Jerusalem

Today, we left the north and headed to Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. Before we arrived, our first destination was an archeological dig site in the Judean mountains. The caves that toured and excavated have been around for over 2000 years, around the time of the Macabees. This is especially interesting because it is currently Chanukah. Chanukah is the celebration of the Macabeean victory over the Romans, and oil that was only supposed to light the temple menorah (candelabra) for one day, but lasted for 8. For the first part of the tour, we maneuvered through an unexcavated network of caves, called spurlunking. Only small holes, which are the top entrances to different rooms in the cave, were open. We needed to shimmy through these holes on our backs without the use of our hands to get through to the next cave. It was interesting and fun to explore these caves as they were found – unexcavated. After we managed to get everyone out of the network of caves without getting stuck in any of the holes, we were taken to another network of caves in which they were currently doing excavation. They gave us buckets and shovels, and we were able to dig for artifacts. I mostly found dirt and rocks, but towards the end I did find both pottery and animal bones, which were the common finds. It was fascinating to do this digging because nobody before us in over 2000 years had handled the artifacts that I dug up.
After the dig, wedrove to the old city of Jerusalem. First we walked along the outside of the old city. The first landmark we came across was the ‘mount of olives’. This site is a cemetery, which has been used for thousands of years. It is located on a hill directly across from the old city. There are 4 different religious groups that share the old city of Jerusalem – Jewish, Christina, Muslim, and Armenian. Each faith has their own section in the old city. After learning about the different religious groups, we walked through the old city towards the Kotel (Western/Wailing wall). This wall is a section of the base of the second temple, which was destroyed by the Romans. This section of the base of the temple is the holiest because it is the closest part of the wall to the holiest of holies – the dome of the rock. This was the site of the second temple. It is hard to explain the full beauty of the Kotel. It was exciting and humbling to stand before the center of the world for the Jewish people.
After dinner, we went to a bar on the kibbutz where we were staying. The bar was located in the bomb shelter. There was a bar, dance floor, and even a few lounge areas. If I had not seen the entrance, I never would have noticed it was a bomb shelter. It was fun to see how Israelis party, even though most of the people in the bar were Canadians.