Jerusalem!

So when I split up Friday, I totally forgot to talk about the market, Machane Yehuda! We went there when we first got to Jerusalem, before heading to the hotel. It was a huge, crazy market, and my first haggling experience (which went pretty well, I think!). There was lots of yummy food and about a million people. I ate at Aroma, an Israeli cafe that has a few locations in New York. I love Aroma in NY, and it was really cool to eat at the orignal location!

While walking back to the bus, I suddenly heard someone say, "Amy?" I turned around to see Jacob Silvermetz (a friend from Camp JCC) sitting at an outdoor cafe. Who runs into someone they know incredibly far away from home, on the street in Jerusalem? Me, apparently. Anyway, Jacob is living here now, I guess he made aliyah. We had a nice little catchup.

Okay, flash forward to Sunday! On Sunday, we toured the Old City of Jerusalem. It was really fantastic - we walked around the Jewish Quarter and talked about the history of Jerusalem. We went up on the rooftops and looked out over all four Quarters (the others are Christian, Muslim, and Armenian). To her huge credit, Merav talked with us about why Jerusalem is important, not only to Judaism, but also to Christianity and Islam. This was completely glossed over in my Hebrew school experience.

We talked with the Israelis in our group about what Jerusalem means to them. I spoke with Tal - she grew up in a nonreligious family about an hour outside of Jerusalem. She comes to the city about once a year, and she said that every time she comes, she has an experience she's never had before. When Israelis are in school, they do a field trip to Jerusalem, and when they join the army, they are brought to tour Jerusalem. We saw a bunch of new soldiers touring around the city while we were there.

We had lunch and shopping time in the Cardo market. They told us to stay in the Jewish Quarter, but there weren't signs (at least not in English!), so Al, Sarah and I ended up accidentally spending most of our time in what we later learned was the Muslim Quarter - whoops! We had such a blast - the market was huge and crazy, and the vendors were really pushy. We found one vendor who was nice and gave us really good deals on everything. He was definitely an improvement over the guy who followed us out into the Cardo yelling lower and lower prices. I loved this market shopping, it was so much fun -  wish they had this kind of thing in America!

After lunch, we went back to the Kotel. We had an opportunity to have some alone time at the wall and write notes/prayers to put in. I couldn't believe how many little pieces of paper were in the wall, some incredibly old and some brand new. At the wall, I stood next to an Orthodox woman who was praying with tears streaming down her cheeks. It was a really powerful experience.

Next, we toured the City of David, the restored archaeological remains of Jerusalem when David was king. It was so amazing. We saw his palace, and we talked about the water system of the city. Then Merav said we would be walking through the tunnels that led water into the city. This was crazy! The water was at knee height for the most part, but sometimes it was almost all the way up my leg! It was a really narrow and short tunnel that we walked through in single file for about 45 minutes - lucky I'm not claustrophobic!

When we finally came back out into the light, we climbed the tall hill back into the Old City. As we were walking up, we heard the Muslim call to prayer echoing through the city. It felt so authentically Middle Eastern, it was amazing!

For dinner, we went out to a banquet at a Mediterranean restaurant. Delicious food, so much pita and hummus and salads of all kinds! Then back to the hotel, where the Israelis led some activities to teach us about Israeli life. We learned Israeli slang, did Israel trivia, and did some (highly modified) army drills.

Finally, we did some mental and emotional group preparation for today's trip to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum. I've been to the DC museum many times, but I think this will be very interesting. We talked about how Israel was founded as a direct result of the Holocaust, and therefore the museum is intricately connected to the IDF and the government. It will be a very serious day, but also I think we'll learn a lot. Then we'll go up to Tel Aviv tonight!