Day 18: Flying Home and some random suggestions

Flying home? Long, tedious exhausting. I have often said that the day I win the lottery is the day I stop flying economy and move in with the “suits”. Rather than describe the trip home, let me instead mention a random couple of well-known places that you should be sure to see if you visit Israel

The Herodean houses

The Wall Tunnel tour

The above two are justifiably well known and should not be missed. Best seen with a guide in either a group or individual tour. We were totally blown away by the Western Wall Tunnel tour.

Yad Vashem  I already knew a great deal about the Holocaust, but this museum is a powerful statement. 

And then there are some places that are a bit less well known, but which we found worth the visit. In no particular order…

The Bible Lands Museum. If this was in the US some dude would be parading around in a white robe over his Jockey shorts, pretending to be Jesus. Go on, smack him and see if he turns the other check or hires a lawyer to sue you.  Across the street from the Israel museum this is a remarkable collection of archeological artifacts arranged to tell a coherent story. The materials presented and the excellent descriptions make this a must-see.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs Reception Hall.  A neat piece of architectural work – one full wall of the hall consists of onyx stone plates that look like regular Jerusalem stone during the day, but which are actually translucent so that the entire wall is light up at night by the light from inside diffusing through the stone. A very neat sight.

The Conegliano  Synagogue and Nahon Museum of Italian Jewish Art  Jews have lived in the town of Conegliano since the 1600s and erected an elegant synagogue in 1701. After WWII, Italian Jews living in Israel arranged for the synagogue to be disassembled and then reassembled in Jerusalem. The interior of this synagogue is beautiful and adjacent to it is the U. Nahon Museum of Italian Jewish art – with its fine early Purim scrolls and Jewish Art. Right near the touristy Ben Yehuda street, this place is an oasis of calm and beauty.

The Cable Car Museum in the Mount Zion Hotel    You need to ask at the desk how to get there, but this hotel houses a two room museum dedicated to the cable car that ran during the 1948 war of Independence from it (when it was still the St. Johns hospital) to the isolated Mt. Zion area. The car, just big enough for one stretcher was used to move the wounded from Mt Zion to the Yemen Moishe area in the Western part of the city and to move ammunition and supplies to Mt. Zion.  The car was hand cranked across the valley and only operated at night. To escape detection by the soldiers of the Arab League, the cable was lowered to the ground during the day and its presence was kept a military secret until 1972 (i.e. after the 1967 war).