Visiting Yad va-Shem

We spent the whole first part of the day at Yad va-Shem, Israel's Holocaust museum. The museum is profoundly powerful and moving, chronicling the history of the Holocaust starting with Hitler's rise to power and ending naturally enough with the founding of the State of Israel.

The museum has been completely redone and opened back up in 2005. The design is very effective, with the body of the museum housed in a giant concrete wedge that hangs over a precipice far above the city. The exhibits are laid out in rooms on either side of the wedge and you move back and forth as you go, giving a sense of constriction and confinement. The ideology of the museum has also changed notably. When Yad va-Shem first opened (in the 1960's, I believe) a great emphasis was placed on Jewish heroism and resistance in the face of unimaginable evil. It was an important message for the young state but one that moved the focus away from the suffering of the victims. In the museum's new incarnation those voices have been powerfully restored. It's a tribute to Israel's growing maturity as a country that acknowledging the victims in this way can be recognized as a sign of strength, where in the 1960's it would have been looked on as weakness.

After Yad va-Shem we went to Machaneh Yehudah, the main Jerusalem market to see the hustle and bustle of shoppers getting ready for Shabbat. We're getting ready for Shabbat ourselves - in another hour or so we'll meet to go back to the Old City where we'll have services at a special section of the Western Wall designated for women and men to pray together. I'm very excited by this since last time I was here that wasn't a possibility.

As I write I can hear the sound of the muezzin calling Muslims to afternoon prayers.

I hope you're enjoying following along with our travels. Please feel free to post your comments and reactions to the blog, although I may not be able to read them until I get back.

Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem!