not plant your fields, nor prune your vineyards. Do not harvest crops that grow on their own and do not gather the grapes on your unpruned vines, since it is a year of rest for the land. [What grows while] the land is resting may be eaten by you, by your male and female slaves, and by the employees and resident hands who live with you. All the crops shall be eaten by the domestic and wild animals that are in your land." Thus, in accordance with Jewish law, fields in the Land of Israel must lay fallow. This happens every seventh year, much like Jews rest every seventh day. Nevertheless, beginning in Talmudic times, the Rabbis created halakhic (religious-legal) devices that allowed farms to remain economically viable while still giving heed to the biblical injunction. (For a brief overview of this complicated legal reasoning, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmita). Luckily, contemporary religious authorities have also found ways to modify this policy because of the economic hardship it would cause the country, but not all farms are in full production. But we aren’t in biblical times, thankfully, because I think preparing a meal in biblical times is something many of us could hardly fathom doing–and then we did it. We didn’t quite make the wheat, grab the water from the cistern or smash the olives into olive oil, but we made everything from scratch and cooked it all over an open flame. It was definitely one of the big highlights of the trip thus far. Marc pointed such exercises are common in the Israeli context as a means of fostering group solidarity and leadership. After all was said and done, we had our biblical meal (all vegetarian, of course). We made everything from tehina to grape leaves to pita and bourekas from scratch. And Eric Mally cut a great watermelon.

It was truly a day to remember.

Jerusalem in Her Glory—The Second Temple Period (Eric Awerbuch)

Jerusalem in Her Glory—The Second Temple Period
2 July 2008, tour leader Barak Zemer
Submitted by Eric Awerbuch

Before beginning our tour of the Second Temple period in Jerusalem, we stopped at the site of a nineteenth-century synagogue known as the “Glory of Israel.” This once prominent edifice was first constructed in the 1860s by Ashkenazi Hasidim, who were starting to move to Jerusalem as a result of the dwindling of the once powerful Ottoman Empire. The synagogue was mostly funded by wealthy European Jews. Unfortunately, when the Jordanians took control of the Jewish Quarter in the War of Independence in 1948 they destroyed the “Glory of Israel.”

The First Temple period ended in 586 B.C.E., on the 9th of the Hebrew month of Av (hence the reason Jews fast every year on that day) when Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon destroyed the entire city and exiled the Jews throughout the Babylonian empire. Cyrus of Persia, who conquered the Babylonian Empire, allowed the Jews to reenter the city 60 years later. While many of the elite chose to stay in the Babylonian empire as a result of the strong infrastructure that they established and their comfortable economic standing, a small contingent of Jews eventually reentered their holy city of Yerushalayim and built the Second Temple. Construction began in 535 BCE and the Second Temple was dedicated in 515 BCE. Five centuries later, King Herod (“the Builder”) (73–4 BCE) greatly expands the Temple. (Thus, it is more accurate perhaps to speak of two Second Temples.) This Temple is destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE in the wake of the Jewish revolt against their rule.

The Second Temple period is the time period of the next museum we went to known as the Herodian Quarter. Under the modern Yeshiva constructed by the Israelis after reunification of the city in 1967 there are the remains of wealthy Jewish family homes from 2000 years ago. We learned that the owners of these magnificent Jewish homes from were most likely cohanim (priests). The homes featured mosaic tile, Romanesque carved tables, private baths, and even many private mikvehs (ritual baths). Many of these priests gained their wealth either from corruption or from having a monopoly on the ritual products over whose manufacture they had a monopoly. At one point, the cohanim became so corrupt that bribes were needed in order to become the High Priest.

These priests used many imported goods made of stone, for stone, as opposed to clay, cannot absorb ritual impurity. We also saw graffiti, but not of the usual kind. This graffiti was of the ancient menorah and is the earliest contemporary representation of the menorah used in the Temple. Furthermore, there was a room called a teraklin (from the Greek triclinium), whose origins are in Roman culture, where three people would eat reclining on the floor. We heard a story of a Jew so wealthy, named Miriam, that when she went to get married she asked the rabbis how much she should receive per day from her husband. They suggest 500 gold shekels per day for cosmetics, and she balked at the number and told the rabbis to keep it. As a result of the great corruption and influence that the Romans tried to force upon the Jewish inhabitants in Jerusalem, the Jews revolted against the pagans beginning in 66 CE. The Romans placed the city under siege and living conditions became very difficult. Eventually, on the 9th of Av (again) in the year 70 C.E, the Temple was destroyed, followed by the rest of Jerusalem.

From the traditional Jewish perspective, the Rabbis maintain that the cause for this destruction was that the Jews allowed the Roman culture to become too influential and engaged in baseless acts of hatred between Jews, which is one of the greatest sins in the Jewish religion. To illustrate the point, Barak related to us the story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza as told in the Babylonian Talmud (Gittin 56): A certain man wanted to throw a party for all his friends, so he drew up a guest list and instructed his servant to send out the invitations. One of the men on the guest list was named "Kamtza," but the servant made a mistake and invited "Bar Kamtza" (literally, “son of Kamtza”) instead. Unfortunately, it turns out that Bar Kamtza and the host were actually dire enemies! When Bar Kamtza received his invitation, he was very grateful to think that the host had finally made amends. But when he showed up at the party, the host took one look and told his servant to immediately eject Bar Kamtza from the premises. When asked to leave, Bar Kamtza said: "I understand the mistake. But it's embarrassing for me to leave the party. I'll gladly pay the cost of my meal if you'll allow me to stay." The host would hear nothing of this, and reiterated his demand to have Bar Kamtza removed. Bar Kamtza appealed again: "I'd even be willing to pay half the cost of the entire party, if only I'd be allowed to stay." Again the request was denied, at which point, the distraught Bar Kamtza pleaded: "I'll pay for the entire party! Just please don't embarrass me in this way!" The host, however, refused to be assuaged and he threw Bar Kamtza out. The rabbis who had observed this exchange did not protest, and Bar Kamtza took this to mean that they approved of the host's behavior. The Talmud reports that Bar Kamtza was so hurt and upset, that he went straight to the Roman authorities and gave slanderous reports of the Jews’ disloyal behavior toward the Emperor. According to the tale, this so fueled the Romans' anger, that they proceeded to attack and destroy the Holy Temple.

After this museum, we went to the site of relatively recent excavations, where archaeologists are revealing new parts of the Western Wall and other outer walls of the Temple Mount from the Herodian period. The Temple Mount was and is still considered by Jewish tradition to be the center of the world. The first person to excavate this area during the decline of Ottoman power in the mid-nineteenth century was Charles Warren of Britain. We saw a contemporary picture in which Warren is sitting upon what appears to be a bench, but turned out to be the beginning edge of gigantic bridge leading onto the Temple Mount. When Herod was rebuilding the Temple, he was limited because the exact dimensions of the Temple are listed in the Torah. Therefore, he decided to built a gigantic platform for the Temple, supported by an extensive complex of underground vaults, and it is this vast area (the equivalent of twenty-seven football fields) that became known as the Temple Mount. To this day it remains the largest prayer compound in the world.

The outer walls of the compound (of which the Western Wall is the only extant remnant) are built all the way down to the bedrock, thirteen levels below where we stood on the level of the Roman street. There are three different sources that we have that have different figures on how long the temple took to build. Josephus, a Jewish Roman historian, claims that it took ten years and 18,000 workers. In the Talmud, the Rabbis maintain that it took only three years. The New Testament claims that it took forty-six years.

Outside of the Temple Mount is a mikveh, one of fifty that have been uncovered so far (there are hundreds more). These were meant to serve the masses of pilgrims who would gather on the three pilgrimage feasts. (According to one tradition, so many would arrive on Passover, for example, that on a single day of the holiday six million people would need to cleanse themselves. A Jew must use a mikveh to purify before ascending the Temple Mount in order to keep the Temple pure. On this same street we saw ruins of stores that existed 2000 years ago where Jews could purchase animals for sacrifice and not risk their being blemished over the course of the long journey. On one of the stones that the archaeologists found there is Hebrew text which states, “This is the house for the sounding of the trumpets before the sabbath.” It appears that at this time period a priest would stand atop the southwest corner of the wall surrounding the Temple Mount and sound a trumpet before the sabbath to alert the population that the holiday is near. Today, there is a modern parallel in the sirens sounded in Jerusalem at the onset of sabbath.

One very cool fact about the outer wall on the Temple Mount is that Herod built it in a very aesthetically pleasing way, with each story indented inward less than one inch so that when one stands underneath the wall it does not appear that it will fall on him. After the Muslims took the city back, they used stones from the Temple to build an eighth-century Umayyad palace outside the wall. The archaeologists have found a staircase just to the south of the Temple Mount where the mass of Jewish pilgrims would enter. (Jesus, as a Jew making the Passover pilgrimage, would most likely tread these very stairs upon when he came from Nazareth). From this staircase there are two sets of mammoth-sized entrances unto the Temple Mount known as the Hulda Gates.

When the Byzantines (Romans after they became Christian in the early fourth century) took control of the city in the 6th century, they kicked all the Jews out and allowed them only to reenter to pray on the 9th of Av, in order to demonstrate that the destruction of the Temple was the fulfillment of Jesus’s prophecy. They turned the area around the Temple Mount into a garbage dump. Real estate became very cheap and the poorest Christians would live in this area. Eventually, in the seventh century the Muslims conquer the city and allow the Jews back, but build the Dome of the Rock on the site of the Temple, in addition to placing the Mosque of Al-Aqsa’ on the Temple Mount.