My Pilgrimage: June 18

Our last full day in Israel – Corpus Christi Sunday – started with Mass in the Basilica at Ecce Homo, and nice, intimate Mass at the end of which Monsignor blessed the articles we had purchased in the Holy Land.  Then we walked on down to the Zion Gate and hopped on a van to Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust Museum.

Through the Jewish Center at our seminary, we had set up a tour with one of the bigwigs at the center.  Usually he only gives tours to heads of state, so that was a great honor.  Oh, and you are not allowed to take pictures inside, so no pics here.

The new museum was completed just over five years ago, and he was able to give an insiders’ tour of the thought process behind the museum.  That actually was a blessing, and a curse.  While the tour was interesting, I feel like we missed out on a lot, and so on the whole I would say I preferred the Holocaust Museum in Washington.

So the building itself has a made throughway that is built with slanted walls to the top, making it quite dark and somewhat claustrophobic, but with “light at the end”.  There are eleven rooms you wind your way through, and they have built it in such a way that you are forced to go through the entire museum, you cannot just cut through the middle.  While we were there, there were many Israeli Defense Force members touring as well.  We were told that during their training they visit at least once in order to remind them of their history.  A really good idea, in my humble opinion.

The museum is laid out chronologically, starting with a brief wall of images from the interwar period showing normal Jewish people living normal lives “so as to avoid playing the victim card.”  From what I could tell, it does a fairly good job of showing the Holocaust from the Jewish perspective – their focus – without much on the Nazi or any other perspective.  Again, that’s what they are going for, so it works well.  I will say, as a historian, the history is a bit slanted, but that’s to be expected.

What is interesting is that, once you hit 1943, the focus shifts to a thematic approach, covering topics like resistance, Hungary, and non-Jewish heroes.  It then finishes with the inevitably difficult movement through the last years of the war, the extermination camps, a little on the soldiers who found the camps, and life afterward.  It ends with a pretty powerful display of names and faces of some of the 6 million+ Jews who died.  Overall, it is a worthwhile tour, though at three hours it is a considerable length of time.

Schindler Tree

The original plan was to have lunch at the center afterwards, but they had a sign that the cafeteria was reservation only, so back to Jerusalem!  We found a simply restaurant near Ecce Homo, with a pretty good chicken shawarama and a really good drink of lemon slush with mint.  After that we were on our own.

At that point, I lead a group to Mount Zion for a couple of last minute stops.  Somehow, those who were interested went from a half dozen yesterday to three today.  Oh well, that meant we could move faster!  Which is a good thing, because it was all the way on the other side of the city.  In fact, it’s only a couple of hundred feet from where we stayed when we were first in Jerusalem.  If only someone had told us.

What is to see on Mount Zion?  Our first stop was David’s Tomb, which was not what I expected.  First, it’s hard to find.  Second, when you enter it’s like a mini Western Wall (men on one side, women on the other, head covering required, people praying).  I was able to silently pray for only a couple of seconds before a man there started talking to me, asking me where I was from and giving me a piece of paper for a prayer intention (for my dad, David, on Father’s Day).  I thought it was all nice and everything until the guy asked for money.  Ugh.  $20?  Yeah, right!  I reluctantly gave him a smaller bill, since he did say a prayer for me and my intention.  On the way out, another man asked me.  He started asking if I was Jewish.  No.  Do you have Jewish blood?  Maybe.  Can you find out?  Um, maybe.  Well if it’s on your mother’s side then you are Jewish.  In fact it might be on my mother’s side.  So do you know?  I just said maybe.  Okay, well you should really look into it.  And here’s a card for more information on …. No thanks.

With that done, we made our way to the main points of going there.  Next was the Cenacle, the Upper Room of the Last Supper.  In a tour book, they said it was simply an empty room in which it is difficult to imagine Da Vinci’s painting.  Well, the tour book was right.  After a moment of being underwhelmed, I was able to pause and reflect on the importance.  And wish that they had a chapel there, especially today (Corpus Christi!).

Then, it was next door to the Church of the Dormition.  This is where Mary is said to have lived after the death of Jesus, where she fell asleep (Dormition) and was Assumed into Heaven.  The upper church is nice and simple.  The lower crypt has a beautiful statue of Mary lying asleep and there are many Marian images from around the world.  Again, it was nice to pause there for a moment and pray for Mary’s intercession.

Finally, there was my fourth hopeful stop in the area: the grave of Oscar Schindler.  The man at the museum had said he would give us the name of someone to contact to open the gate for us, but he never did.  As a result, all we could do was walk up to a gate with a sign over it reading Oscar Schindler’s Grave, and peer in to see a number of graves.  So close, but so far.  It was time to head back to Ecce Homo.

On the way back, I made a slight detour into the Jewish Quarter for my final, small purchase in Jerusalem: a mezuzah.  It is a container placed on the doorpost with a scroll of scripture from Deuteronomy.  This is where I really showed my expensive taste.  I went into a store and talked to a man about some of them.  There was one that I particularly liked, and when I asked for the price, he said it is silver so it depends on the weight.  This one, he said, was one of the most expensive ones.  Over $100.  Oh, and if you want the parchment, it is separate.  A kosher parchment is $36.  I told him I would think about it, and decided to shop at other places.  After going in a few other stores, I realized that I didn’t want to spend who knows how long finding the right one, so I went back to the original store.  I decided to go with a new plan: a set price of $25 (so no kosher parchment).  They pointed to a few other ones, and I decided on a nice pewter one for about $15.  Sometimes you have to realize that budget is more important than wishes.

So with that, we finish out our stay in Jerusalem.  Most of the group leaves early in the morning for their flights around noon.  My flight is at 6:30, but I am going a little early to share a ride with another guy, so we head to the airport around noon.  I will have about two hours at the airport before I can go through security, but that’s ok.  In some ways, it will be just as sad to part with the group as it will be to leave Israel.  We’ve almost grown into a (dysfunctional) family.  We’ve had a lot of laughs, and some pain, but overall it’s been a very good experience.  Oh, and speaking of pain, please keep a member of our group in your prayers.  She may have broken a toe a few days ago, and her foot is quite swollen (but she is remaining a trooper, only sitting out yesterday’s venture).  We pray for safe travels for all of us as we head our separate ways tomorrow.