More old Jerusalem and Dead Sea Scrolls

Sunday was a day we had hoped to find a church to worship in; however, we were scheduled to take another tour to the old city of Jerusalem. We ate breakfast, packed our lunch and boarded the bus. We began walking around seeing the pox marks where the city walls had been shot during the 1947 war for establishment of the state of Israel. The Israelis had only some Holocaust survivors and a few others from various countries as “soldiers” to fight. Through the grace of God, they did, and the UN established the state of Israel. It was small but in 1967 the country was expanded during the 6 day war. We walked through a school yard, wanting to see an ornate synagogue but couldn’t get in. We walked on through to tall pathways and learned there were families in the buildings that looked very old. It is not often we have visited historic sites that were active residences. The guide talked about menorahs on the doors of the homes and a symbol placed on the sides of the door frames to symbolize the smearing of blood during God’s passing over their houses in Egypt before the Exodus from Egypt. It is called a metusa It was cold and especially windy so we stopped in another pathway for warmth and shopping. We bought some expensive items and had one shipped home. We continued from there and toured a museum of excavation under some of the buildings. There were ancient rooms of houses from the time in which the Savior lived. There was also a cardo or main street of the city during the Byzantine era. From there to a small café for lunch, but we had left ours on the bus thinking we would return in time to eat it. Instead Evelyn bought a large meal of Kosher food that was good—at least most of it. Remember, throughout the old city, there is abundant life all around. We drove to a museum where there was a model showing the entire city of Jerusalem which made it easier to grasp the logistics. This was book outside but inside was a collection of archives of Jewish books and some original pieces of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is called The Shrine of the Book and is displayed on a rotating platform. We saw actual pieces of the book of Isaiah written more than 3,000 years ago. We went back to the bus and drove on to the Holocaust Memorial where we spent an hour and a half reviewing the history of Jewish persecution from the time of Christ until 1948. They have always been hated as a people perhaps unjustly. Even Martin Luther had no use for them as a race. There were short videos of survivors telling of the tortures and deaths that occurred in Europe before and during WWII. Many of the graphic films of the liberation of the concentration camps were things that we have seen many times, being old enough to remember them. We went back to the hotel and began packing our suitcases for tomorrow’s trip to Tiberius, but we had only a few minutes before we went to our 3^rd tour of Jerusalem at night. It was short and ended with a prepaid meal at the “Olive and Fish” restaurant that was just a short walk from the Prima Royale Hotel where we stayed. Evelyn had a chicken dish and I had a kabob of beef and lamb balls. We enjoyed talking with some of the tour members before walking back to the hotel. I began to work on this blog but was so tired that I had to go to bed and finish it when I wakened at 2:00 AM.