Jerusalem: Day 2

Our second day in Jerusalem began with a visit to the “Garden Tomb”. One of the most startling things about visiting holy sites in Jerusalem is that they don’t look how you expect. So, where Jesus was crucified and buried 2,000 years ago has a giant church built right over top of it and doesn’t look like a garden tomb. This is further complicated by two more factors: first, ancient people didn’t write explicit directions or descriptions so we could follow them 2,000 years later, they wrote for people who knew what and where they were talking about, and second, it’s very challenging to excavate underneath the ruins of Jerusalem without starting World War III so archeological dating is tough. (wow that's a run-on sentence, don't judge me!)



This leads to sites like the “Garden Tomb” which was “discovered” in 1867 when a European tourist looked out his hotel window and noticed a rocky hillside that looked like a skull. In the Bible, Jesus was crucified on Golgotha which translates to place of the skulls. The site has a garden and a tomb and thus looks very much like what was described from 2,000 years ago. Like everything in Jerusalem, including lightbulbs, there are factions who believe this is the location described in the Bible and others who believe that the site where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is located is the real site. Given that the Holy Sepulcher has been a church since the third century, it seems unlikely that the Garden Tomb is the real site but it was interesting to see how the site may have looked 2,000 years ago.

After seeing the Garden Tomb, we went to see the Dome of the Rock which only allows non-Muslim visitors during non-prayer times. We did not enter the mosque but the tile work outside is absolutely beautiful.



Koko, being Jewish, was not technically allowed to visit the site but she joined us anyway as you can see from the picture below.



We found it very interesting to see which groups prohibited which other groups or required screenings, etc. For example, anyone can go to the Wailing Wall provided they go through a metal detector but Muslims prohibit Jewish people from entering the Dome of the Rock compound. Jewish settlements are in the middle of areas that have been designated to the Muslims by peace agreements and yet defy orders to leave. The picture below shows one such settlement in the Arab quarter of old Jerusalem.



Everyone seems to have figured out a tenuous way to co-exist in old Jerusalem because it’s sacred to all three religions; any act of violence or destruction of a monument could prompt retaliation and it’s not worth it. The same cannot be said for other areas of Israel where people are fighting less about holy sites and more about land rights.

After the Dome of the Rock, we toured the tunnels under Old Jerusalem that basically run the length of the Wailing wall. These tunnels were excavated in the 1960s when the country of Israel took over control of Jerusalem. The tunnels show the rest of the Wailing/Western wall of the former Jewish temple mount. To the Jewish people, this is an important part of their heritage and demonstrates their claim on this land from 2,000 years (and more) ago. To the Muslims who have controlled the city for the last 1,300 years (except since the 1960s), these tunnels are the work of sore losers who are trying to collapse the Arab quarter of Old Jerusalem. As you can imagine, this quarrel is not likely to be resolved soon…in the meantime, let’s have a picture of M not fitting in the tunnels:





Dad, A, and M and their sporty yarmulkes:





Also, for some unknown reason, shirts in Hebrew supporting American professional and collegiate sports teams were quite popular in Jerusalem along with several great t-shirts with puns including my personal favorite, “Guns and Moses”. I guess the one thing that Israelis and Palestinians can agree on is that the Buckeyes are awesome: