Travel Journal: Israel & Egypt, 1982 – Part 5

 

[This is the penultimate installment of the Israeli portion of my account of my travels in Israel and Egypt.  It comprises a single day’s sightseeing and covers only modern-day Israeli sights in the Jerusalem vicinity. 

[A contrast with the Egyptian part of the trip, where the places we visited were all historical, either part of Egypt’s ancient times or the early Muslim and Ottoman eras, was that a good deal of what made visiting Israel interesting encompassed its 20th-century accomplishments.  Part 5 of “Travel Journal: Israel & Egypt, 1982” shows some of why this is so.

[Once again, I recommend that any reader who’s just joining this thread go back to Parts 1 through 4 (11, 14, 17, and 20 July, respectively) and catch up.  Things will make a lot more sense if you read what went before.]

Jerusalem – Sunday, 19 December

This morning, we got a better look around Jerusalem’s New City, the western part of the city.  As I said earlier, the modern city is as hyper-modern as was Tel Aviv, but the buildings seemed to have more character.  (I’m not sure if this was real or a projection of my imagination because we were in Jerusalem, the ancient capital of biblical Judea.  I think it was true, but I wouldn’t swear to it!)

Israel's government buildings are mostly located in Givat Ram, a neighborhood of Jerusalem built on one of the city’s highest elevations (givat is Hebrew for ‘hill’).  It’s home to many of Israel’s most important institutions, including several government buildings such as the Knesset, the Ministries of Finance and Interior, and the Prime Minister’s Office.  The Supreme Court is also situated here [though a new building was constructed in 1992, after I visited Jerusalem]. 

Also in this quarter is the Israel Museum, which includes the Shrine of the Book, which we visited on this outing, and a campus of Hebrew University, Israel’s second-oldest university (the Technion is older by six years; see Part 2) and its highest-ranked.

On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared the State of Israel and became the new nation’s first prime minister.  A year-and-a-half later, 5 December 1949, he proclaimed Jerusalem as Israel’s “eternal” and “sacred” capital.

Though virtually no other nation recognized the status of Jerusalem at the time, establishing their embassies and missions in Tel Aviv (which had been Israel’s capital during the Arab-Israeli War [May 1948-March 1949]), the offices of all the branches of the Israeli government are here, except, as I reported earlier, the Ministry of Defense, which is headquartered in Tel Aviv, 42 miles west, an hour’s drive away.

At the time of Ben-Gurion’s declaration, Jerusalem was divided between Israel in the west and Jordan in the east, and thus the proclamation only applied to West Jerusalem.  The Palestinian National Authority claims East Jerusalem as the capital of the future state of Palestine.  In the meantime, its administrative headquarters is Ramallah in the central West Bank located six miles north of Jerusalem.

The Knesset building, which one architect-cum-tour guide dubbed “modest” and characterized as a “thoroughly modernistic building, an appropriate style to represent the rebirth of Israel,” was dedicated in 1966.  For the preceding 17 years, the Knesset (the name applies to both the legislature and its home) met in several alternate locations in Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv, including the Kessem Cinema (Tel Aviv; 1948-49). 

(As I noted earlier, knesset is Hebrew for ‘assembly.’  The name for the modern state’s legislature was chosen as a reference to the Great Assembly [Knesset Hagedolah] described in the Book of Nehemiah, chapters 8, 9, and 10, in which the priest Ezra speaks of such a gathering in the 5th century BCE.

(Together, Ezra [fl. 480-440 BCE] and Nehemiah [fl. mid-5th century BCE] returned the Torah to Jerusalem and rebuilt the city after the Babylonian Exile [597-539 BCE]; the men of the Great Assembly—the precise term isn’t used in the Bible—were 120 Jewish leaders who ruled Judea from the dedication of the Second Temple in 516 BCE to the invasion of Judea by the Greeks under Alexander the Great [356-323 BCE] in 332 BCE.

(There are 120 Members of Knesset, known as MK’s, in today’s parliament and the majority of Israel’s citizens are Jews who’ve “returned” from the worldwide diaspora that began after the destruction of the Second Temple and the collapse of the short-lived Jewish state with the Roman victory in the Jewish-Roman War of 66-73 CE.)

Plans for the legislature’s new home began in 1957 with a design competition.  The land is leased from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, making Israel the only nation whose legislature sits on land its government doesn’t own.  The building was subsidized by a gift from Baron James de Rothschild (1878-1957).

The structure is basically a square (symbolizing that all “sides” are equal) made of concrete, steel, and glass—in keeping with my description of present-day Israeli architecture as hyper-modern.  Overall, the Knesset is replete with works of art—which is all also distinctly contemporary. 

I’ve already mentioned the Knesset Menorah (Part 3), designed by British sculptor Benno Elkan (1877-1960), a Jew born in Germany.  It was a gift from the British Parliament to the Knesset in 1956.  Originally installed at the temporary seat of the Knesset in Jerusalem, the sculpture was reinstalled in its current location, the small plaza across from the main entrance to the Knesset, in 1966.

Standing about 15 feet tall, the Knesset Menorah was modeled by the artist on the golden candelabrum that stood in the Second Temple—as depicted on the Arch of Titus outside the Colosseum in Rome, which shows the ruination of the Temple and the menorah and other Temple treasures being carried away by the Romans. 

(Titus, the son and second-in-command to Roman General-then-Emperor Vespasian, sacked Jerusalem and burned the Temple in 70 CE.  Titus himself became Emperor of Rome from his father’s death in 79 CE to his own in 81.  See Part 4.)

Scenes of some 30 important events, idioms, characters, and terms from Jewish history are shown in relief on each of the seven branches of the menorah.  It’s viewed as a “visual textbook” of Jewish history.

Nearby are the wrought-iron entrance gates with abstract depictions of the destruction of European Jewry in WWII (1966), created by Turkish-born Israeli sculptor David Palombo (1920-66). 

Within the building is a great deal more art, from the likes of Israeli multidisciplinary artist Eliezer Weishoff (b. 1938), Romanian-born Israeli painter Reuven Rubin (1893-1974), Irish-born Israeli sculptor Dan Ben-Shmuel (b. 1927), and Argentinean-born Israeli ceramicist Hava Kaufman (b. 1957), among many others.

The most memorable, at least for me, was the Reception Hall, known as the Chagall State Hall.  The hall is entirely adorned with art by the Russian-born Jewish artist, Marc Chagall (1887-1985), one of my all-time favorites. 

(Anyone who doesn’t know Chagall’s work will recognize it from the Chagall-inspired covers created by veteran American commercial artist Tom Morrow [1928-94] for the original cast album or the 1964 Playbill for the première Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof.  Not only was the play’s title suggested by Chagall’s 1912 painting The Fiddler, but Boris Aronson [1898-1980], the show’s original set designer, wrote the book Marc Chagall in German in 1924.)

The French artist’s works in the hall, including three tapestries entitled The Vision of the Final Redemption, Exodus, and Return to Zion, designed to represent the story of the Jewish people with symbols ranging from biblical images to the Holocaust, as well as a wall mosaic and a dozen floor mosaics, were all his gifts.  The “cartoons” (full-scale painted models) for the three weavings were completed in the mid-1960s and the monumental (15¾' x 18' to 15¾' x 31⅕') tapestries were hung in 1969.

If, like me, you’re a devotee of modern art, especially the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, and a fan of Chagall, the Reception Hall might well be the most memorable part of a visit to the Knesset.  If that had been all I saw, I would have been well satisfied!

One time when I was in Florence, Italy—I’d been there before so I didn’t need to see the city—I went to “watch” Michelangelo’s David.  That’s how I feel about that statue, because Michelangelo’s sculptures are alive—they move. 

I spent a couple of hours at the Accademia watching the most remarkable piece of carved marble ever created, and I could have sat in the Chagall Hall the same way and just absorbed those magnificent hangings and been blissfully happy.

As it was, though, I was part of a group and we had more places to go.  (I had made them all wait for me in Safed, if you recall, and I couldn’t do that again; see Part 2.)  So off we went, a half mile south in Givat Ram and a few minutes’ drive to the Israel Museum and the Shrine of the Book.

Constructed in 1965, the Shrine of the Book houses the Dead Sea Scrolls.  I guess it’s self-evident that “the book” in question is the Bible, principally the Old Testament—otherwise known as the Hebrew Bible.  But by extension, the Shrine celebrates all the scriptures of all the Abrahamic faiths, like the New Testament and the Koran, which were at least partially derived from—and whose existence was inspired by—the Torah, which, in turn, is descended from the writings in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The scrolls, which, as I pointed out earlier (Part 4), were first discovered in 1946, date from as early as the 8th century BCE to as late as the 11th century CE (which is just about the time of the First Crusade, 1096-99).  Researchers have assembled a collection of 981 different manuscripts from 11 caves.  The texts are written on a variety of media, including parchment, papyrus, and even one on copper.

[The copper was alloyed with a small amount of tin, probably to give it increased malleability to create the metal sheets on which the scrolls were written.  The copper was hammered so thin that it could be rolled up but, due to corrosion from age and weather, it had to be specially handled to unroll it.  After being beaten into sheets, the text of the scroll was carved into the copper with an engraving tool. 

[Since ancient Judeans couldn’t make anything remotely approaching an endless sheet, small sheets were riveted together to create a long scroll.  The Copper Scroll of the Dead Sea collection is made of three sheets.

[The Copper Scroll, which consists of two rolls, was discovered in one of the Qumran caves in 1952 by an archaeologist on an expedition sponsored by the Jordan Department of Antiquities.  It’s believed to date from about 50-100 CE, among the latest of the Qumran finds.  In addition to its medium, the Copper Scroll bears a number of differences with the other parchment and papyrus scrolls. 

[The Copper Scroll isn’t on reposit at the Shrine of the Book.  Since 2013, the Copper Scroll has been on display at the Jordan Museum in Amman after being moved from the Jordan Archaeological Museum in Jordan’s capital.]

Because of their extreme age and the fragility of the materials from which the scrolls are made, it’s not safe to display all of them continuously.  So a system of rotation has been devised in which once a scroll has been exhibited for three to six months, it’s swapped out and placed in a special storeroom to "recover" from exposure to light, temperature changes, and other damaging conditions.

The shrine is built two-thirds below ground-level, covered by a white dome surrounded by a reflecting pool that vaguely resembles a landed flying saucer like the one depicted in the original 1951 version of The Day the Earth Stood Still.  It’s meant to evoke the lids of the jars in which the first scrolls were found.

Across from the white dome is a black basalt wall which brings to mind the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).  The contrast between the white dome and the black wall alongside it refers to the images in the Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness of the spiritual struggle of the “Sons of Light” and the “Sons of Darkness.”

Because the shrine holds a collection of extremely ancient documents and those documents are among the oldest known texts of the monotheistic faiths followed by over half the world’s people, it felt a little ethereal—not like a museum but like a . . . well, shrine.  I’m not an especially religious person, however I felt I was in the presence not so much of divine objects, but something immensely venerable. 

From the Shrine of the Book and the Givat Ram neighborhood of central West Jerusalem, we drove further west to the big Holyland Hotel [no longer operating] to see the Holyland Model of Jerusalem.

Located on the grounds of the hotel in the Bayit Vagan neighborhood in southwest Jerusalem, the open-air model was built between 1962 and 1966 on a 1:50 scale.  (That’s roughly ¼ inch to the foot; a human figure would be about 1⅖ inches tall.)  [The model was moved to the Israel Museum in 2006.]  It’s probably the largest model in the world depicting Jerusalem in around 66 CE (the year the Jewish-Roman War started, before the holy city was sacked) and one of the most accurate reconstructions of the city at that time. 

The model, which covers an area of about 445 acres (that’s a little over 336 American football fields, representing 35 square miles in real life), was used as a surrogate means of study when Israelis had no access to the Old City of Jerusalem, which was controlled by Jordan until 1967.  The scale replica was designed based on the writings of Josephus as well as other historical sources. 

Under the supervision of Israeli archeologists, the model was built by craftsman.  They used the same materials for the miniatures as were used for the actual structures 1,900 years ago: Jerusalem stone and marble for the buildings, ceramic tile for the roofs, actual gold leaf for the ornamentation of the Temple and palaces. 

The aim of the builders and sponsors of the Holyland model is historical accuracy, so over the years, the miniature city has been modified, refined, and renewed as new archeological facts are uncovered.  [For example, the Hippodrome, built by Herod I, was found to have been located outside the city walls and was removed from the model when it was transferred to the Israel Museum.]  Some sites that are “traditional,” that is, not archeologically verified, are also indicated on the model, such as the hill west of the Temple which is identified as the site of Jesus’ crucifixion some three decades before the date of the model’s setting.

I must add that the Holyland Model of Jerusalem reminded me of nothing so much as the Panorama of the City of New York in the Queens Museum, a 9,335-square-foot, 1:1200-scale replica of my city built for the 1964 World’s Fair showing every building that existed then (it’s been updated periodically to keep it relatively current).  One big difference, of course (aside from the fact that New York City isn’t holy—except to those of us who live here): the panorama doesn’t require archeology to be accurate as the Holyland Model does.

Our last stop of the day was Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, located west of Jerusalem’s center on Mount Herzl, also known as the Mount of Remembrance.  It’s located near Israel’s national cemetery, also on Mount Herzl (named for Theodor Herzl [1860-1904], the founder of modern Zionism who was reburied here in 1949).

About 10 minutes from the center of Jerusalem, Yad Vashem was established in 1953.  The next year, the cornerstone for the Yad Vashem building, which was opened to the public in 1957, was laid.  [In 1993, plans were laid for a larger, more technologically advanced museum to replace the original building; the new museum opened in 2005.]

Yad Vashem was called a museum as well as a memorial site, but it wasn’t a true museum.  It contained almost no actual artifacts or documents, for instance.  It was a place of honor and remembrance.  The Hebrew name, Yad Vashem, means ‘a memorial and a name’ (or, as my mother’s 1917 translation of the Hebrew Bible has it: ‘a monument and a memorial’) and comes from the Book of Isaiah, chapter 56 (4):

Even unto them will I give in My house and within My walls a monument and a memorial (yad vashem) . . . that shall not be cut off.

In other words, it was meant to be a place where the deeds of those lost to the Holocaust will be memorialized and their names never forgotten.  And Yad Vashem makes a point of honoring Jews who fought the Nazis (Pillar of Heroism [1970]) and non-Jews who risked their lives to save threatened Jews (Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations [dedicated, 1962]).

Now, Yad Vashem is a really big deal in Israel.  It’s either second or third on everybody’s list of places in the country to visit.  But I have a serious problem with Holocaust stories and memorials.  I can’t even look at a collection of Holocaust-related photographs without getting so angry that I come close to losing control.  

I don’t like feeling that way—it actually scares me—so I seldom watch those movies or TV shows anymore and I don’t go to those places.  [I’m a native Washingtonian and my parents still lived there until their deaths.  I visited them often—but I’ve still never been to the Holocaust Memorial Museum.]  I actually had to leave Yad Vashem because I was beginning to shake with anger.

[When I next pick up this chronicle, we’ll be visiting the West Bank and the Negev Desert.  That’ll be Part 6, now scheduled for 31 July, the last installment of the account before I travel on to Cairo, Egypt.  I hope readers will continue to join me in my recollections of this fascinating journey into worlds that date back to the earliest days of human history.

[ROTters should note, however, that I have decided to interrupt the publication of my Israel-Egypt chronicle to accommodate a topical post.  On Tuesday, 20 July, Actors’ Equity announced “Open Access,” a significant change in the union’ s membership requirements.  I'll be publishing a post on this announcement on the 28th and return to “Travel Journal: Israel & Egypt, 1982” on the 31st.  Be sure to come back for the rest of the current post.]