Israel Museum!

It has definitely been one crazy week we just finished! We took our first Jewish History exam last week so Sunday started a new lesson. In honor of the start of our lesson, we had a Babylonian Bash for the first part of Jewish History class. 

We learned about the exile to Bavel and what happened to the Jews.  For the remainder of the week we learned about the Hellenistic Era, Greek influence, and assimilation of the Jews under Roman rule. On Wednesday we took a halfday Tiyul to the Israel Museum! My teacher couldn’t make it so I was put into Ariella’s group. The museum was outside and it was cold and windy, but still cool.  The museum was a model of Jerusalem under the rule of King Herod. It was pretty cool to get to see exactly what archeologists believe Jerusalem looked like. 

The Beit Hamikdash was incredible. The model of the temple really gave me a sense of how small the Kotel really is. The Kotel looks gigantic when you are standing under it, but in comparison to the whole temple, it is just a small piece. We learned about the four sects of Judaism and how they responded to Hellenistic influence. 

We then learned about the Dead Sea Scrolls which were left from a Jewish Cult of the sect Essenes. This sect died out because they did not allow women to live with them. They believed the messiah was coming any day, and women would be a distraction. 

After the Dead Sea Scrolls, we got a snack and got on the bus to go back to Kibbutz Tzuba. When we got back we had a regular school day. The evening however was not so regular! We had to be completely packed and have all of our stuff moved out of the rooms by 10:30pm and have a small duffle bag packed for the weekend. Our room looked so empty. When we returned to Tzuba we would be switching rooms!