Shalom again,
now I will continue to talk about my trip to Jerusalem. The Blog before I explained, that I celebrated Jom Kippur (Day of Atonement) with a friend of my family. The day after that holy day I visited this friend at work. She (Ulrike) works at the yad vashem in Jerusalem (http://www.yadvashem.org). It is a museum and a memorial for the holocaust during world war 2. Ulrike works in the archive, which means that she process several original documents etc. from the holocaust and puts them into a context. At the end her work will be in the official exhibition of the museum. It was very interesting!
I met another friend of my family from Mainz, it seems that everybody is in Israel, in the museum and we talked and walked through the exhibition.
The exhibition itself was very interesting but also very oppressive. I know what happened in the past. We talked about it many times in history lesson until it was just an annoying pic to us, but seeing all the informations and all the destinies compressed like this just let you feel uncomfortable and bad. I could describe the topics of the different rooms and the parts of the exhibition, but I think it is difficult to put it into the right words without any emotion or rating. It was just really formative. Besides this the architecture of the building is really impressive. The whole museum is build like a way to the enlightenment. You pass dark and oppressive rooms, but you finish at a viewpoint with an incredible view over the landscape. During walking through I also met the other volunteers from my apartment (Luca, Mirjam, Kathy and Jana). They just arrived from Haifa that morning and went directly to the Yad Vashem. I said goodbye to Claude (the friend of my family) and took the tram to our hostel in the center of Jerusalem.
Arriving in the hostel made me very happy, because we had a long debate where to sleep and how much money to spend. This hostel is totally new and we did not really knew how it was gonna be, but in the end it is a very good hostel. We had a table tennis plate and a kitchen to cook, it was clean and we got know to many people. (https://www.booking.com/hotel/il/cinema-hostel-jerusalem.de.html).
After we checked in we went to the old city...
The old city is like a big old market with old buildings and a lot of history. Finding the right way without a map application is nearly impossible (for a tourist). The streets are full of flee markets which sells nearly everything. Really you can even buy suits. This part of Jerusalem is separated in 4 big parts and is surround by a big wall, which is a little bit broken. The four parts are the muslim part, the Armenian part, the christian part and the jewish part. You can quickly recognize in which part you are, expect the armian part. As a tourist, you can't get in there, because they want to live for themselves. It is understandable when you compare it to the very touristic other parts...In the middle of all the little shops and when you find your way through the tourists you can get to highly religious places, like the western wall/wailing wall, the holy church where Jesus was buried or the al-Aqsa Mosque. On that day we have been to the holy church I mentioned. It is really inconspicuous from the outside but from the inside it was exciting. Seeing people from the whole world praying one place is on the one side really annoying, because you feel like in a big bazar, but on the other hand beautiful to see, because all the different people are connected by one thing. Sadly I have no good photos from the inside, because my camera can not really deal with the low light in there....
After that we discovered stairs, which lead us to the roofs of the old buildings. We made a break, enjoyed our view and finally realized, that we are in one of the holiest places on earth.
Then their came a really emotional moment for me personally. We finally went to the Western Wall/ Wailing Wall. Information: It is called the "Western wall", because it is the west side of the fundament on which the jewish temple was build twice. It is not the west wall of the temple itself!
So how was it, to be at a place I craved for a long time, where so many religious jews prayed before and where you can put in your wishes and hope for the best!
Besides it was full of tourists too, I just had been happy and melancholic. I did not really knew how to feel. Should I be sad? Should I be humble before god? Should I stay happy? Well I didn't knew what to say and how to react, but I went straight to the wall, put my hands on it and prayed a few words I remember from the synagogue in Mainz. I spoke the Kaddish, a pray for the dead people I love, especially my grandfather and then I just talked to me and maybe to god too. It is crazy to see, that even the non religous people pray at this wall and are putting little pieces of paper in the wall with their wishes on it. Sure for some people it is just an touristic funny thing, but I think the Western Wall is like the holy church or the church I visited in Nazareth. Even if you do not believe in god you feel closer to him when you are at these places.
In the end it was really beautiful for me to see and to feel the Western Wall!
After that we went back to the hostel and enjoyed it. As I mentioned ,In our hostel is a table tennis plate, so Luca and I played 3 hours a day. We met some nice guys from Düsseldorf (it seems that everybody in this hostel is German) and fell asleep quickly.
About the next day I will tell in the next entry!
Lehitraot,
SK
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