Well, we
packed and headed up to Jerusalem for two weeks. We’ve already been here one
week working pretty hard! The past couple weeks have been packed again and can
pretty much be broken down into two topics: work experience and Israel’s
national holidays. I’ll start with the national holidays.
Something
that I should point out before really getting into the holidays is that, even
though we in the States have the same exact holidays, Israelis have a
completely different way of celebrating than we do. The holidays are far more
personal and exude far more nationalism. Americans can be very patriotic and
many have profound respect for military veterans, but every single Israeli has
a personal story attached to these topics.
Part I: The
National Holidays
Israel’s
national holidays start off with the remembrance of the Holocaust, “Yom
HaShoah”, April 8th. That day, we went to a local high school in Akko to attend
their memorial service and join a class discussion on the topic of the
Holocaust. I have to admit that initially I was not looking forward to going to
a high school. As much fun as I had in high school, I avoid them like the
plague now and cannot relate to teenagers at all. However, Israeli teens mature
much faster than American teens. Israeli 16 year olds act like American 20 year
olds. All the students we met connected with us very quickly and I think it had
to do with the fact that they all thought we were their age. When they realized
we were much older, they were all very shocked. The discussions were all in
Hebrew, but there were some students who knew English well enough that they
translated for us. The discussions were a little shallow, but very interesting.
They didn’t seem to want to open up too much about the topic, in any case, but
were more excited in talking to us about who we were and what we were doing in
Israel and our personal thoughts on Israel. It made for a memorable day.
At 11am the
siren rang. All across Israel on Yom HaShoah, every siren will sound at exactly
11am for exactly one minute. The entire country stops and every person freezes
and keeps silent for the full minute in memory of all the people affected by
the Holocaust. Every single Israeli is connected to someone directly effected
by the Holocaust: grandparent, aunt, uncle, parent, cousin. Survivors of death
camps, refugees who made it out without being caught, Jewish soldiers from
Palestine (Israel wasn’t yet a state), people secretly fighting to bring the
Jews out of Europe and to Palestine or other countries of refuge. Every family
has a story.
That evening
we went to a Holocaust museum near Akko to attend a memorial service. Important
government officials and community leaders were there and we heard the stories
of five separate individuals. The entire service was in Hebrew and I didn’t
understand much, except the last woman’s story. She talked about how her and
her husband were put into a train. There were German soldiers on horseback
escorting them to the camp. Somehow they escaped (I didn’t understand
everything she said, but I got the general story) and made it to a kibbutz here
in Israel. She talked about how much beauty she saw when entering the land and
how it gave her so much hope. Made me cry. They ended the services by playing
the Israeli national anthem: HaTiqvah, “The Hope”.
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| The stage. I loved the lighting on the aqueduct. |
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| Took some goofy pics of everyone before the service started. Silly Michael. |
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| The museum |
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| The lights kept changing color! |
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| Me and Riikka |
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| Khail was quite serious. |
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| Riikka was a little more playful. |
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| Benjie showing off his epic beard. |
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| Courtney smiles nicely! |
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| It starts. |
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| Middle/high school string group. They played beautifully. |
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| Changed color again. |
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| Soldiers dressed in white and holding torches. |
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| Some survivors who lit the flames. |
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| Memorial wreaths. The image behind them is of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, which I have seen. |
As moving as
the services were when hearing about each individual’s story, the overt
nationalism could not be missed. Zionist language was thick in the speeches and
the statement “never again” was used often. The placement of Yom HaShoah just
before Israel’s Independence Day is not by accident. This was the historical
event that solidified the creation of a Jewish State in Israel, 6 years after
the end of World War II. As an outsider who studied the events that have lead
up to the creation of the State, it was also difficult to put out of my mind
the mistreatment of Arabs by the State of Israel. Instead, I just focused my
attention on the tragedies of the Holocaust.
Then April
15th is the Memorial Day for the Israeli soldiers. Every Israeli
citizen, man and woman, is required to join the Israeli Defense Force, men for
3 years, women for 2, minimum. The day before, we went to the Tank Museum in
Latrun (where I always stayed when I came to Israel for Tel Gezer!), where they
were holding a memorial service for the Masa Olam student program. Masa Olam is
a Jewish organization aimed at providing internships for Jews from all over the
world to bring them to Israel. There are many many different kinds of
internships. Saving the Stones happens to be one of their academic ones and
isn’t exclusive for Jews. This time the service was in English, so that was
nice.
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| TANKS! |
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| Mountain mover. |
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| Chuck Norris. I mean, erm, an Israeli soldier. |
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| MOAR TANKS! |
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| Latrun Trappist Monastery. |
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| Tel Gezer! |
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| Tanks... |
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| Sunset. |
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| Memorial Wall |
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| Sherman tank on a water tower. |
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| The wall has only the names of the soldiers from the tank division who have died. |
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| BRIDGE TANK! |
They focused
on stories of some individuals who were killed in recent battles. Again, the
stories were quite moving and nationalism was very overt. Another siren sounded
that evening, but this time for a full two minutes. The siren went off again
the next morning at 11am. We were working that morning at Kind David’s Tomb. It
was bizarre to hear complete silence and stillness in the city.
That night
the city shuts down and goes wild because it’s the start of Independence Day.
Stores close and bars open. Police blockade roads to car traffic and everyone
celebrates in the streets. Kids spayed each other with foam and small masses of
people carrying giant Israeli flags started impromptu parades down the streets.
On the 16th, everyone goes out to parks and picnics and BBQs. A few
of us picnicked and walked around some of the trails around the hills of
Jerusalem. It was a good day. And that was pretty much how things went for
Israel’s national holidays.
Part II:
Work in Jerusalem!
This week we
had a small amount of work but they were a lot of fun. Monday and Thursday we
worked on remortaring and repointing a wall outside of King David’s Tomb. Aliza
is the most amazing person we’ve met so far. She gave us a great break-down of
what we were doing and how to make our own mortar. She actually gave us a list
of recipes. Ha ha! She was fantastic to work with and very practical. She
helped us understand the difference between ideal conservation work and how
state funded conservation actually works. We learned how to identify the most
important aspects of work and focus on that and do that to the best of our
abilities with the tools available to us. She had high expectations for her
workers and also for us. I think I learned more from her in two days than I
have from all our previous work and lectures combined. She also taught us to
hate caper bushes, the most dangerous and evil of the plants. They have very
deep roots and tear through mortar and stones like it’s their business to do
so.
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| An evil caper bush, attacking the corner of that wall! |
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| Our work spot! |
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| One of our supervisors, cleaning the last little bits of cement out for us before we start. |
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| Left: ceramic powder; Right: ash. Both will go into our mortar mixture! |
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| Hydraulic lime, sandstone aggregate, ceramic powder. |
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| Slake lime |
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| Our collection of elements: hydraulic lime, ceramic powder, sandstone powder, ash, and another mix of sandstone. |
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| Aliza showing us the different ingredients. |
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| Yvonne taking a shot of the tools of the trade: rubber gloves (lime burns!), work gloves, spatula, and masons trowel. |
We also got
to work in the mosaic labs at the Rockefeller Museum. The mosaics we were
working on came from Netanyah. They had pulled them out of the site and brought
them back to the labs to be cleaned and restored. When removing the mosaics,
they cover them in a cloth and glue them to the surface. Then they chisel out
the mosaic in sections and flip them onto cardboard or wooden sheets to
transport to the labs. Then they find loose pieces to reglue onto the sheet
(sometimes replacing pieces that have already fallen off) before adding a
plaster backing and flipping them back over. Then we clean the surface,
removing the cloth glued to the surface and the dirt and grime accumulated over
the hundreds of years they were buried. Then they will display them somewhere
or put them back in place at the site.
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| Example of a bit of mosaic floor attached to the plaster layering and stone foundation. |
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| The mosaic pieces (tesserae) after being removed from the plaster. They're upside down in this photo and in the process of having the loose and missing pieces back in place. |
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| Mosaic after being put back in place. Now it's time for the top to be cleaned! |
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| Once the mosaic is cleaned, a plaster backing is added for easy transport. |
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| This is a lightweight frame to use rather than the plaster. |
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| Mosaic from Lod. |
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| It's absolutely beautiful. Some of its tesserae are made of glass with gold leaf. |
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| Example of some glass tesserae, some with the gold leaf in good condition and another with it corroded. |
Next week
we’ll check out the Rockefeller archives, look at the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the
Western Wall Tunnels. It’ll be a busy week but I’m looking forward to it!
