After an exhausting first full day, we jumped right back into it with an incredibly hectic second day. We had lectures, visited museums, and met up with our fantastic tour guide, Shira Kleinman, for a tour of the old city in Jerusalem. Shira’s main point for the tour was to show us how the old meets the new in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was created by King David around 1000 BCE, about 3000 years ago, and today in Jerusalem we literally stand on an ancient city, yet a new city at the same time. The first place that Shira took us to was the Cardo, the remains of a “main street” of ancient Jerusalem. There were broken columns and houses; it was clear that this used to be a real city center. At the end of the street, there was a large mural painted on the wall, showing a picture of what the street would have looked like when the Romans were in Jerusalem. The picture was just what you would expect an ancient city to look like, until you looked closer. There were several subtle anachronisms hidden in the picture. For example, a young girl dressed in an Ancient Roman dress was playing with a young boy with a backpack and modern looking clothes. This picture was really a way to illustrate the unique connection between old and new in Jerusalem.
As we continued on our way, Shira pointed out some strange markings on the road that didn’t seem to fit with the Jerusalem style. She explained that these markings were a representation of the walls of the Ancient Roman city. When Jerusalem was under attack, a wall was built for protection. When the city was rebuilt, the street was marked to show where the old wall was.
These are both neat examples of how the ancient city blends together with the newer city, but I didn’t understand how rooted the connection between the two times were until we went a little farther on our journey. On our way to a rooftop lookout over the temple mount, we paused in a mini square, maybe 10 feet on each side. The street level of the square was a typical junction of two streets; Jerusalem stone lined each wall. These streets were part of the ancient city, but the many residential floors built on top of the street level were not. These were built after 1967, yet they looked exactly the same as the ancient streets. It would be impossible to find an exact line where the old city stopped and the new city began.
Jerusalem is unique in that all buildings must be built with Jerusalem Stone, which allows the city to retain its ancient architecture, while also adapting to the modern world. The buildings, while built on ancient foundations with ancient materials, have clearly been modernized. There are air conditioning units, water collection devices, satellite dishes, and many more additions to the original architecture which certainly change (for better or for worse) the iconic Jerusalem skyline. Jerusalem truly is a new city, built on the foundation of an ancient city.