Israel, Day 2: Jerusalem

Today was again a very long, but very informational and eye opening day. We started out the day, by going to the Temple Mount, the 'holiest of the holy' in the city of Jerusalem.

For nearly 1300 years, Muslims have been in continuous control of the Temple Mount. After Omar conquered the Romans in the 7th century, the Muslims have had their holy site located at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Although this is a holy site for Muslims, it is a cause for great controversy in the Muslim community with relation to their traditions. Traditionally, Muslims pray with their faces towards Mecca, but when the Islamic Umayyad Dynasty (661-780 AD) took over the area around Jerusalem, they transferred their capitol to Syria, far away from the Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina, there was a great outcry from the citizens of Mecca (the location of the Hajj--a compulsory pilgrimage required of all Muslims) that the Holy city was being betrayed because the religious center of Islam was--and according to many Muslims always should be--Mecca.

Having no affect on their outcry to the leaders of the Umayyad Dynasty, the citizens of Mecca barred pilgrimage to the city unless they swore allegiance to the holy city of Mecca. For those who did not swear allegiance to Mecca were still in need of a destination for their pilgrimage. So the religious leaders of the Umayyads decided that Jerusalem could the the alternative destination for the Hajj. Their justification for this is that in the Koran, it says that Mohammed had a dream before he died that he ascended to heaven from the rock atop Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, so the next holiest site behind Mecca and Medina is Jerusalem and Muslims looking for pilgrimage could go there.

This is how the current Muslim control of the Temple Mount came to be. 200-300 years after the Umayyads established Jerusalem as the third holiest site in Islam, the Dome of the Rock was completed and was a prominent Muslim destination that could be seen from all over the area.

The front of the Al-aqsa mosque. We weren't allowed in, as we were  not Muslim, and non-Muslims are not allowed in the Al-aqsa mosque. The justification is that non-Muslims with make the Holy house of Allah will become unholy if people who don't believe in Mohammed the prophet will make it unholy.

The lesser known of the 2 mosques located on the Temple Mount--the Al-aqsa mosque was established long before the Dome of the Rock. Before Islam spread so quickly across the known world, Omar, the third great Muslim religious leader came to Jerusalem to attempt to conquer the place (at that time controlled by Christian Assyrians). Omar rode led his horse into Jerusalem to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where he could speak with the Christian religious leaders. They invited him to pray in their church, but he declined saying that if he prayed there he would have to conquer the church as his own because that was the tradition of his culture. So he asked if he could start his own site of worship in a place that "would be untouched by invaders."

The Dome of the Rock. It can be seen from nearly any ridge in the area, and is one of the most visible sights in Jerusalem because of it's golden dome.

So the Christians told him he could build his mosque on the southwest corner of the Temple Mound. Since the beginning of the 600s the Al-aqsa mosque has stood prominently at the south west corner of the Temple Mound. Several hundred years later the Dome of the Rock was completed and it has overshadowed the Al-aqsa ever since. Non-Muslims are allowed to be on the Temple Mound everyday from 9am-10am and from 2pm-3pm (during hours Muslims are not in prayer.) We visited from 9am to 10am. The security check point before entering the Temple mound is just like airport security, metal detectors, bag scanners, and random pat downs.

We then visited the wailing (also known as the Western) wall, the holiest site on earth for Jews. This large wall located on the west side of the Temple Mound is one of the oldest parts of the city (that is still in tact), dating back the the time of King Herod over 2000 years ago. This wall is sacred to the Jews because it was designated as the part of the Temple Mound that Jews could visit where they would not make the house of God unclean. Entering the Temple Mound--for religious Jews--is seen as sacrilege because it is bringing an unworthy human into the holy place of God, making it unholy. Jews view the western wall as a location to get closer to God, without making his house unholy.

The wailing wall is considered the most holy site for Jews today. It's located at the oldest wall still in tact in Jerusalem, nearly 2100 years old. The wall is crowded like this everyday from sunrise to sunset.

After our visit to the wailing wall, we went to the Jewish Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. Known to Israelis as Yad Vashem, the site is one of the most visited non-religious sites in Jerusalem. Yad Vashem in Hebrew means tombstone and a person's name. For ancient Jews passing on you name was a monumental thing. Passing on your name meant that your name would live on forever. This practice is common even today. In the Bible, God says that for those who do not live to pass their name on, their name will be given a place to live on forever in the house of the Lord--in ancient times, names of people who passed on without having children or grandchildren would have their name inscribed in the walls of the Temple on the Temple Mound. Yad Vashem is a place where the names of the millions of Jews who died in the Holocaust will have their names live on forever whether or not they had children or grandchildren.

The roof of the holocaust museum at the Israel Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. The architect chose to make the building very symbolic, as described in the final paragraph. The aerial picture at the bottom shows a thin line that protrudes from the ground... that is this structure. A ten foot tall triangular dome atop the museum. (See description in the last paragraph.)

The most moving experience at the museum is the children's memorial, I have almost no words to describe it besides absolutely moving. When you enter the first room of the children's memorial you see mirrors with pictures of children who died in the holocaust, and as you move along the darkly lit corridor (so dark you can't see and have to hold onto the banister to find your way through) the pictures fade away and new pictures of different children appear. Then you turn the corner into another room. I was overwhelmed with awe when I entered this room. I entered a room roughly 3 stories high that was completely pitch black... except for what appeared to be millions of candles all over the room. One candle for each child. To best describe it: see the video I posted on Facebook of it: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150480992073170

Entrance to the most incredible holocaust memorial I have ever seen. This memorial was absolutely moving.

The last piece I will share today, is the spectacular museum of the Holocaust located at Yad Vashem. Shaped as a large triangular building that goes through one side of the mountain and exits on the other side. The architect made the building symbolic of the Holocaust and the Jewish people. The entrance to the museum, hangs over the cliff, it's called Over the Edge. This part of the museum is dedicated to the diversity of the different national groups that Jews represented before the Holocaust, and it shows their proud nationalistic feelings they had before the Holocaust began. As you move through the museum, the floor plan is a maze with no set direction of how you're supposed to get through... there is no clear path to the end, just as it was for many Jews during the Holocaust. And as you make your way to the end of the long museum building, the floor begins to ascend and you step out onto an observation deck overlooking the city of Jerusalem, where the walls peel off from each other and light pours in, symbolizing the Jews' rise from the dark era of the Holocaust and signifying Israel as the answer to Hitler and all the antisemitic people in the world. I would have put less description of this place and more pictures but no photographs are allowed inside the museum so I'll show you what it looks like from the outside:

The museum is the long piece that pierces right the center of the compound. 'Over the Edge' is located near the center of the picture, and the exit into the light is located near the top left of the picture. The significance of the middle is that it's underground. This symbolizes the way the holocaust was visible to people at the time, but what what under the surface (underground) was unknown to people and people refused to look under the surface to find out what was really happening during the 'Final Solution'.

I know there is a lot of information here, but it makes up for the very short post from yesterday! I hope you enjoy. Tomorrow will be about our first visit to the West Bank. We'll be visiting the city of Bethlehem, the acting capitol of the West Bank, Ramallah, and various sites along the border of the West Bank and Israel.