STOP 3 | Israel: Exploring the Jewish Jerusalem + the Room of the Last Supper

This post is dedicated to Avi, my Israeli friend who got so excited for me visiting his country and who guided me towards so many aspects of the Jewish culture during this part of my trip. Thanks, bro!

Disclaimer: This post contains reference to religions: this is how I captured it, so no means to be offensive or judgmental towards any religions, it's just how I perceived it, that's all!

Weekends in Israel are usually Friday & Saturday: Sunday is considered the first day of the week. We still had to work on Friday morning, and as per the previous post, we were able to reach the Hazael destruction level. Friday was an easier day: we had a later start as every weekend we have to empty our rooms and we recorded on the site the Jerusalema challenge: watch this space for an amazing performance! -.-

We stopped at 12, vs usual 1pm and we had a Tour of the 3 areas: D, M, S where professor Aren Maeir, Director of the Excavation, presented us the progress in each area.

I signed-up for week 2 and 3 by chance, as it is aligned with my other plans, however they turned out to be the best ones, as usually on week 1 you need to set-up everything (poles and shades, equipments, etc etc) and on week 4 you need to dismantle everything. Work on week 2 and 3 seems to be more exciting as it focuses on the core of Archaeology: digging, uncovering, cleaning, retrieving.

No lunch was scheduled for the day, so after a quick shower, I took a ride to Jerusalem, as after walking 20km in Tel-Aviv the previous weekend, I wanted to explore this fabulous city as well. Thanks to Dudu, a student at the excavation, I was able to find a local guide able to tell me about the city. Shiri (www.shiritours.com, WhatsApp +972 50-350-3579) was amazing, but I will explain this later. I had tried before Viator and Abraham tours but everything got cancelled as Israel is not open for tourism (yet) and as such there is little-to-no demand. The tour was pricey, only because I was the only one, but I don't regret this decision, having a local professional explaining to you about Jerusalem, spanning across history, geopolitics, religions is completely worth it. And I had the chance to ask her all the questions passing through my mind! 😇

I asked Shiri to run a Shabbat tour, basically a tour focusing on the Jewish culture. So after the morning pickaxing in Tell es-Safi, I was ready to keep on walking to explore Jerusalem! We met at Jaffa gate, one of the original 7-8 Open Gates, that allow entering the Old City, and the one that historically connected Jerusalem to Tel-Aviv (well at 70+ km / 43+ miles distance, obviously).

Jerusalem Old City is split into 4 quarters: Christian, Armenian, Jewish and Muslim, with the Armenian one being the smallest quarter and the Muslim one being the biggest (bigger than the sum of the other 3, according to Shiri).

At Jaffa gate, we passed the Christian quarter, towards the Armenian one to reach the Jewish quarter - we could have taken a shortcut via the Muslim quarter but we did not. In the Armenian quarter - an area full of shops with Armenian ceramics - we passed in front of St. James Church and I discovered the first thing either I did not recall or I had completely forgot: Jesus had brothers (and sisters). It's written in the Bible, but details are not fully known/confirmed.

We reached then Mount Zion, the area where Christians think Mary ascended to the Heaven (she may have not officially died).

The funny things about Mount Zion, are:

• We have now a Abbey, which obviously was not there when Holy Mary ascended: Abbey of the Dormition
• Mount Zion was not included to the perimeter of the Old City in one of the Walls re-build iterations, that's why - according to Shiri - the 2 architects who designed the perimeter got killed by the ruler.

We re-entered the city from the Zion Gate and here I got the chance to buy my Kippah, as I had Jewish plans for dinner: thanks Shiri for organizing that for me!

We went to the King David's Tomb. David was the King of the United Monarchy of Israel and Judah, and he is mentioned multiple times in the Bible. Entrance to the tomb is split between men and women, I got the chance to enter and take some pics and videos.

The tomb of David is at the ground floor of the building, at the first floor there is something else, really linked to the cultural environment I grew up with: the room of the Last Supper.

Obviously no one can ever confirm it was that one, however we still had the 3 windows as the one painted by Leonardo about 1500 years later. We got unlucky apparently as the door was closed, but after going by another entrance, we noticed that the door was closed only to keep the air fresh. I got goosebumps while being in that room, it was unbelievable.

This room was never destroyed, despite the Arab conquer, but on the back you can see the transformation into a muslim mihrab.

We went to the "rooftop" to have a view of the all city, and right here I could see the Wall that separates Palestinian territories by Israel. This blog is not about politics (also, if you are reading this you should not be caring about what I think), however seeing that Wall let me think a lot, let me think about diasporas (on both ways), about wars: should religions being inclusive? "Yes, but my religion is better than yours, right?!" 😓

 

We then move directed to the Kotel, i.e. the Western Wall. Seeing all the people praying there was magical, even though I am not a firm believer, but you can feel a different atmosphere, for real.

 

Thanks to Shiri and my friend Avi, I learnt so many things about the Jewish culture:

• Israelis != Jewish, even thought about 70% of Israeli people are Jews, but about 30% are Muslims
• Jews groups, we have 3 groups more or less:
• Secular Jews: they usuallt do not practice religion and do not wear kippah
• Modern orthodox: knitted kippah (sometimes only when praying) and regular clothing
• Extreme orthodox: they all tend to wear black dresses and white shirts, and they wear majestic kippah, which probably has another name as well
• Some of them may follow traditional practices, e.g.
• Bar/Bat Mitzvah: the age (13/12) at which boys and gilrls begin to be held accountable for their own actions.
• Fasting in special occasions
• Payot (sidelocks), worn by some men and boys in the Orthodox Jewish community based on an interpretation of the Tenach injunction against shaving the "sides" of one's head. (source)
• Strings (Tzitzit) are the fringes or tassels worn on traditional or ceremonial garments by Jewish males as reminders of the Jewish commandments.

• Shabbat is a day of rest!
• This weekend was the "Tisha B'Av": annual fast day in Judaism, on which a number of disasters in Jewish history occurred, primarily the destruction of both Solomon's Temple by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in the Siege of Jerusalem (597 BC), and the Second Temple by the Roman Empire in Jerusalem.
• 613 are the rules (commandments) followed by the Jewish community-
• Kippah is the Hebrew name of Yarmulke (English)
• Torah, i.e. the first 5 books of the Bible, aka Pentateuch, aka Five Books of Moses contains the foundation narrative of the Judaism.
• Hair is considered something related to sexuality, so really orthodox Jewish women may cover it with a headscarf or even a wig, especially if they are married: only their husbands will be able to see, no other men.

Shiri kept sending me her blessing, wishing me I could find peace and I found it quite fascinating in this period of my life. I didn't realize earlier, but what Shiri let me notice is that Jerusalem etymology is connected to "Peace/The city of Peace" (source).

God Bless Shiri!