Israel: Land Of Our Lost Citizens Part 2 – Jerusalem and Yad Vashem

05.11.2018

The Olympia Hotel provides a breakfast box for customers unable to attend the breakfast sitting and it is very substantial. The guided tour to Jerusalem begins early for me with my pick-up at 0715.

The bus is late due to the intransigence, it seems, of tourists ‘not accustomed to punctuality in their own country’ (according to the courier). In the end he does not wait for them. It seems to be a complicated procedure of pick-ups and changes in an other part of Tel Aviv but it seems to function well. On our first bus were tourists all from nearby hotels were people doing various different tours; some the full day in Jerusalem, others a half day with the Dead Sea or Masada and so on. This is further organised at the next change so that all of us are doing Jerusalem only. We are on our way very quickly. Our tour guide Issachar, provides a detail synopsis of the biblical and contemporary aspects of Israel.

I had no idea that Jerusalem was set so high. The hillsides on the approach up are studded with terraces of houses. The temperature is several degrees cooler than Tel Aviv. Issachar informs us that Jerusalem had absolutely no economic or communications advantage over anywhere else. So why was it chosen? It was simultaneously a political and a spiritual decision. Political because up until the time of King David, the city of Jesus had never really been conquered. Spiritual…according to the descendants of Israel it was God’s choice.

This guided tour is of the Old City only, we will not be spending time in the modern city. The Old City is set higher than it would have been from it’s origins because of invasions and destruction. In 1967, at the end of the Six Day War, Israeli archaeologists undertook a series of excavations of the Old City of East Jerusalem, which had been occupied by the Israeli Army, to recover long buried artefacts from ancient Israel.

We have only a six hour stay in Jerusalem so it will be a bit of a whirlwind but it’s a rare opportunity to set foot in such an ancient historically significant city (perhaps the most in the whole world) whether you are religious or, like me, not.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built at the time of the Crusades houses the stone of the cross Jesus was executed on, the Anointing Stone and the Tomb. All of these, the story has it, brought to this one place by the Crusaders. My decision to come here was the right one. I made a mistake saying Jerusalem was for the religious; all of humanity has lessons to learn from what happened here. If only we were all able never to forget these lessons. What they are I invite everyone to draw their own conclusions by visiting here – touch the Anointing Stone, the Crucifixion Stone and the Tomb. A pilgrimage need not always have religious connotations. One thing that did take me aback was people leaving dollar bills on the Anointing Stone. I suppose it was ever so regardless of what faith anyone professes. 

The Via Dolorosa has been built over with commercialism but everyone has a right to make a living and the owners of these small businesses work hard. The Stations of the Cross are in approximate locations. It is a lesson in respect that the Muslim inhabitants of this part of the City have for centuries preserved these sites.

From the Via Dolorosa we approach the West Wall. This was not a Temple Wall but a support wall and its significance is that this is the nearest that followers of the Jewish faith can get to where the Holy of Holies of the Old Temple was located. Just observing Jews paying respects and praying as they must have done over 2,000 years ago is a positive experience and its open to anyone to do the same. Paper messages are inserted in the joints in the stonework. What they say does not matter but it springs to mind that perhaps if the Americans, Russians, Iranians and whoever else was to keep out of the problems of the Middle East, perhaps pragmatic people fro the Palestinian, Israeli and Syrian side might reach a consensus without outside interference.

Yad Vashem, which is the main reason for my visit to Jerusalem is located high on a hill.  Issachar, our guide counsels us that if we find it too much we must not feel ashamed. This prepares us for we are about to see. It goes without saying that photography inside is forbidden. You enter into a concourse of ever diminishing height until at the other end it opens up to overlook a valley and hillside. This is meant to signify Hope. After viewing the contents, hope is the message you badly need. I have visited the splendid Berlin Holocaust Museum and Auschwitz with Birkenau, the latter which leaves you stunned into disbelief and silence. Nothing can prepare you for Yad Vashem. This is the Jewish story in itself and can only be told in Israel. This is personal testimony. The first ‘exhibit’ has me choking.

I recall my father telling me about the Poles of the Jewish faith and how their presence in Poland was taken for granted….regardless of anything else they were still citizens of Poland. It is a film taken from the 1920’s I’d guess showing Jewish communities going about their business and daily life – working, attending synagogue, dancing, having a laugh – in other words doing ordinary things. Some film is overlaid with holograms of tailors sewing or shoemakers hammering. Ordinary people living normally and yet in a decade or so later would begin the greatest crime in history. These images smash home the catastrophe of the Holocaust. The Jews of Poland made up 10% of the total population of the country. Until now I had never realised the extent to which the Nazis blew a hole in what it means to be European. A Europe without our Jews is not Europe. The same happened to a lesser degree in Russia, Germany, Ukraine and Hungary and in Western Europe. The contribution to European civilisation made by the forbears of the 6,000,000 is unquantifiable – art, science, medicine, music, literature. The Museum of the Children who perished finally informs you the depths to which humanity descend. The names and ages of the children are continuously recited and their names on a moving screen seem to me to ascend upwards like smoke. How do you sum up the Nazis Final Solution? An assembly line of carnage on an organised industrial scale including recycling of articles and body parts.

If ever you have the opportunity to come to Yad Vashem, just sit down afterwords for a few minutes in the tranquillity of the Garden of the Most Righteous Among the Nations and let that sink in. The very fact that the Jews acknowledge the lengths to which ordinary Gentiles went to save their Jewish neighbours restores faith in humanity. I cannot stop crying. To this day the memory has me choking. This for me had more meaning than the Old City.

From my own perspective I have an understanding of what my father would have observed of his Jewish neighbours. I never need to visit another Holocaust Museum or exhibition ever again.

Many will come to Jerusalem as pilgrims and depart full of grace but for me it’s a bit commercialised. I should mention that at the Anointing Stone someone was rubbing dollar bills on the surface. Even as one who is not religious I felt uneasy about that. Was it to pray for money?

Liron is a waitress in the Keton Restaurant in Tel Aviv. I did not ask her, but I guess she is a student and she is planning a visit to Scotland next year. She asks for some ideas and I’m happy to oblige with a list written all over a restaurant menu. Her idea is to see the islands (sampling our malts on the way) and I tell Liron that she should include Edinburgh and Glasgow. Food?….I advised her not to expect fireworks with Scottish cuisine but that seafood restaurants would be worth trying. She asked if she could contact me nearer the time when her party of friends had a clearer idea of what they planned to do and, obliged to help, I passed on my e-mail address.

06.11.2018

I have enjoyed every minute of my experience in Israel. I still feel as strongly about the plight of the Palestinians but again so do many Israelis and non-Israel Jews. Both are chess pieces in a wider struggle for power, influence and natural resources. In some quarters, criticism of the Israeli government is regarded as anti-semitism. How ridiculous! Does that make Jews opposed to the policies of the Israeli government anti-semitic? History naturally repeats itself and if a lasting solution is not found there is the risk of Israel being eventually overwhelmed resulting in another Jewish diaspora. And the whole process repeated.

End