Off at 8am to go to the Hadassah Medical Centre, the major teaching and research hospital in Jerusalem. We heard about working with AIDS victims amongst Ethiopian refugees to Israel, then went on a tour of the hospital which seemed very modern and well-equipped. We then heard from two psychologists about treatment of anorexia, and the new field of medical psychology, then resumed the tour going to a synagogue with magnificent stained glass windows designed by Marc Chagall which told the story of Israel. A siren sounded at 10am and almost everybody stood still exactly where they were. It is holocast memorial day and apparently the whole country stops for 2 mintues at this time. It was a unique experience seeing people frozen in place.
Our tour director had finally listened to the complaints
about the unrelenting forced marches, and cancelled an afternoon session at an Institute
which very few would have gone to anyway. This left just a short trip to the Herzl museum which is our sort of museum. It was an audio visual display outlining the story of some bloke called Herzl who first had the idea in the late 1800's to form the jewish homeland. We have to say the Jews do all this propaganda brilliantly - you could clearly see the Jewish creativity on full display and you couldn't help getting swept up in the message of how fantastic Israel is - it was first rate.
The cancellation left the afternoon free to
explore Jerusalem at leisure, so Julie, I and Denise from the group asked the bus
driver to drop us off at the top of the Mount of Olives to walk back down to
the Old City. Others went to the Israel
Museum, the Old City and back to the hotel.
It was very cold and windy and the air was full of dust
pretty much wrecking the views.
Nevertheless we headed down the path first stopping at the Tomb of the
Prophets. None of us had any idea what
this was and it was not mentioned in our guide book. A man met us at a gate and explained that
this was a cave with passages and burial spots dug out around 600BC, and it was
the burial place of the prophets Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, which astute
Bible scholars will recognise as the last 3 books of the Old Testament. Here we are emerging from the pit.
We continued down past the Jewish burial ground:
to the Church of Dominus Flevit (Our Lord Weeping) which is
a catholic church where the seated congregation has a beautiful view during
the Mass of the sacred Muslim site, the gold Dome of the
Rock. Depending on where you stood you could photograph the cross blocking out
the Dome, but in the interests of inter-faith tolerance, which is definitely
the case in Jerusalem, this photograph puts the 2 side by side:
Next stop was the garden of Gethsemane at the bottom of the Mount
of Olives, where Jesus was arrested.
This featured massive old gnarled olive trees:
The adjacent church of the Basilica of Agony was beautiful
and not gaudily over the top, unlike so many others here. It was also very peaceful, and the irony
continued of sitting in this church next to such a sacred Christian site, surrounded
by praying Catholics, with the only sound being the loud Muslim call to prayers.
Last stop was the grotto, down a long wide flight of stairs
into a dug out area which contained the tomb of the Virgin Mary, so we
understand.
We then left the Mount of Olives and headed over the road to
the Lion gate into the Muslim quarter of the Old City which leads directly to
the Via Dolorosa which we decided not to do for the third time, and in Denise’s
case, the 4th time. Instead
we headed for shops where Julie bought some very fine stainless steel lace
boxes, then a great cup of coffee in the bakery where Julie had lunch the day
before, and back to the hotel by 6.25pm.
Mad rush to get our bags packed to avoid doing it last thing tonight,
then off to a nearby restaurant with the group to hear a guest speaker talk
about treatment of post traumatic stress disorder. Back to the hotel at 10pm – an early night,
hooray!
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