I really enjoyed living in Jerusalem.  When I think about it now I realize that there is a lot that have learned in the past couple of months and I’m still sorting through the experiences and data.  When I arrived at JUC Dr. Wright said something during orientation that I think sums it up well.  He said that this semester we would be packing a tool box that we would be unpacking for the rest of our lives, as far as data regarding the historical geography of Israel and experiences and so on.  During the semester the modern political tension really caught my attention.  I watched the entire city stop for Holocaust Memorial day, in order to stand for a moment of silence in remembrance of those who lost their lives and loved ones during the Holocaust.  The whole city of Jerusalem literally stopped.  The traffic stopped.  The pedestrians stopped.  It was a haunting thing to see an entire city come to a complete halt and to hear the wind blowing over the silence, and to see people get out of their cars and just stand in the middle of the street.   I cannot begin to imagine how something like the Holocaust has left a dark stain on the memory and lives of Jews all over the world, but especially in Israel while they are facing modern conflict with neighboring countries that sometimes openly state their desire to see their demise.  On the other hand, my memories of spending time in the West Bank enabled me to see the political, economic, and internal struggles of a people who have been caught in the midst of greed and corruption, both on domestic and foreign fronts, resulting in oppression and bloodshed.  The focus of the semester, however, was to spend a semester in Israel studying its history in ways that are only possible on location.  I crawled through the tunnels that were dug during the Bar Kokhba Revolt by Jews who were trying to hide from the Romans circa 132-135 A.D.  Reading about these tunnels could never compare with crawling through these tight spaces and turning the flash light off for a couple of minutes in order to better understand the conditions of a persecuted people who lived underground for several years.  To be visiting these sites and reading these historical texts and dealing with the question of how we know what we know about these people and their culture and how the material remains that they left behind can help us answer these questions (i.e. what was found in archaeological excavations, etc…) has been such a great experience.  It really gives me a familiarity with the context of the land of Israel (and Jordan) and the history of the Bible that I couldn’t have gained in any other way.  There is a strange sense that I have left lingering in my bones, a certain deep, mysterious, and bittersweet feeling that comes from living in a land plagued with a history that has been full of conflict and oppression, yet also full of messianic hope and expectation.  It makes me grateful to know that history is moving towards resolution, though not from our efforts, but through a means that is much more reliable.