Reflections from Mark Masinter
Day Four, 12/23/07
After a meaningful and emotional visit to Yad Vashem, bus Aleph made our way to the Jewish Quarter. It was there we were lead by our fearless leader Tzvi in our own exploration of the religious and historical sites of the Jewish Quarter (JQ) of the Old City of Jerusalem. Although our group was emotionally spent and physically exhausted from day #2 of jet lag, we persevered through hours of touring and a fun scavenger hunt.
In general, the JQ was very alive! It had an amazing reverberation of merchants pushing their wares; café operators hustling for business, aromas of freshly baked bread, pizza, bagels and falafel. There is a constant buzz in the Old City and almost a magnetic force that draws you to the Kotel / Western Wall.
The Kotel was our last stop on today’s journey in JQ. Along the way we stopped at Nachmanides synagogue, the first Sephardic synagogue in the JQ. From there went to visit the remains of the first Temple and actually see the walls of the 8 ft site. We then walked several hundred feet and traveled down a beautiful staircase to land at the foot of 4 Sephardic synagogues and saw young men davening (sp) their afternoon prayers with amazing conviction. We learned that during the siege of 1948 that the residents of this section of the JQ were cut off from their new state. Our last stop before going to the Kotel was to visit the site of our Jewish brethren who paid the ultimate price during the battles of 1948 and were buried at this location. Their bodies remained buried in secrecy until 1967 when this section of the JQ was reclaimed and their remains where taken to Har Zeitim were they received a proper burial and laid to rest among the other fallen hero’s of Israel.
It was a special afternoon filled with many learning experiences and appropriately capped off with a memorable conclusion at the Kotel for prayer and reflection.
Shalom