The two sides of Jerusalem: The beautiful and the painful

Jerusalem. So much history and culture immersed in one town. I, who have traveled only to India, was awestruck when I first saw The Western Wall. When I first approached the wall I didn’t know what to expect or do. I kind of felt out of place and didn’t know what to do. I looked around for some kind of hint or support to show me what to do. A woman next to me had her hands touching The Wall and crying hysterically, full of emotion. I was really overwhelmed and in a way felt whatever pain and sadness she was experiencing right there. After sticking my letter to god in The Wall I put my head against it, tune everything out and emerged myself into it. That was my first spiritual experience with anything in my life and I felt really overwhelmed at how such a simple thing like The Wall which brought out my emotional side. The Wall was something plain and simple yet so powerful whereas The Holy Sepulchre was majestic and full of activity everywhere I looked. While Jerusalem was full of beauty, The Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum had no beauty but just pain.

                I know about the holocaust and have seen pictures but this was my first time at a holocaust museum and it was really overwhelming. So many emotions filled me. The videos where they bulldozed the dead Jews to make room were so shocking because the Jews were already starved to death, their bones were sticking out and it was such a horrifying scene. There was a box of shoes that they found from the concentration camps and I was standing there looking at how these shoes once had owners whether they were men, women, children or the elderly. It was sad to see those shoes because their owners were gone forever. The Wall and the Holocaust Museum meant so much to me because it was my first time experiencing it up front and I felt immersed with The Wall and the museum.

-J.K.