Yad Vashem

I stopped at one last religious site this morning before leaving the Old City until my next trip to Israel. As with the locations of other Biblical events in Jerusalem, nobody knows for certain where the Last Supper was held, but according to tradition it took place in the upper room of a small church just outside Zion Gate on the South end of the Old City. I left my room at Hebron Hostel at 7:30 this morning and wandered through the empty alleyways of Souq Kahn as-Zeit that would fill quickly once the shops opened later in the day. I arrived at the location of the Room of the Last Supper a few minutes before it opened and even had to knock on the entrance to get the Israeli Security Guard inside to open up. The guy gave me a hard time for being so early, “What? You don't like sleep!?”Not only are historians unsure as to the exact location of the Room of the Last Supper, but the room that they suspect is it didn't even exist in Christ's time. The original church where the Last Supper is believed to have been held was destroyed, then rebuilt, then destroyed again before the current structure was built by Christian Crusaders. Despite the tumultuous and uncertain history of the room, visiting the church as it currently stands was worthwhile. I don't know enough about ancient Middle Eastern architecture to judge whether the room looks the same as one in Jesus' time would have, but I enjoyed the ambiance anyway and tried to imagine what it must have been like to have been part of the crowd that was gathered there.

Visiting the historical and religious sites in Jerusalem has been incredible, but I wanted to see at least one place before I left that had to do more with modern Israeli culture. The Yad Vashem is Israel's primary museum documenting the Holocaust. The museum is housed in a new structure made of concrete and glass that resembles a Star of David cut in half, and the building has the feel of a dark military bunker from the inside. I can't imagine a place that would have as much access to artifacts from the Holocaust and to first-hand accounts from the victims as Israel does, and that's obvious by the quality of the museum. I originally planned to spend around an hour at the museum, but once inside I took my time and didn't leave until more than three hours later. The exhibits are arranged in chronological order starting with the motives behind anti-semitism in Europe after World War I, then continuing through German legislation against Jews, the exclusion of Jews from society and expulsion to crowded ghettos, then finally to Hitlers “Final Solution” to the “Jewish Problem” - candid accounts of the brutal torture and murder carried out by SS troops.

Hundreds of television screens throughout the museum displayed interviews of Holocaust survivors describing the most shocking genocide experiences I've ever heard of. One man told of being lined up with other Jews in a pit filled with those who had already been murdered. Troops fired down into the pit and killed those around him, but he survived by falling before he was shot and lying still beneath the bodies. Another Jewish man told of being forced to separate the valuables of Holocaust victims and coming across his mother's purse. He was thirteen years old at the time. Yet another told of being gathered in one of the ghettos to be shipped off to a concentration camp when he was eight years old. His mother bribed a German official to look the other way for only a few seconds. When the man did she lifted some barbed wire at the edge of the ghetto, turned to her son, and told him to run and never look back.

There were literally hundreds of documented stories of the events that occured and each of them was so interesting, but the number of stories was so overwhelming that it was impossible to listen to them all. The museum focused on describing the personal lives, aspirations, and fight for survival of the Jewish people among a society that had completely dehumanized them. At the end of the museum a few exhibits described the liberation of the concentration camps and prosecution of Nazi war criminals. As I exited the building the walls of the dark military bunker spread outwards to reveal a panorama of bright Israeli countryside in front of me.

While riding the bus into the Old City my first day in Israel I talked with a Jewish student from Canada who is studying in Israel for the summer. I asked him where I could get some falafel and he told me that if I wanted real Israeli food, I'd go to a place near the bus station called “Halo Teiman”. I had no idea to expect when I went there, but I needed to catch a bus today and was determined to eat at Halo Teiman while I was in the area. When I finally got to the place I was surprised to find that it was connected to a gas station, just like a Wendy's or Subway would be in the United States. I trusted the Canadian kid anyway and ordered a “Chicken Schwarma”; a heap of hummus, chicken, veggies, sauces, and spices wrapped up in a round flap of soft flatbread.

My last item of business today was to float in the Dead Sea. I didn't catch a bus until late this afternoon because I spent so much time at Yad Vashem, but fortunately I got there just before sunset. The Dead Sea is the only lake in the world that is saltier than the Great Salt Lake back home, and it might also be the only lake in the world that smells as bad as the Great Salt Lake. As the bus navigated down into the valley where the Dead Sea sits, the stench from the water penetrated my nostrils. I'm used to the same smell coming off the Great Salt Lake, so I actually enjoyed the odor because it reminded me of home. The filthy scent of brine never smelled so sweet.

I've heard people tell stories of floating in the Dead Sea and of course I expected it to be easy to float, but I had no idea how out-of-this world the experience would be. People had told me outrageous stories before and I always figured they were exaggerating, but I now know from first-hand experience that it really is impossible to sink in the Dead Sea.

I wandered out to the shoreline, where I met a few American kids, and the four of us floated in the water as the sun lowered beneath the mountains behind us. Two things about the Dead Sea really surprised me. First of all, the Dead Sea is warm! It's almost as warm as a hot-tub. People talk so much about how salty it is that I don't think anyone really thinks about anything else, but it's easily the warmest lake I've ever been in. Also, the water was crystal clear. The Great Salt Lake back home has such murky, disgusting water that I just assumed that the Dead Sea would be the same, but the water looked so clear that I almost wanted to drink it (that would have been a bad idea).

I was curious to see how easy it really would be to float in the Dead Sea. As an experiment I tried blowing out all my air to make myself less buoyant, then stood straight up in the water to be as sinkable as possible. I still didn't sink. I didn't even get my shoulders wet. Next I tried pushing upwards against the water with my hands; effectively the opposite of treading water, but that wasn't enough to sink me either. Trying to sink in the Dead Sea is like trying to sink with water wings wrapped all your arms and legs; it just doesn't happen.