We began our day at the top of the mount of olives, just outside Jerusalem. Here there was a brilliant view of the city, where we could see almost everywhere Jesus would have walked. We then made our way the Israeli heritage museum, where they had a 1/50th scale model of ancient Jerusalem, an exhibit displaying the dead sea scrolls, and a bunch of really cool artifacts from all over Israel, some of which over 6000 years old. Some of the coolest finds include: the ossuary (bone box) of Caiaphas the high priest, the oldest piece of scripture found engraved on an piece of iron, and a stone which tells the story of a Midianite king defeating “the house of David” proving David’s existence.
From there we traveled to a seemingly random coastal town, where we visited a kibbutz (Jewish communal settlement from the early days of the Zionist movement), that held a fantastic secret. The kibbutz secretly held a bullet manufacturing plant from the days prior to the Israeli war for independence. At that time Britain was in control over the land, and neither Israel nor Palestine were allowed to manufacture weapons, so the base had to be kept secret from the British, who had several garrisons within a few miles of the kibbutz. The bullet factory was underground, and had a secret entrance, hidden by a washing machine. Each day 45 people would sneak down to the plant to work, create 14,000 bullets day, and every once and a while sneak them out via the milk delivery truck. When the war for Independence came, these bullets were used until the resupply from Britain arrived.
We ate lunch at one of the few restaurants that are open on the Sabbath, an American style diner, completely dedicated to Elvis Presley. While it was nice to have a cheese burger, I couldn’t help but think it was rather out of place in Israel….
We returned to Jerusalem and toured the Garden tomb, one of the sites claiming to be where Jesus was crucified an buried. Their claim comes from the fact that a near by hill is shaped remarkably like a skull, (bringing to mind Golgotha, the place of the skull), and that there was a 1st Century wealthy Jewish tomb found on the property, which used to be a vineyard. It checks all the boxes for a possible Jesus’s tomb site, and tries to keep an authentic style to it. However they cannot say with certainty that Jesus was in fact buried there.
Afterwards we had free time to explore the city, and many of us did, I was still in awe of the old city, and again felt that sense of belonging.