The Dead Sea and nearly Masada

I'm tired! After breakfast this morning we boarded the bus to take a day trip to Masada and the Dead Sea. The weather was absolutely dismal yesterday and there was a chance that the roads were blocked in the West Bank but our guide felt that it would be fine but it wasn't. We passed the checkpoints into the West Bank with no problem and then went on into the Judean Desert but came to a road block due to a swollen river across the highway. Our guide took us on a hike through the desert for a while but when we returned to the highway the road was still blocked and we were told to turn back. The picture below shows the flooded road. To an Aussie, this doesn't seem so bad but apparently the road had swept away underneath all the water and there was a worse flood about 10 minutes up the road. We had to abandon our planned trip to Masada.




Before we went back to the Dead Sea our guide took us on a hike through the Judean Desert.

They grow date trees in the desert and these can be seen dotted across the landscape.

I enlarged the next photo so you can see the Rock Rabbits sunning themselves on the ledge. They are chubby little fellas and were found right throughout the areas of desert we explored. There are also Desert Leopards here but they only come out to hunt at night.

We also saw the Bedouin settlements throughout the desert landscape. These people live a nomadic life rearing livestock in the desert. The livestock we saw were mainly sheep and goats. There were several that also had camels. There were lots of wild donkeys and camels in the desert. The Bedouin's live in shacks and a very simple life but our guide assured us that they are not poor and Israel provides them with healthcare and other financial support.

After we explored the desert for a while we went back to the Dead Sea. The high salt content of the sea means that you just float on top of the water. Due to the terrible weather over the past day or two the sea was extremely choppy and very hard to stay upright in. We were told that if we got water in our eyes we would need to leave the water immediately and wash in fresh water to remove the salt. Apparently this is incredibly painful and several members of our group did get salt in their eyes and they were screaming in pain. They also told us that if we ingested the water we would require immediate medical attention. I only went in to my knees and didn't risk it. The photos show the choppiness of the sea.

The weather is forecasted to be improving each day from now on so hopefully it will be a good day for our trip to Tel Aviv tomorrow.

Shabbat

Today we only had a half day at school because it is the Sabbath. We had lectures on Nazi Racist Ideology and the Persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany: 1933-1939. When we were returned to the hotel at 12pm another teacher from the course and I went fro a walk to the Old City to begin souvenir shopping. It was a freezing cold day in Jerusalem today with severe winds and torrential rain but we both needed a walk and figured that a bit of rain wouldn't hurt us. We were absolutely drenched when we returned to the hotel. Here are some pictures of the market.

I love to take photos of the spices and different types of dried fruits and nuts that you can buy. Next Friday before Shabbat I am going to go the Shook which is a market not unlike our Vic Market I've been told but on steroids.

There were lots of stalls selling livestock.

 
All of the stalls are in tiny little areas and the merchants harass you for your business. My bargaining skills are getting better. As it is the Sabbath it is very quiet because Jerusalem basically closes down from sunset today to sunset tomorrow being Saturday. I arrived last Saturday morning so missed the beginning of the Sabbath but when it is welcomed in a siren goes off to alert everyone to this. It sounds like an air raid siren but we were warned about this at school so knew to expect it. There are lots of Americans at the hotel and they didn't know this and they were really scared and trying to run out of the foyer.

I bought myself a fruit bowl for home and some trinkets that say Jerusalem for my two History classes. I haggled the man down from 50 Shekel for 52 trinkets to 20 Shekel for 54. Not bad!

We then had a very special experience by attending a Shabbat service at the Great Synagogue. We were given all materials in English alongside the Hebrew but really couldn't follow so just sat and watched. We weren't allowed photos in the Synagogue and I wouldn't have taken any out of respect either so have just provided a Google image of the Great Synagogue.

The male teachers were given skull caps to wear before we entered and then the female teachers were sent to the upstairs area you can see. The men sat at the bottom. The men only take part in the service with the Rabbi leading the service and the congregation singing with him often. The women followed the service from the balcony and stood up and sat down and turned around at different times throughout the service and we were told to just follow what they did. The service went for about 50 minutes. This was the only Shabbat service that we were obliged to attend with the Yad Vashem staff but I think I will probably go back to synagogue next Friday Shabbat as well.

After the service they put on a lavish dinner at the hotel for us and all the other Jews who went to synagogue. It was so interesting to see the different Jewish communities all in one room. There were tiny boys wearing black suits and black top hats with side curls, men with side curls and big furry circular shaped hats on their heads and men wearing everyday clothes with colourful skull caps. There was such a mixture of religious devoutness amongst them. The Jewish women were very much dressed in the style of the Amish women without any head coverings. After the initial blessing of the bread and wine and washing our hands at the communal cleaning station, we drank and ate and celebrated the Shabbat. Israeli alcohol is so strong! The dining hall was full of Jewish families and every now and again then the room would erupt with Jewish nationalistic song. It was lovely. At one point our host Ephraim got up and told the room that along with our group of 35 there were another 80 Australians just arrived for a teacher's tour of Israel. He asked us to sing an Australian song so all 115 of us sang Waltzing Matilda.

After the dinner we listened to our second survivor speech from Mark Spigelman. Mark was a child survivor of the Holocaust and survived only because he was made to dress as a girl and grow his hair long from when he was born. This was because the German soldiers pulled down the pants of all little boys and if they were circumcised, therefore a Jew, they were killed. This deception kept him alive. He is the youngest survivor remaining, in his 80's now, and he told us of the horrific nightmares that still plague him to this day. He lives between Israel and England today but when he was liberated by the Russians his parents wanted to move as far away from Europe as possible so he spent his life from 10 years of age in Australia. He is in Art Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus, a text which is on the current Year 12 booklist for English.

Due to the terrible weather we will only find out of our tour for tomorrow in the morning. Either the Dead Sea and Masada, the Jewish and Christian Quarters of the Old City or the Israeli Museum with an archaeologist tour guide. Either way we will fit everything in but they may move them about so we get the best experience possible.

They are really looking after us here.

School

Only a short post today. The entire day was spent in the classroom. We had four lectures today delivered by academics from Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University. The topic was anti-Semitism in Ancient, Medieval and Modern Europe. All the lecturers that are delivering the course are world leading experts in their field so it is absolutely brilliant. The following photos are from around the campus.


The Holocaust History Museum that I went to yesterday is on campus.

These photos are pictures around campus. All buildings except for the museum are built out of Jerusalem stone as is law in Israel.

We have access to the Pedagogical Centre, Archives, Learning Centre and Visual Centre plus the Museum and all memorials on site to research our educational projects.

Tomorrow will be a much more interesting day in terms of cultural activities. It is the Shabbat so we finish school at 11.45am and then will attend an Orthodox Jewish service at the Great Synagogue followed by a Shabbat meal with the Yad Vashem staff. Apparently the Jews go all out with their Shabbat dinner and we have been told to expect all kinds of delicacies including Kosher wine. After dinner we will be listening to another survivor testimony from Professor Mark Spigelman. Off to the Dead Sea, Masada, Tel Aviv and the Old City of Jaffa on the weekend. I am going to need a rest when I get home!

Finally, just a picture of my hotel, the Prima Kings Jerusalem. Service is great, food is great and room is great. It is a 10 minute walk from the Old City and the Great Synagogue is right next to the hotel. Benjamin Netanyahu's residence is only 200 metres away and he drove past last night with a serious police cavalcade.

Yad Vashem - an exerlasting memorial

Today started with a tour of the Holocaust Museum. Photos were not allowed in the museum but the exhibitions were amazing. The museum is architecturally spectacular and as you enter you are surrounded by towering sloping concrete walls. The museum is then a long corridor with rooms going off to either side where the before, during and after of the Holocaust is explored, firstly in years and then thematically. The sloping concrete walls get closer as 1941 is reached. This was a deliberate decision in the design of the museum to create a claustrophobic atmosphere, indicative of the rising tensions and dangers at that time in history for the persecuted. The corridor begins to widen after the final room dealing with liberation. As you enter the museum and look to the very end of the corridor you can only see light and sky through a full glass wall and doors. Metaphorically indicative of the light at the end of the tunnel. Hope can come from great despair. The following photo is that view. It is looking over Jerusalem and it is symbolic of the fact that the Jewish people now have a land to call home, Israel.

The next couple of photos are of my classroom and the views directly from that classroom.

The food here is great!

After dinner tonight we went on a night tour of the Western Wall Tunnels. There is an underground old city beneath the current ground in Jerusalem and we explored this area. The second photo are notes in the cracks of the Western Wall. It is a tradition to write prayers to God and place them in the Wall, which is one of the holiest Jewish sites in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem by night.

Hannah Pick

Today was the second day at Yad Vashem and we had sessions on Jewish Politics and Parties, Jewish life in the inter-war period and Holocaust Writing in Eastern European Jewish culture. The highlight of the day, however, was the afternoon session with Hannah Pick. I would be happy just to have met this amazing lady and not seen anything else on this trip. Hannah Pick is a Holocaust survivor and the best friend of Anne Frank. Having read the Diary of Anne Frank many times it was wonderful to hear the heart-warming stories Hannah told of her friend and their relationship. She told humorous stories of the girls as children contrasted with the heartbreaking final meeting she had with her friend before Anne met her fate. It was absolutely inspiring to see the gracious way that Hannah conducts her life after the atrocities she went through as a survivor of the Holocaust. Hannah's testimony was the first of many that we will hear throughout this program.

Yad Vashem

Only a short post today. This was my first day at Yad Vashem, the International School for Holocaust Studies. Today's program included a lecture on Jews and Judaism with Rabbi Moshe Cohn and then a lecture on Educational Philosophy by Shulamit Imber, Yad Vashem's pedagogical director. If the calibre of these two was anything to go by I am in for an excellent 3 weeks of learning. After lunch, (a choice of salad bowl and a piece of fruit) which luckily is provided by Yad Vashem (everything is super expensive here) we were taken on a bus tour of Jerusalem with Ephraim Kaye, the Project Director of the Gandel Program. We have an armed guard with us wherever we go and he sits right at the front of our bus whenever we are travelling.

The following photo is the view from my classroom. It ended up clouding over as the morning progressed and by lunchtime all you could see outside the window was a heavy white fog.

Below is a photo of me with one of the Israeli soldiers. She was 20 and in her second year of service. Note her AK-47 and the pile of machine guns on the left hand side of the photo with the backpacks. The soldiers who owned these backpacks were patrolling inside the school and she was minding their weapons. There are certain areas where the army are not allowed to carry their assault rifles and Yad Vashem is one of them.

I spoke with some of the soldiers today and I learned that they were conscripted at 18 years old and women served two years and men three. They were issued a weapon on joining and then were required to carry that weapon at all times until their discharge. During this conscription period they told me that they were given enough money to buy food while they were 'at work' and enough for cigarettes. I don't think I've seen a soldier who doesn't smoke. If they chose to remain in the army as a career after their conscription period the salary was very good. I was impressed to hear that although  these young people were not paid a wage as such, the Israeli government does put aside a certain amount of money for each year of their service. Upon their discharge they are given this money to use to either establish a business or pay their way through a university course. This money cannot be used to travel. It is exclusively to be used to build a future. Most young people choose to travel after their subscription is over and often go into higher education in their early to mid 20's upon their return to Israel.

Finally I thought I would post a few photos of the dinner buffet. Food is plentiful, healthy and yummy. The hot food changes slightly from night to night but is also available at breakfast. The addition with the breakfast is a cheese bar with every type of cheese you can imagine, yoghurt, fruit and cereals. In the morning as they don't serve meat I am able to drink milk with my tea but can only drink black tea at dinner as they serve meat and the hotel only serves kosher food. They eat lots of salad here so the salad bar always has a wide range each night and this is different every night. Suits me very nicely and every night so far I have had a plate filled with lots of different types of salad.