Israel Day 5 - Bar Mitzvahs & Holocaust Museum

Day 5
July 2, 2007, Monday:
Bar Mitzvahs at the Wailing Wall and then Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum

Ron wanted to be sure we could see the joy of families celebrating the rite of passage for young Jewish boys. While I was standing in the shade of the Western Wall Tunnel, a man walked up to me, placed a bible on my head and started reciting something in Hebrew. He then began to tie a red string around my left wrist. I declined the string and he asked me for a handout/donation. I declined that too, and he said he gave me a wonderful blessing and again asked my what I would contribute. I replied, “Thank you.” I later found out from Ron that since it was not appropriate to ask for handouts in this area, they gave blessings and sold red strings instead.

There were 6-12 Bar mitzvahs going on at the same time, and parades of families entering the square to perform the next ceremony. For 1500 years Jews were banned from Israel and prohibited from performing this ceremony in Jerusalem.

It appears to be mass confusion; lines of worshipers with several people blowing the shofar at the same time; women crowded around behind the fence, standing on chairs, and huge crowds. Dianne had the good luck of standing next to one lady whose son was performing his Bar mitzvah and could share her joy.

We then left the Old City for Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum. While Yad means, “hand” and Vashem means “name” this is more than a memorial to the 6 million plus Jews murdered and enslaved during the Holocaust. It was established in 1950 for three reasons: First, to help families re-unite and find the names of those who died.
Second, to get the facts on the Nazis who could be brought to justice.
Third, to bring respect and remember those who perished.

At the time of this writing, only about 3 million people have been documented and the help of survivors is crucial to find the names of others who perished. They have a room that houses book after book with one page devoted to each name they have been able to document and a computer database for the public to use in the search for more names.

The structure of this building that houses the main museum is an amazing piece of architecture. I have seen some amazing buildings around the world from office buildings to apartments, from great cathedrals to interesting homes, but I have never before seen a building that so clearly tells the story of its contents and so vividly connects to its message from the building of anti Semitism in Germany to the horrors, liberation and view to the future as this structure does. It is the clearly the most dramatic example to me of architecture being both the vessel of the story and the message itself.

I was doing fine while traveling from room to room as the story unfolded. It was disturbingly and sickly brilliant how Hitler built his “Final Solution.” His first step was to blame post war Germany’s ills on the Jews. In this way he turned the population against them and created an easy scapegoat. It was easy because this had been done before in other countries around the world for centuries. Then he set it up so it was okay for anyone to persecute them and identify them. Then mark them with arm bands and stars so they could be more easily be ostracized. Next, the Jews themselves were moved out of the general population into the ghettos where the public no longer saw them. If anyone even had sympathy for the Jews, they no longer saw them. Now Hitler could easily move them onto trains from a central location to the labor camps and then the extermination camps and no one would even notice. The man was brilliant and disgusting beyond belief.

The building is cantilevered on both ends with two walkways above. As people walk in the museum they can look up and see people walking across the museum pathways above, completely unaware of the museum below, just like what Hitler created with the Jews. The end of the museum opens up looking west into the light with a view of Jerusalem and the walls splitting open, and looking the bows of two ships carrying Jews to a new world. It is an amazing piece of architecture.

During all of World War II ----- soldiers lost their lives. At the same time, Hitler and his extermination plan were murdering ---- people per day. And still the Jews are here, and we were able to see them celebrate, thrive and sing joyously at the Wailing Wall.