{"id":849,"date":"2012-01-21T10:03:57","date_gmt":"2012-01-21T15:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rosskressel.com\/?p=849"},"modified":"2012-01-21T10:03:57","modified_gmt":"2012-01-21T15:03:57","slug":"the-old-city-of-jerusalem-my-first-full-day-in-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rosskressel.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/21\/the-old-city-of-jerusalem-my-first-full-day-in-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"The Old City of Jerusalem: My first full day in Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

January 10th<\/sup>, 2012<\/p>\n

I woke up in the hotel in Abu Ghosh to a room that was pitch black.\u00a0 I\u2019m not afraid of the dark, but when I wake up in the morning I like to know what time it is and I didn\u2019t know how to find my watch right away.\u00a0 When I found it I saw that it was 4 AM.\u00a0 6 hours of sleep isn\u2019t too bad after all that travel and for trying to get adjusted to a different time.\u00a0 I rolled over and tried to get back to sleep in my hotel room.<\/p>\n

The other problem with the room is that it was freezing.\u00a0 I was layered up and under the blankets, but it was still freezing cold.\u00a0 Mark and I finally figured out how to turn on the heat a couple days later.<\/p>\n

After failing at falling back to sleep for a good while, I decided to go to the bathroom.\u00a0 The problem with going to the bathroom in a pitch black room is obviously getting there and of course turning the light on in the bathroom.\u00a0 My first shot at getting over there I tiptoed over to the bathroom, walked in and tried to turn off the light.\u00a0 For some reason I couldn\u2019t find it on the wall just inside the bathroom, so I tried near the mirror to no avail.\u00a0 I went back over by my bed, grabbed a flashlight, and tried again, but the problem turned out that the flashlight batteries were dead.<\/p>\n

At this point I gave up and just flipped one of the two light switches I found outside of the bathroom which turned out to be the room one, turned it back off quickly and turned on the other light which was the bathroom light.\u00a0 This, my friends is how you can turn a trip to the bathroom into a twenty-minute ordeal.<\/p>\n

I went back to bed following my bathroom \u201cadventure\u201d and tried once again to fall back to sleep.\u00a0 Mark got up to go use the bathroom and I let him know which light switch was which since it was still pitch black and he let out a little chuckle.<\/p>\n

A little after Mark got out of the bathroom I heard a low drone of something in a language I couldn\u2019t understand.\u00a0 I turned to Mark and asked if he knew what the sound was as I tried to open the curtain.\u00a0 It became clear to me that the sound could only be one thing, the Muslim call to prayer.<\/p>\n

Looking out the window after opening the curtain revealed the hills of the town we were staying in outside of Jerusalem.\u00a0 It was still dark out, but all the lights outside on houses were on.\u00a0 Houses all tucked into the hills made for a beautiful view.\u00a0 We are in Israel I thought.\u00a0 It still seemed very unreal to me.<\/p>\n

After looking out the window for a little bit, I fumbled through my backpack for my iPod and turned on the Fratelli\u2019s (I\u2019ve been listening to them a ton lately).\u00a0 I listened to a couple songs in bed before I decided it would be a good time to shower.\u00a0 I figured I could be one of the first ones to breakfast since it started at 6:30 AM at the hotel.<\/p>\n

Along with a change of clothes, I went to the bathroom.\u00a0 I put the bathmat down and the rubber non-slip thing down inside the shower.\u00a0 I went to turn the shower on and notice it was a handheld one, but there was nothing to hold it in place.\u00a0 It certainly made showering a challenge until I could figure out how I wanted to do it.\u00a0 I finished my nice hot shower, changed, and started walking towards breakfast.\u00a0 I noticed the beautiful sunrise over the nearby hills and walked towards a side of the hotel with a better view.\u00a0 My detour gave me a ton of great pictures.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I was surprised when I got to breakfast at 6:35 AM that I wasn\u2019t the only one there.\u00a0 I guess a lot of others hadn\u2019t adjusted well yet either.\u00a0 I sat down to a breakfast of a couple different kinds of bread, some eggs, and orange and gazed out into the hills.<\/p>\n

After breakfast, I went to my room, grabbed my hat and got freaked out by a loud noise that sounded like a cat.\u00a0 After walking around for a little bit, I noticed two cats sitting on a windowsill, meowing.\u00a0 I took some pictures of them for my mom, because she loves cats.\"\"<\/p>\n

After all of this we headed to the bus to start exploring.\u00a0 We headed towards Jerusalem and stopped just before the old city of Jerusalem.\u00a0 Here, we said a prayer of Challah and wine (grape juice since it was the morning) as we gazed off to the old city of Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

From our spot, we could see the old city walls and the Dome of the Rock.\u00a0 The view was absolutely incredible!\u00a0 After a couple minutes of the necessary photos and chitchatting, we got back onto the bus.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

On the bus, Nadav pointed out to us a wall and referred to it as a \u201cbaby wall\u201d.\u00a0 The baby wall he was referring to was only 500 years old.\u00a0 It was at this point I thought to myself, I guess America doesn\u2019t really have much history, huh?<\/p>\n

We got off the bus, walked through a gate allowing us into the old city where we looked onto a part of the West Wall that isn\u2019t where people pray.\u00a0 Nearby were some of the remains of the oldest parts of the city that was there at the time of the Second Temple.\u00a0 Roads from the Old City could be seen from where we were as well as what was left of several ancient mikvehs<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

For those non-Jews out there, a mikveh is a ritual bath used to spiritually cleanse oneself.\u00a0 Today they are used in some orthodox communities following the end of a woman\u2019s cycle and after childbirth, by men looking to achieve ritual purity, for utensils that are used for food, and as part of the conversion to Judaism.\u00a0 In Eastern Europe back in the \u201cold country\u201d it wasn\u2019t uncommon for a mikveh to be next to a bakery so that a people wouldn\u2019t be able to tell whether you were going to the bakery or the mikveh.<\/p>\n

There was a large pile of Jerusalem stone that had been thrown off the wall by the Romans.\"\"\u00a0 This to me is where the Diaspora truly began.\u00a0 What\u2019s the Diaspora<\/strong> you ask?\u00a0 The Diaspora refers to the scattering of Jews outside of what is now the land of Israel.\u00a0 Colonies of Jews were forced out of what is today the land of Israel by the Babylonians and later the Romans.<\/p>\n

The long-term impact of the Diaspora led to Jews being all over Europe.\u00a0 The establishment of the state of Israel in some ways was supposed to signal the end of the Diaspora, but many of us live in places other than Israel.\u00a0 The second largest settlement of Jews in the world live not in Israel, but in New York City.\u00a0\u00a0 For those of you who went to high school with me, Atlanta as a city has the 17th<\/sup> largest population of Jews in the world.<\/p>\n

The actual Kotel (the Western Wall) to me was a strange experience.\u00a0 First, men and women are separated into different sections.\u00a0 Women have a very tiny sliver of the wall that they can pray at. Before we were allowed to just start walking towards the wall, Nadav let the girls know that they would probably need to force their way to the wall to actually be able to touch it.<\/p>\n

Beyond this, I haven\u2019t been to synagogue in a while.\u00a0 If I\u2019m not mistaken, I haven\u2019t been to a prayer service at a synagogue since my youth group advisor left Temple Sinai.\u00a0 I was staring at the wall that my whole religion prays in the direction of and I didn\u2019t know how to feel.\u00a0 On the path to the men\u2019s section there was a giant basket filled with kippah\u2019s (yarmulkes).\u00a0 I was happy to see them since I forgot to bring one with me from the states.\u00a0 To the left of them was a shelf filled with every Jewish prayer book I\u2019ve pretty much ever seen.<\/p>\n

After putting on a kippah and continuing on, there was a small stand with a man helping people wrap tefillin.\u00a0 Tefillin are boxes containing prayers that are connected to your forehead and your wrist with leather straps.\u00a0 Tefillin are wrapped to remind us that g-d helped us to escape Egypt.\u00a0 They include scrolls containing a few major Hebrew prayers.\u00a0 Up to this point, I had never wrapped tefillin.\u00a0 In Atlanta, we have a set that I think belonged to my great-grandfather.\u00a0\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

After helping the group all wrap tefillin, he took a picture of the group of us.\u00a0 He pointed at the wall and said, \u201cThat over there is g-d\u2019s Facebook wall.\u201d\u00a0 I would be lying if I said I wasn\u2019t at least somewhat annoyed by this.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With tefillin stil wrapped, I walked to the wall to insert\u00a0my prayer.\u00a0 I looked to both of my sides and saw men both reading the Torah.\u00a0 To my right was a man with a desk who was dovening while to my left there was a man with his eyes closed.\u00a0 I touched the wall with my eyes shut.<\/p>\n

I put my prayer into the wall and thought about all that was 2011 and what will be the future and I thought about my prayer.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t particularly long.\u00a0 I asked g-d for challenges in the future and for success when facing them.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what else I could possible want.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After closing my eyes again and touching the wall, I finally walked away.\u00a0 I started to unwrap the tefillin, passed it to the man who had helped us wrap them and went to look for someone to talk to.<\/p>\n

I had one question to ask of whomever I could find.\u00a0 I wanted to know why someone would ever want to destroy this place, why would anyone want to destroy this place?\u00a0 They gave me an answer that makes me sad, \u201cThey don\u2019t want to destroy it, they want to destroy us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the wall, it was time for lunch.\u00a0 We walked up a hill over by a small group of stores in the Jewish quarter and broke into small groups.\u00a0 I went off with Emily and Hillary.\u00a0 We all wanted to have falafel, because what else do a bunch of young Jews want to do in Israel?<\/p>\n

The first falafel shop we found was called Bravo and had a giant picture of Johnny Bravo on the sign and on their menu.\u00a0 The place was small and no tables on the inside.\u00a0 I did something I rarely do and had my falafel made with everything on it.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve made such a great food decision in life when compared to this.\u00a0 Everything was fresh from the salad, to the falafel balls, to the humus.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

From outside where we were eating, we could see children walking by with backpacks on from school heading home for a quick bite to eat for lunch.\u00a0 We also saw some tourists around.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Following lunch, Nadav pointed out a huge synagogue in the Jewish quarter.\u00a0 This synagogue to me was a symbol of Judaism.\u00a0 Like the religion, the synagogue had been beaten, but the community rose and has rebuilt it time and time again.<\/p>\n

Strangely enough, there was a minaret in the Jewish section.\u00a0 Legend has it that there was a Jewish man in the section of town that was treated poorly for so long by Arabs that he decided to convert and become a Muslim.\u00a0 After converting, the Jews of the area started to treat him badly.\u00a0 To combat this, his mother built the minaret in the Jewish part of the city.\u00a0 It\u2019s funny, because I feel like whether that legend is true or not, my mother would probably do the same thing.<\/p>\n

Around the corner was a view of some of the remains of the Old City from the 1st<\/sup> Temple Era.\u00a0 When Israel took the Old City in the late 60s, there weren\u2019t settlements in the area, so it was easy to go through and excavate this area, which is when they found these remains.\u00a0 Only a small portion of them remain to be viewed while other parts were built over.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Following this, we visit the supposed spot of King David\u2019s burial.\u00a0 The place where King David is supposedly buried is directly below where Jesus\u2019s last supper occurred.\u00a0 For a long time, Jews made pilgrimages to this site and prayed by David\u2019s tomb since they couldn\u2019t go in the gates of the nearby old city.\u00a0 Outside of David\u2019s tomb is a statue of him.\u00a0 Since it is against Jewish law to have a statue (it is a form of idol worshipping to many religious Jews, they now have a camera on the statue.\u00a0 Religious Jews in the past and even with the camera up have a tendency to sabotage the statue.\u00a0 The most common way of doing so was to cut off his nose.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

While waiting outside of the tomb, I saw yet another cat.\u00a0 At this point I was starting to get the picture.\u00a0 Not a single squirrel in site, but there are cats EVERYWHERE.\u00a0 I have pictures of these cats and you probably see a picture on my Facebook of a cat sitting on my lap.<\/p>\n

Just after this, an Israeli who we didn\u2019t know asked to speak to the group briefly.\u00a0 He told us the story of his mother walking across Europe from the Ukraine to settle in Israel, because it was even a country.\u00a0 \u201cMy mother could not take Delta Airlines here,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I\u2019m glad your group can.\u00a0 Welcome home,\u201d he finished before walking away.<\/p>\n

Welcome home is probably one of the most powerful statements made by anyone during the trip and he wasn\u2019t the only one to say it.\u00a0 The more I heard people say it, the more I considered a question that Nadav asked us to consider about the difference between a tourist and a pilgrim.\u00a0 Where we visitors or returning home?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

January 10th, 2012 I woke up in the hotel in Abu Ghosh to a room that was pitch black.\u00a0 I\u2019m not afraid of the dark, but when I wake up in the morning I like to know what time it is and I didn\u2019t know how to find my watch right away.\u00a0 When I found […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rosskressel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rosskressel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rosskressel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rosskressel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rosskressel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rosskressel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rosskressel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rosskressel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rosskressel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}