Museum Tours

I finished up my first summer session last Monday. The final exam took me five hours to complete. I was very brain dead when I got back to my dorm that afternoon. I had the rest of this past week off and I've been enjoying doing nothing. I've been reading a lot for fun. This Tuesday I start my second Summer session which will be another level of modern Hebrew.

I did two museum tours in July that I haven't told you about yet. This is a kind of catching up post before I start my next class and don't have time to post again.

On July 12th I visited the Holocaust memorial museum.  There were no pictures allowed inside. This picture is looking back at the entrance. It is a quote from the Bible "I will put my breath into you, and you shall live again, and I will set you upon your own soil" Ezekiel 37:14

This was a difficult museum to visit. I thought they did a good job honoring the victims. It was a very moving experience. Lining the walkway to the museum is the Path of the Righteous on either side there are trees planted honoring the non-Jews that risked their lives to save the Jewish people. The building itself is modern in architecture with barren concrete walls. The building is underground symbolizing the darkness of what happened. There is no straight path through the museum it zig zags back and forth. You can see the light at the end of the hallway but you can't reach it without visiting all of the rooms. Our tour was about 2 and a half hours but I think I could easily have spent more time there. I thought they did a good job explaining how the Holocaust began. The first step was burning of books, the rejecting of ideas that did not match their own.

I'm not sure I have the words to describe my experience in this museum. It was very moving and something that I think everyone has to experience for themselves. At one point they had a wall with pictures of 15 men who orchestrated the Final Solution. It was frightening to look at these men who looked so ordinary. But what also struck me was how many of them were doctors, men of higher education. Ordinarily the higher education you have the more tolerant you become but that was not the case here.

In the last room is round with shelves from floor to ceiling they contain the stories of the survivors. They record the names of the victims and what happened to them. They have 4 million names but they will never reach 6 million. In some cases entire villages were wiped out there was no one left to tell their story.

One of the more haunting experiences for me was a photograph of an elderly woman. The guide asked us how old we thought she was. Most of us guessed somewhere in the 60's or 70's. The answer was 26 her experiences had aged her that much. That photo is burned into my mind now because I am currently 26.

The name of the Holocaust museum in Hebrew is Yad Vashem. To an English speaker this doesn't mean  anything. Literally translated it means a hand and a name. It comes from the Bible: "I will give them, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons or daughters. I will give them an everlasting name which shall not perish." Isaiah 56:5 Translated this museum gives each victim a name and a place that they will be remembered.

The museum has an excellent website you can find here The website has lots of resources including video testimony of the survivors.


On July 19th I visited the Israel Museum. Again no pictures were allowed inside. This museum is huge, this was my second time visiting. My first time was with my archaeology class last fall. Outside they have a large one acre model of Second Temple Jerusalem that is very impressive. But the main draw of this museum (at least for me) is the Shrine of the Book. This is where you can see parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Of course since I study the Bible this was very exciting for me. I couldn't get over how neat the handwriting was and how steady there hand was. Each line was very straight. I can't write straight unless the paper has lines on it. The Dead Sea Scrolls are the oldest known copies of the Hebrew Bible in scroll form. They have a copy of the entire book of Isaiah. However only parts of the collection are on display at any time as they are trying to preserve them. The building they are in is very dark and cold. You can read more about the Dead Sea Scrolls here

Also on display is the Aleppo Codex which is the oldest copy of the Hebrew Bible in book form. This book has a rather interesting history you can read about here.

Seventeenth of Tammuz

Today is the 17th of Tammuz on the Jewish calendar this is one of the fast days. This day marks when the walls of the city of Jerusalem were breached by the Romans lead by Titus. Today starts the three week mourning period leading up to Tisha B'Av which I posted about last year. You can read more about the 17th of Tammuz here. I also found this interesting article on wikipedia titled siege of Jerusalem there have been quite a few.

In Biblical Hebrew class today we started to translate Psalm 137 which I thought was appropriate since it is about the Babylonian exile. The Babylonian exile happened after the destruction of the first Temple but I thought it was still a good choice to translate for today. I will probably post my translation of that Psalm sometime next week.

Sorry this post is so short but I have a test tomorrow. I just wanted to post this on the actual day.

Psalm 23

I've mentioned that I'm taking Biblical Hebrew for the first summer session and I thought it might be interesting to share some of what I'm learning. I was hoping we would get to translate this Psalm as it is one of the most well known. I'm going to post my translation which will be slightly different from the version of the Bible you have since its my own. Remember I'm still learning so my translation isn't going to be perfect.  I'm going to include some interesting notes about the verse in italics underneath the translation.
Psalm 23
1: The Lord is my shepherd; I do not lack.
In this verse what I translated as Lord is actually the Lord's name which is not pronounced. You can read more about this here.The idea of not pronouncing the Lord’s name is common in Semitic cultures. The same thing happened with the Canaanite storm god Adad/Hadad. At some point speaking his name fell out of use and instead they substituted Baal which means Lord.


2:He makes me lie down in green pastures;He leads me to waters of rest places.


3:He renews my life;He guides me in paths of righteousness to benefit his name.

 There is a hint of movement towards the Temple some say this is a pilgrimage song.

4: Though I walk through the valley of darkness,I fear no evil,because you are with me;Your rod and Your staff comfort me.
I know your are probably looking at my translation and thinking"where is the valley of the shadow of death?" Originally scholars thought the word was a compound word combining shadow and death. Scholars later discovered that it was not a compound word but a little used word meaning darkness. However valley of the shadow of death has a much better poetic ring to it so English translations have kept it. 


5:You arrange a table before me opposite my enemies,You anoint my head with oil;My cup is full.


6:Only good and loving kindness will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for the length of my days. 


Of course this is a song that is meant to be heard. Here you can hear it in Hebrew. 

Summer is here again

It's hard to believe that I have now been living in Israel for a year now. Officially I flew to Israel on June 13th last year. In some ways the time feels like it has flown by and in other ways it feels like I haven't been here very long at all. So much has happened in this last year. I feel like I have learned a lot. Living in Israel has changed me somewhat, I feel like I've grown as a person more living here than in the States. Living in another culture has its own unique challenges.

Spring semester exams finished up last week on Thursday. Akkadian, the exam I was dreading the most was naturally the last one I had to take. It had to be the last one so I could worry about it. The picture to the left comes from my study sessions of Akkadian. After studying the various signs for hours I started playing around with them. The signs in the picture are from Lady Gaga's song Bad Romance there is no ro sound in Akkadian so I had to substitute ru. But other than that is the line from the song ra ra ah ah ah ro ma ro ma ma ga ga u la la! And then I realized that that line would insure that I never forgot those signs so I tried to come up with similar lines from songs to remember other signs. For the most part my strategy worked.
I still have one take home exam for the Assyrian sources class but I have until next week for that one. I'll probably work on that test this weekend.

The last several weeks there has been construction on the way up to campus. The city has been putting in bike paths all over Mount Scopus. From my observations the bike paths start and stop in very odd places. Entering and exiting the bike paths in some locations would be very dangerous to the biker and drivers. On the way to school the bike path construction caused them to tear up the sidewalks and eliminate a few parking spaces that were always full. Those who park their cars there now have to cross the bike path to put coins in the parking meter. Last week when I was walking to my Akkadian exam they were putting asphalt on the places where they broke up the sidewalk. Construction in Israel is mind boggling. They do not close the sidewalk you can walk by not even a foot from where a giant machine is picking up chunks of concrete. The construction workers do not wear hard hats but they do wear yellow vests. The supervisor will be the one sitting in the shade smoking a cigarette. They had put out the new asphalt with no signs indicating this. People were walking through the new asphalt and leaving shoe prints and none of the workers were bothered by this. I don't know how these people missed that the asphalt was still wet. It has a shiny quality to it, it smells awful and there is a guy in a steamroller driving towards you! I went around it which required walking out into the street and hoping a bus didn't hit me. Obviously I made it. Walking back the same way later I noticed they redid the asphalt because I can't find the shoe prints in it. They could have saved themselves some time by just putting up some signs.


The new students for the Summer checked in on Sunday and Monday this week. It was nice to already be in an apartment and not be dragging luggage everywhere. Every time one semester or session ends they try to kick me out of my dorm room even though I've paid for it. I tried to head it off buy going to the dorm office in person but it doesn't matter. My name is always on the list of people who need to move out. On the day they say I have to move out they sent by several maintenance men who tell me I have to be out of the apartment by a certain time. This requires multiple trips down to the office to get things sorted out. This time the lady in the office insisted I had to move because they had already scheduled my room for someone else for the Summer session. I had to throw a fit and it worked because I got to stay in the same apartment.


Monday evening I attended the mandatory orientation. It was exactly the same as last year but they assured me I had to attend because they had changed their policies. It was interesting hearing the same information but from the perspective of someone who has been here for a year. I would have been at the school anyway for the shopping trip to the mall. The Burger King is no longer in the mall but there is now a McDonald's! So I got my hamburger and french fries fix. I also went to the bookstore down on the first floor. They only have a small section with English books but I spent quite a bit of time looking them over. They were having a book sale so I ended up getting three young adult books...in Hebrew. These books are above my reading comprehension level in Hebrew. I thought it would be fun to try and read these with the help of a dictionary maybe one chapter a night depending on how long it takes me to read. I had the sales clerk help me pick out three that were in easier Hebrew. I'm looking forward to reading these.


Yesterday was a emergency preparedness day. I don't actually know what they called it. Yesterday at 11am all of the emergency sirens sounded throughout the country for two minutes. During this time everyone is supposed to go to the bomb shelter in the building. Rothberg International School had special permission not to disrupt the summer classes so we didn't have to go in the basement. The professor told us that the police,fire department and other safety related departments would be running drills throughout the day. The sirens also went off a 7pm last night for two minutes. This was to make sure you are prepared at home and know where the nearest shelter is located. My room is the bomb shelter in our apartment so I didn't have to go anywhere.

For the first Summer session I'm taking Intermediate Biblical Hebrew. There are 10 people in the class. I have the class five days a week. On Sunday we meet from 10am-3:30pm. Monday-Thursday 8:30-2pm. It's very intensive but I'll be able to get Intermediate Biblical Hebrew completed. So far the class has been very interesting. Today we worked on translating Psalm 23 which is one of my favorites.

From the last post:
Uncle Joe- Yes Hebrew is one of those languages where you have to conjugate the verbs differently depending on the person's gender that you are talking to.

Biblical Hebrew

Okay as promised here is a little bit about Biblical Hebrew. The earliest scripts in Biblical Hebrew are from the 10th century B.C. It is a consonantal language meaning that only the consonants are written. Once the books of the old testament became cannon you could not add or changes any of the letters they were counted so they knew how many there were. Biblical Hebrew was spoken around the 1st temple period. By the second temple period it was no longer spoken but it was still written. In the 6th and 7th century A.D. vowel signs were added to preserve the tradition of the pronunciations. The vowel signs are the dots you see around the letters. If you look at the Torah scrolls in the synagogue you will not find the vowel signs. Originally there were two systems of marking vowels one developed in Babylon and one developed in Tiberius. I am learning the system from Tiberius the Babylonian one is hardly ever used anymore.

Hebrew is read from right to left. The words in a Biblical Hebrew sentence can come in any order there is no fixed placement of noun then verb like in English. Hebrew can also have sentences without verbs. Hebrew doesn't have cases. Words can be either masculine or feminine there are no neutral words. Each Hebrew word has a root. A root is usually made up of three letters, meaning three consonants. In Semitic languages vowels are less important. The consonants carry the main meaning. So the word for food is similar to the word for eat because they are related.

Here are a few other interesting observations I've made while in class. In Hebrew the word for woman is the same as the word for wife but man and husband are two different words. The word that means Eve comes from the Aramaic word meaning snake. I'm sure there is an interesting lesson there but I won't be learning Aramaic for a while but I'll have to remember to look into that. Today in class I learned that Biblical Hebrew does not distinguish between human and divine messengers (angels). It wasn't until the Bible was translated into Latin that the distinction was made between the human and divine messengers. My professor thinks angels were a Christian thought since they first entered the Bible in the Latin translation.
Pictured above is my homework from last night. It is random verses or parts of verses from the book of Genesis. I couldn't get a really good picture where you could actually see the vowel marks. If you are interested in looking at a Hebrew Bible you can visit http://study.interlinearbible.org/genesis/1.htm Biblical Hebrew also has other marks above and below the words to tell you which part of the word is stressed and others tell you where to pause and how long to pause between words.

Questions from the last Post:
Uncle Joe- The plant growing out of the Western Wall is hyssop or ezov in Hebrew. It is a sacred plant in Judaism used for purification and sacrifices. Hyssop was mixed with the blood put on the door frames during Passover. See Exodus 12.

As for the crenelations on the top of the Damascus Gate I'm not sure what they are for. First I need to figure out who built the walls that are standing now and in what time period. I'll keep searching.

I'm waiting to do my post on the food here until after I've been to one of the open air markets. I don't think my post would be complete without that experience. I'm not sure when I'll be able to go but the food post will wait until after that. But yes you are right that falafel is fried hummus.