I've already described Jerusalem as feeling almost like an underground city because of the way development has crept up and over the streets. But there is a true "ground floor" as it were. When the Jews built the Second Temple, it was elevated on high walls to emphasize its stature. But when Muslims came to control the city, and to build their houses of worship on the plaza, the elevation did not suit their needs or their theology. Thus, massive vaults were built on the Muslim Quarter, literally raising the streets by several meters to allow street-level access to the area that they called The Noble Sanctuary. After Israel won the Six-Day War in 1967, the area was excavated, and is now open for tours (and worship) as the EN Western Wall Tunnels HE מנהרת הכותל , and Billy and I set out to explore them. We arrived for our tour at 10:30 AM, paid our money, donned our kippot (not optional), and entered the tunnels.

The tour was notable for several things: A couple of fascinating displays of the building of the city of Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, EN Warren's Gate HE שער וורן  (the closest point outside the Temple Mount to the location of the EN Holy of Holies HE קדש הקדשים  in the Second Temple), and the Western Stone (a 570-ton rock that is likely the heaviest object ever lifted without powered machinery).

The tunnels were a fascinating experience, but I thought I detected a hint of a political viewpoint in the presentation: "The Muslims did this" and "The Muslims did that" with the unvoiced coda, "to our city." This was confirmed at the end when the guide said, "We normally exit at the Via Dolorosa, but on Fridays the streets in the Muslim Quarter are crowded for prayers, so we will retrace our steps to the main entrance at the Western Wall Plaza – for security reasons." In fairness, there were riots when this Northern Exit was cut, but the mood in the Muslim Quarter (which we visited later that day) did not seem to support this dramatic statement. Crowding may have been a concern, but I'm unconvinced of security being an issue.

So we retraced our steps back to the Western Wall, where we rested briefly. And then we exited the Old City at the EN Dung Gate HE שער האשפות , which is known in Arabic as the EN Mughrabi Gate AR باب المغاربة  because of its proximity to the now-demolished Mughrabi Quarter.

From there we went to EN Yad Vashem HE יד ושם , or, more prosaically, "The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority." The name Yad Vashem means "a memorial and a name," and comes from Isaiah 56:5: "And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name … that shall not be cut off."

One memorial I was keen to see was the Memorial to the Deportees – a cattle car of the sort that scores of people were be packed in and taken to the death camps. But it was an ordeal to find it in the vast grounds of Yad Vashem. Arabic had served me well in the Old City, but it was useless in the New City, and English wasn't much better. It took several tries before I found someone at Yad Vashem who could point me to the the memorial. I had long given up on using the official name, but finally found an employee who could recognize the English word "train." Against the wall to which the trestle is anchored is a moving account from one person who survived this journey.

מעל למאה אנשים נדחסו לתוך הקרון שלנו... אין אפשרות לתאר את המצב הטראגי בקרון הסגור, חסר האוויר, כל אחד מנסה להידחף לאשנב הקטן, כולם מוטלים על הרצפה. גם אני נשכבתי. בקרשי הרצפה מצאתי סדק ולתוכו דחפתי את אפי כדי לנשום מעט אוויר. הסרחון בקרון היה בלתי נסבל. בארבע פינות הקרון עושים אנשים את צרכיהם... כעבור זמן מה עצרה הרכבת פתאום. לקרון נכנס אחד השומרים. התברר שנכנס לשם שוד. היינו צריכים לגשת אליו אחד אחד ולהראות לו כל מה שברשותנו. הוא לקח כל מה שלא הוסתר היטב: כסף, שעונים, דברי ערך... מים! התחננו לפני עובדי הרכבת. רצינו לשלם להם בתמורה הרבה כסף. שילמנו 500 ו-1000 זלוטי בעבור מעט מים. שילמתי 500 זלוטי, יותר ממחצית הכסף שהיה ברשותי, וקיבלתי ספל מים, כחצי ליטר. כשהתחלתי לשתות התנפלה עלי אישה שילדה התעלף. בכל כוחה רצתה להכריח אותי שאשאיר לה מעט מים. השארתי בספל מעט מים וראיתי את הילד שותה ממנו. מרגע לרגע נעשה המצב בקרון קשה יותר. השמש חיממה את הקרון. הגברים שכבו ערומים למחצה. גם חלק מהנשים שכבו במלבושן התחתון. האנשים שכבו על הרצפה, נאנחו ורעדו כאילו אחזה בהם צמרמורת. עשו מאמצים לנשום טיפת אוויר וכבר לא יכלו לזוז... כאשר הגענו למחנה, רבים היו מוטלים על הרצפה ואחדים כבר לא היו בחיים. היינו בדרך כעשרים שעות. אילו נמשך המסע עוד חצי יום, היינו כולנו מתים מחום.

Over 100 people were packed into our cattle car...it is impossible to describe the tragic situation in our airless, closed car. Everyone tried to push his way to a small air opening. I found a crack in one of the floorboards into which I pushed my nose to get a little air. The stench in the cattle car was unbearable. People were defecating in all four corners of the car... After some time, the train suddenly stopped. A guard entered the car. He had come to rob us. He took everything that had not been well hidden: money, watches, valuables.. Water! We pleaded with railroad workers. We would pay them well.. I paid 500 zlatys and received a cup of water-about half a liter. As I began to drink, a woman, whose child had fainted, attacked me. She was determined to make me leave her a little water. I did leave a bit of water at the bottom of the cup, and watched the child drink. The situation in the cattle car was deteriorating. The car was sweltering in the sun. The men lay half naked. Some of the women lay in their undergarments. People struggled to get some air, and some no longer moved...The train reached the camp. Many lay inert on the cattle car floor. Some were no longer alive.

Beyond the Memorial to the Deportees, I was particularly moved by the Children's Memorial (which I went there looking for) and the Synagogue (which I hadn't known about; it was constructed with synagogue remnants that survived the Holocaust). Unfortunately, we arrived after the Museum had closed its doors, but could admire the architecture. It is also interesting to know of the symbolic architecture, and to compare it to the U.S. Holocaust Museum. In the U.S. museum, the design is fashioned to evoke a certain claustrophobia as one moves through the series of exhibits: The walls narrow, and the choices in path diminish, thus symbolizing the chokehold that the Holocaust inflicted on the Jewish community. The Museum at Yad Vashem, by contrast, follows a zig-zagging path, and then widens to a point where the visitor exits into the daylight – standing above a fertile valley in Israel, where the Jews finally (in theory if not in practice) can feel safe.

We took bus #20 (which didn't blow up) back to Jaffa Gate. The trip was completely uneventful except that we almost missed it: The bus pulled up just as we were leaving Yad Vashem. Then we looked for a bit at the city walls from the outside before returning to the Old City.

We spent a lot of time in the Muslim Quarter, which I loved. The warm welcome we received on the streets and in the shops (regardless of whether we spent money) turned even warmer whenever I found an opportunity to reply in Arabic. A couple of gay Arab teens were making out near the Damascus Gate, which I didn't expect to see. (I know physical gestures between men are a cultural thing and may differ from our own, but I have a sense of Arabic culture and I'm pretty confident that ordinary gestures don't extend to nuzzling the ear and kissing the neck.) A kid latched onto us just outside Damascus gate, practicing his English and asking vocabulary terms. We ended up in a multilingual "Who's on First?" routine when he asked me to tell him how to say "I don't understand" in English. He asked if I were Muslim, and if I knew any Muslims in America; luckily, I knew a few, which was good for the cultural exchange. A couple of his friends came over and tried to sell us CDs; they were overly persistent, so a young man they knew came and chased them away, fearful of their making a bad impression. I asked a shopkeeper the name of the traditional Arab head covering; he told me AR «حطة» AR "HaTa" , and when I asked him to spell it, he wrote in on my hand. I asked another what a certain dessert was, that I had seen at several shops; he tried to explain, but when language failed us, he invited me to try one (honey-covered puffs, the size of grapes); I offered him a couple of sheqelim in thanks, and he wouldn't accept. We got semi-lost in an area not geared toward tourists, where the residents of Jerusalem go to buy their food and clothing. Here we saw colorful displays of fruits and vegetables in some shops, and in others the pink-red colors of hanging meats that accented the shades of the Old City's stone alleys. But I most enjoyed the spice shops. I felt like I could really be a better, more interesting person if only I knew how to buy and use all those spices.

We stopped at a restaurant where the Via Dolorosa meets al-Wad Road, one of the few areas of the Old City open (probably ill-advisedly) to vehicles, and ate a decent pizza while watching several near collisions with pedestrians, shops, stacked merchandise, and other vehicles in the busy narrow intersection. An Israeli patrol with rifles relaxed across the street, and no one paid them any mind. Then we walked up the Via Dolorosa, but it looked like any other street in Jerusalem.

An Inscription of Some Sort on the Via Dolorosa (That person looking like a gangster on the left is Billy.)

I bought a ton of souvenirs. Billy thinks I bargain too hard; I always feel like I could get the price way down if I just had more practice. But it works the way it's supposed to work: We always settle on a price that I'm willing to pay and the shopkeeper is willing to accept. But they incessantly throw me these absurd reassurances about what a great deal I got (telling me to keep quiet about the low price; telling me I'm getting a bargain because I'm the last customer of the day – even at noon), which I'm sure they wouldn't bother with if the price were really such a sacrifice for them. But it's usually about 40%-60% of the original price, and I feel like I should be able to bring it to 25%. Anyway, I bought a mezuza, a kippa, and a watch with Hebrew numbers on it. And no matter what I eventually settled on, the cost was peanuts compared to prices in the U.S.

And finally, at the end of the day, I returned to see the Western Wall one last time. I got a very nice picture of the wall and al-Aqsa Mosque – but I took that picture only because I was confused about the sabbath: It runs from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, and during the holy period, pictures of the wall are forbidden. For some reason, I was confused about the date and though that this was Saturday evening, and that the sunset heralded the end, rather than the beginning, of the sabbath. In light of this misdeed, and the fact that I do honestly feel bad about it, I am leaving this picture off the trip report.

And here's what I wrote in the first draft at the end of the day:

As I write this draft, I'm procrastinating in my packing for tomorrow's departure to Jordan. I'm really excited about Jordan, but I'll miss Jerusalem, and I lament the things I didn't see in Israel and the fact that it will be a very long time before I return. And yet, as I ask myself the question, "Do I wish I could stay for another day?" I don't know the answer: It's not a clear yes, and it's not a clear no. Anyway, no matter what I wish, I can't. Tomorrow morning comes Jordan.

And here's what I wrote looking back on this page later in the trip:

Addendum from two days later (sitting in the desert camp). I don't miss Jerusalem for the things I didn't see as much as I miss it for the things I didn't eat.

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