February 19--- February 20, 2013 Tel Aviv, Jerusalem
On February 19th, it was already afternoon in Tel Aviv, and after staying at the hotel, I booked a day trip to Jerusalem the next day, as if it was $95, and the driver picked it up directly at the hotel in the morning.
Out of the hotel is the seaside, walking along the sandy beach with running and cycling paths, very personal. The sun was already a little sloping west, walking on the beach, the Mediterranean breeze blowing softly, and the whole city was no different from the coastal cities of Europe. Heading towards the city centre, roadside restaurants and bars are open, tables and chairs are casually placed on the sidewalk. Night gradually envelops the city, the lights are lit up, and Tel Aviv is more beautiful at night. People in pairs of threes and threes began to sit down and drink and chat, and there was peace, as if they had arrived in Paris. Inadvertently, conservative Jews in black dresses, black top hats, and beards walk by, which reminds people of being in Tel Aviv. Occasionally, soldiers with submachine guns on their backs are seen holding their beloved girls, oh, and it turns out that this is Israel, a country that often makes headlines for terrorist attacks.
February 20 Jerusalem Day Tour.
God gave the world a great beauty, and nine points to Jerusalem. The Talmud
On the minibus, Jerusalem gradually opened up before our eyes, watching more and more yellow and white buildings, more and more concentrated, the mood will be inexplicably tense, serious, and religious. Jerusalem is a mountain city, and there is a not-so-wide road around the city. The driver-guide was a happy lad who parked his car on the side of the road, which offered a panoramic view of the Old City of Jerusalem in the valley. He took out an atlas of the history of Jerusalem and compared them to the buildings of the Old City, telling us page after page about how these buildings had changed over the past three thousand years. I hadn't done my homework on Jerusalem very seriously before I came, so when the other European and American members of the group were familiar with the story of this holy city and kept explaining the tour guide, I could only stand silently aside, and I couldn't help but have some regrets.
The Old City of Jerusalem is divided into Christian quarters, Islamic quarters, Armenian Christian quarters, and Jewish parishes. We walked through different areas, and the buildings in different areas didn't seem to be very different, but the appearance of the market and the things sold were very different. We entered the Old City of Jerusalem from the Damascus Gate, walking on the steps of thousands of years of historical changes, in addition to tourists, local residents of different nationalities and different religions are busy in the streets and markets, always reminding us that this city with a history of three thousand years is a holy city of three religions. After Jesus was sentenced to death by the Roman governor, he walked on this street with the cross on his back, also known as the "Bitter Road", with fourteen stations, each with legends.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is in a corner of the old city, at the entrance to the church, and there is a red marble in the middle, and it is said that after Jesus died after he was crucified, people removed him from the cross and placed him on this marble. Three days later, Jesus was also resurrected on this marble. Believers of different christian denominations knelt before the slab, touched it, and prayed reverently. The church of the Holy Sepulchre itself is governed by three churches (The Roman Catholic Church of Latin Rites, the Church of The Armenian Apostolic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church) and six denominations (the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and the Coptic Orthodox Church). Different denominations have their own chapels in the church, and believers of different denominations pray reverently in their own denominational chapels, and every Christian is thankful to have come to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Not far from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, there is the Wailing Wall. The Wailing Wall is actually a section of the Second Temple Parapet (Western Wall) of the ancient Jewish state, and the only remaining site of the Second Temple Parapet. For thousands of years, when the Jews living in all corners of the world returned to the holy city of Jerusalem, they would come to this stone wall and pray in a low voice and cry about the sufferings of exile, so it was called the "Wailing Wall". The Wailing Wall separates men and women according to gender, with men on the left and women on the right. Enter the Wailing Wall to pray, put on a small white round hat of Judaism at the entrance, and then stand by the wall and pray silently. I stroked the wall tiles and lightly touched my forehead to the bricks, hoping that everything would be fine.
According to the Israel Tourism Board, the last stop for all tours must be the Holocaust Memorial. The entire center of the museum consists of a long corridor leading to ten exhibition halls, each showing a different part of the history of the Holocaust. Entering the various exhibition halls, recounting the suffering history of the massacre of nearly 6 million European Jews throughout World War II, the mood is extremely heavy. The last exhibition hall was about children, and I remember the hall was dimly lit, and there was a torch in the middle that was constantly swaying. In the low background music, the names of the slaughtered children are slowly pronounced. I finally couldn't help myself, tears came out of my eyes, and at this moment, my heart was with the victims of the Holocaust.
On the way back, the tour guide saw that the atmosphere in the car was a little heavy, and told us that in fact, it is the responsibility of the Jewish people to remember this painful history, but history is only a small part of life, and for their own people and countries, Jews and Israel will continue to move forward. Of course, Israel is a nostalgic country, so the elected president is 90 years old, which is also to tell other countries that they will not forget history. Oh, and of course, in addition to the president himself, it is said that the president often forgets his age and sometimes his position. There was a burst of laughter in the carriage, and in the midst of the laughter, my first trip to Jerusalem ended.
A year later, I will be in Jerusalem again, and I have done my homework, and finally I am not on the sidelines.
Jerusalem is a city that does not belong to anyone, but it exists in everyone's imagination, which is the tragedy of the city and its charm. It is a temple of god, the capital of two peoples, a holy place of three major religions, and it is the only city with two dimensions of existence, heaven and earth. Excerpt from "Three Thousand Years of Jerusalem"