One Last Day in Jerusalem
We actually spent a total of five days in Jerusalem, but I will describe it in three. 
There are an amazing number of things to see in Jerusalem, and I advise at least five days to see a decent amount of things. Even given what we saw, I would like to return some day to see sites we didn’t get a chance to see. However, Nelya’s relatives were kind enough to (and actually insisted on) watching our children for two days so we could see some of the sites ourselves. This was incredibly helpful for some places like Yad Vashem, which is no place for children (and where children under a certain age are not allowed). Our first site was the Israel Museum – the most famous museum in Israel.
Unfortunately when we arrived most of the museum was closed for renovations and would only reopen the following year. At the time of this writing, I believe it is still closed. However, all was not completely lost. The highlight of the museum, the Shrine of the Book (pictured above) houses two incredibly important documents to the Jewish culture – the Aleppo Codex and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Not all of these documents are on display, but it is the only place in the world where some of the originals from both are on permanent display. Photography is not allowed inside, and therefore I cannot provide any photos. However, tomorrow I will show where these amazing documents were found. As the rest of the museum was closed, we headed on after a short period of time.
The next part of our journey was the most difficult to take. Vacations are supposed to be fun times – seeing cool things, beautiful landscapes, amazing animals, and visiting with family. However, with some places comes the requirement to share the dark with the pleasant, the horror with the beauty, and take upon the duty to honor those of your ancestors who perished. It was time to go to Yad Vashem.
Yad Vashem is a requirement when visiting Jerusalem – whether you are Jewish or not. It is not an easy place to take and children below the age of 11 are strictly forbidden for their own safety, as some of the sites there would likely give them nightmares for years. When you go, I suggest you use a guide who will give a lot of background information to the tons of signs and videos on display there. The museum has few historical artifacts, but instead focuses on telling the story of the systematic destruction of over six million Jews and millions of others who did not deserve death. It was advised to us to make this the last activity of the day, as you will be too heavy hearted to continue on.
All of you have heard about what happened during the Holocaust and have seen some of the amazing films about it. Still, seeing actual movies showing machine guns mowing down people, then the bodies being pushed into huge ditches – lifeless faces each of whom likely was an interesting person in real life, were hard to take. What was perhaps the toughest for us was watching what happened to the children – who were always killed with their mothers because otherwise it was more difficult. On one occasion we heard of a security guard taking a young child from his mother and handing him to an old woman. The mother screamed for the boy back and the guard hushed her – “I just saved your life”. After the Holocaust the parents, who went on the build the well known Spiegel brand, donated a sum of money to create a memorial to children.
The memorial is not that large, but is completely dark save for a few lit candles and hundreds of well placed mirrors, that make it appear as if you are in a large section of spaces with candles as far as you can see – each candle representing on of the several million children who died just for being Jewish.
Sorry that this could not be a happy post, but I owe it to these people to not continue and allow a period of reflection. This is the last event for the day, and our trip will resume tomorrow.
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Tags: israel, israel museum, jerusalem, Travel, yad vashem