Our last day in Jerusalem was long and never really ended, until at 2 AM Khaled, our bus driver, picked us up and drove us to the airport in Tel Aviv. We checked in in the middle of the night and then waited for our 7 AM flight on Sunday morning to Istanbul. After a full week of traveling exhaustion finally set in. It quickly became a sport to photograph each other sleeping. Here is a sample of some of the pictures.

Even professors are susceptible to fatigue. Dr. Weininger gets some shut eye.

Dr. Henze is so much fun!

Sharon and Mickey sleep sitting up.

Daniel recharges.

Jeremy asleep.

Sparrow sprawls out on the floor.

Michael takes a break.

Today, the last day of our trip, is also the last day of the Jewish week: Shabbat, the Sabbath. That means that all restaurants and stores are closed and there is very little traffic in the Jewish part of the city.

At the Damascus Gate

We began our day late with a walk into East Jerusalem. Our first stop was at the Damascus Gate, the most ornate of all the city gates. It is also the site of brisk activity for the largely Arab residents of East Jerusalem as they head into the Old City markets.

We continued on to the Garden Tomb, a site considered by some to be the place of Jesus’ interment and resurrection. Students wandered through the lovely flowering garden and were able to enter the cave to see the tomb.

Entering the Garden Tomb

When we exited the site we were met by the Israeli hip-hop musician Sha’anan Streett, whom we met when he visited Rice last month, and a friend of his, Fayrouz Sharqawi, who works for a non-profit that engages in community organizing in the area called Grassroots Jerusalem. Together we went to a local restaurant where, over lunch, Sha’anan and Fayrouz spoke with us about life in Jerusalem and Israeli politics and answered many of our questions. Afterward they took us on a short tour of the commercial heart of East Jerusalem, pointing out sites of interest along the way.

A Walking Tour Through East Jerusalem

After lunch we went our separate ways for some free time. Students were able to revisit some of their favorite sites and relax. We met again in the evening for dinner together with Yossi Yeinan from Keshet, our tour operator, to discuss the high points of our trip, savoring our good memories and talking about what worked and what didn’t. The students were so enthusiastic about their wonderful experiences in Jerusalem that the conversation extended far longer than anticipated.

Early tomorrow morning our flight will leave for Istanbul, and tomorrow evening we will be back in Houston. That will bring to an end a magical week in Jerusalem for us and for our students.

Our Group at Yad Vashem

Although today was the festive holiday of Purim, our morning started out on a somber note. We went to Yad Vashem, Jerusalem’s Holocaust Museum. Our guide David gave us a brief introduction to the history of the Holocaust and its significance in Israeli society today. The students explicitly asked to be given sufficient time to go through the exhibits by themselves, so everybody wandered on their own.

The Holocaust Museum is exceptionally well done, intermingling a great amount of historical information with personal testimonies and artifacts. One of the most difficult places to visit was the building that is dedicated to the million and a half children who were murdered by the Nazis. This was clearly a moving experience for our students.

Owls in the Machaneh Yehuda

From the Holocaust Museum we drove to the Machane Yehuda, a colorful and lively market in Jerusalem where one can buy fruits and vegetables and pretty much anything else. The market was full of life: shoppers bought groceries to get ready for the Shabbat, which begins at sundown, and many of the younger people wore their Purim costumes. We split into smaller groups, walked around, and took in all the sights, sounds, and smells of this wonderful market.

Tonight the group went to Shabbat dinner at the home of a young Jewish couple in Jerusalem. We began our evening at the Western Wall, where many of the women were drawn into a lively circle of dance and song, and then walked to dinner. Akiva and Esti, our hosts, explained the blessings and customs of the Shabbat meal and answered questions about their lives and experiences living in Jerusalem.  It was a lovely end to the week.  Shabbat Shalom!

Getting Ready for Shabbat

Prof. Gabriel Barkai Explains the Temple Mount Sifting Project

We began our day by getting our hands dirty at the Temple Mount Sifting Project with the Israeli archaeologist Gabriel Barkai, professor emeritus at Bar Ilan University. Professor Barkai explained some of the history of the Temple Mount area as well as the history and goals of the project. In 1999, the Islamic Waqf, which administers the site of the Temple Mount, or Haram esh-Sharif, undertook an excavation project in order to build an emergency exit for a new mosque on the site. Unfortunately, rather than conducting an archaeological survey, the Waqf bulldozed the area, disturbing thousands of years of artifacts. The excavated material, which amounted to 400 trucks full of dirt, was dumped in the Kidron Valley. In 2004, after years of bureaucratic negotiation, Professor Barkai was given permission to sift through this material. More than 10 years later, he is still working on it, and relies on volunteers to help him.

Our group sifted through many buckets of mud and rocks looking for pottery sherds, mosaic tiles, glass, bone, and metal. We had a number of interesting finds: a First Temple period jug-handle fragment, a piece of a Byzantine brick with the remnant of a seal impression, and a Roman nail.

Inside the Church of the Nativity

After our archaeological experience we drove to Bethlehem to meet Dr. Mitri Raheb, the pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church. Dr. Raheb spoke to us and a church group from Sweden about the situation of Palestinian Christians in the occupied territories, a perspective we had not yet heard. After a delicious lunch at the church we visited the famed Church of the Nativity, the place where Jesus is said to have been born.

On Top of the Herodion

Unfortunately we were pressed for time, so we only spent a little time in the Church and then drove on to the Herodion. The Herodion is an artificial hill between Bethlehem and Jerusalem on which King Herod built a palace and fortress in the first century BCE. The Herodion, which looks like a volcano from afar, was later used by the Jewish rebels during their revolt against Rome. It afforded us a splendid view from Bethlehem down to the Dead Sea.

Tonight students are enjoying a well-deserved free night. It is the Jewish holiday of Purim today, so Israelis will be roaming the streets in costumes,

On top of Masada, with the Dead Sea in the background

When we left Jerusalem early this morning to drive east down into the Jordan valley, the lowest place on earth, it was raining lightly. The Judean Desert was covered with a beautiful green carpet of grass and wild flowers, thanks to an unusually wet winter. Our first stop was Qumran, the place on the northwestern edge of the Dead Sea where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. To walk through the ruins of the settlement that once housed the oldest biblical manuscripts known to exist was very moving, plus we enjoyed our first view of the Dead Sea, with the Kingdom of Jordan on the other side of the Sea.

David explains Herodian architecture

From there we drove further south along the western shore of the Dead Sea until we came to Masada, a rock plateau used as a fortress by Herod the Great. Today Masada is best known as the last holdout of the Jewish rebels in their revolt against Rome, until they were defeated in the year 73 CE. A cable car brought us to the top of the plateau, and David – our wonderful guide, whom the students have grown to appreciate tremendously – explained the archaeology and read the riveting account of the fall of Masada as related by the first-century Jewish historian Josephus.

After lunch, we traveled north along the Dead Sea coast to the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve.  Ein Gedi is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible several times, most notably as David’s refuge from King Saul. It is now the site of a beautiful natural area in the midst of the desert, complete with waterfalls and wild animals. Students marveled at unusual sights like the hyrax, shafan in Hebrew, a medium-sized rodent that makes its home in the reserve. We hiked up to some small pools and cooled off by sticking our heads under the waterfall, enjoying the contrast of pools of water in the dry desert.

Floating in the Dead Sea

This brief dip gave us an appetite for swimming, which we indulged with a visit to the Dead Sea beach at Kibbutz Kalya. Most of the group enjoyed bobbing like corks in the salty water, slathering themselves with the mineral-rich mud, and looking across to the mountainous Jordanian shore across the water as the sun grew low in the sky.

After rinsing off the mud and salt, we rushed back to Jerusalem for our dinner with Forsan Hussain, former Executive Director of the Jerusalem YMCA, social entrepreneur, and founder of a new business venture designed to invest in diversity. After a delicious Moroccan feast, we were also joined by Eli Spector ’13, a Rice alum who moved to Israel after graduation and is now serving in the Israel Defense Forces. Eli spoke to the students about his experiences living in Israel and serving in the army.

After dessert we stumbled back to the hostel, exhausted after another productive and exciting day. Tomorrow we will travel to Bethlehem and the ancient fortress of the Herodion.

We began our day early today, leaving the hostel at 7:15 in the morning after grabbing a quick breakfast. Our early start was intended to beat the tourist rush at the security checkpoint at the base of the Haram al-Sharif, or Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City. There we met our guide for the site, an East Jerusalem native named Abed. Up on the plaza at the top of the mount, we were greeted with unexpected quiet and serenity amidst the hustle and bustle of the Old City below. Abed took us around the many sites of interest on the mount, including the Al-Aqsa mosque, the site of Mohammed’s night journey from Mecca, and the Noble Sanctuary, the iconic gold-domed shrine said to sit on the site of both the former Holy of Holies of the Temple and the place where Mohammed ascended to heaven. During our tour of the site we not only admired the spectacular buildings and scenery, but also learned a bit more about the pillars of Islam and its basic practices.

From the Haram we descended into the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, where we explored the narrow, winding streets and fragrant, busy markets. On the way, we paused to see a small section of the Western Wall now exposed in a residential neighborhood of the Muslim Quarter, known as HaKotel HaKatan, or the Little Wall. We stopped for a short break at the Austrian Hospice, where we were able to have a cup of coffee in their small, European-style café and catch some views of the surroundings from their balcony. Then it was on to the Crusader-era Church of Saint Ann, said to be the site of the Virgin Mary’s birth, where we were lucky to stumble upon a tour group of choristers showing off the spectacular acoustics of the church with their singing.

After a quick lunch in the courtyard of the church, we moved on to the Via Dolorosa with a new guide, the pastor of Christ Church, an Anglican church founded in 1840. It soon turned out that David, our Christian tour guide for the afternoon, was pretty much the opposite of Abed in the morning. Where Abed was knowledgeable, polite, and personal, David seemed distant, and his explanations did not help to clarify the stations of the cross for us. We ended up in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, a delightfully chaotic church, filled with pilgrims and tourists. For many Christians, the Holy Sepulcher is the place where Jesus was crucified and buried.

After some free time we reassembled in the evening to welcome our evening guests to the hostel. The Parents Circle Families Forum is an organization of Palestinians and Israelis who have lost a member of their immediate families in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (www.theparentscircle.org). Moira Jilani is a Palestinian woman who spoke movingly about the death of her husband who was shot by an Israeli soldier, and Rami Elchanan, an Israeli, talked about his 14-year old daughter who was killed in an attack by a suicide bomber. Both agreed that they derive their energy and passion for peace from their pain, and both asked us to take their mission of peace with us.

Tomorrow we will leave Jerusalem for the first time and spend the day at the Dead Sea, with stops at Qumran, the place of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Masada, the famous Herodian fortress, and Ein Gedi, where we hope to hop into the Dead Sea.

Owls in the City of David

Our second day in Jerusalem started out sunny, as we visited the City of David, an archaeological site located to south of the Old City. The City of David is thought to be the place where Jerusalem was founded. We were fortunate to have Joe Uziel, an archaeologist from the Israel Antiquities Authority, as our guide there. He explained archaeology to us while leading us through the water system of the ancient city.

Then we walked up to the Old City and had lunch in the Jewish Quarter. Our guide David Eisenstadt, who is going to be our tour guide throughout the week, took over again and led us through the Jewish Quarter. We saw new synagogues, the ancient Cardo, and a large excavation of the ancient “Upper City” from the time of Herod the Great (first century BCE). Next we went to the Western Wall and walked through the tunnels that run all the way underneath the Muslim Quarter from the Western Wall to the Via Dolorosa.

After a wonderful dinner in a local Jerusalem restaurant close to our hostel we welcomed our first guest speaker, Dr. Alick Isaacs, a Jerusalemite who founded an organization called Siach Shalom, or Talking Peace, that brings together people from opposite sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict in conversation.

Tomorrow we’ll be up bright and early to go up to the Temple Mount and to walk along the Via Dolorosa.

Check out our cool bus sign!

As we drove up to the Mount of Olives on our first day in Jerusalem, we were introduced to the many layers of Jerusalem, the ancient and the new. We passed the sixteenth century walls of Jerusalem’s Old City opposite beauty salons and pizza parlors; looking out over the city from the top of the Mount of Olives, the gold of the Dome of the Rock was foregrounded against the city’s highrises.

Rice Owls on the Mount of Olives

Climbing on the bamboo

After a delicious lunch of falafel and shwarma, we drove on to the Israel Museum. There we saw a model of Jerusalem during the Second Temple period and some of the Dead Sea Scrolls. We also had time to play on a gigantic bamboo sculpture.

Despite jet lag and exhaustion, everyone was in high spirits and enjoyed the day.  We’re looking forward to our tour of the City of David and the Old City tomorrow.