The Israel Museum is an amazing place. We arrived early in the morning and used our time to view just a few places and really concentrate on them. We were unable to take pictures inside the dome that houses the Dead Sea Scrolls, but that was where we spent about half the day.

Following a long visit with those ancient texts, we moved into the antiquities section. We once again used our time to concentrate on what we were most interested in: Jewish history. So many of the things on display were found at the site digs we had visited in the first part of our trip. We were thrilled to see the items here on display. The finds have been so extensive...WOW.....

Finally we visited the Jewish Art & Life section. Here we saw items of clothing and worship from around the world.

What a wonderful day it was....adding yet another layer to our understanding of the heritage of this amazing land.

Stan's reflections: It's hard for me not to cry at some of the exhibits at the Israel Museum. In one glassed-in case, at the end of a long exhibition of Jewish memorabilia, I was not prepared to see a few pieces of cloth imprinted with the yellow Star of David, a prelude to the mass extermination of the Jews. Even though I knew that if I were born in Nazi-dominated Europe in 1943 instead of in America (my grandparents emigrated from Russia 50 years earlier), I would most likely have been a victim of the Final Solution, I fended off crying in the presence of the foreboding Yellow Star of David.