Jerusalem and Yad Vashem

Jerusalem is located at the crossroads of Africa, Asia, and Europe. A long time ago, you had to go through Jerusalem, if you wanted to go from any of those continents to another. This led to Jerusalem, and whoever ruled Jerusalem, to become quite wealthy because of all the trade that came through.  The Knesset, Israel’s legislative body is in the new part of the city.

The other part of Jerusalem is the Old City. The Old City is a warren of tight, winding streets. Walking around in it you can really understand how ancient it really is. It is divided into four sections, or quarters: the Jewish Quarter, the Muslim Quarter, the Christian Quarter, and the Armenian Quarter. The Muslim Quarter has the largest population, with over 22,000 permanent residents. There are approximately 33,000 people living in the entire Old City. It contains many special religious sites, such as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Jesus Christ was laid to rest and the Dome of the Rock, which contains a rock that Muhammad leaped off of to ascend to heaven. This is also the same rock that Abraham almost sacrificed his son Isaac on. It also contains the Western Wall, the last standing part of the magnificent Solomon’s Temple. It is seen as the holiest site of Judaism. It was amazing to visit the wall and feel my connection to my ancient Jewish ancestors. It was also sad to see that the once magnificent structure only had one standing wall left.

Another important site in Jerusalem is the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum complex. It is comprised of a gigantic museum and many memorials. The museum is a 150-yard long triangular prism. It is cordoned off by little barriers that lead you through rooms off of a main area that runs through the center of the structure. In the first part of the museum they talk about the rise of the Nazi party and the beginning of the discrimination against the Jewish people. The museum shows some anti-Jew propaganda that is pretty much just some pictures of people with really big noses, which reminded me of how a third-grader would make fun of someone. Next they showed how the discrimination was taken to the next level, with the ghettos. The ghettos were effectively a prison to contain the Jews in the city. They were full of starvation and disease. The rest of the exhibits were about the concentration camps and the implementation of the “Final Solution”. There were many powerful things in the museum, such as the ash hatch of a crematorium, and dozens of video interviews with Holocaust survivors. I felt very sad throughout my time there, and shocked and ashamed that humans are capable of doing these things to each other. Although it made me feel sad, I’m glad I went because it was a good experience and it helped me better understand why something like the Holocaust should never happen again.