1. April
We arrived back from free travel and dove right back into the Old City of Jerusalem. We spent the week in a convent called Ecce Homo, which translates to “behold the man”. The arch that goes over the street adjacent to the convent has been suggested as the site where Pilate presented Jesus. The whole week has been focused on the Old City and how Judaism fits in there. We had lectures on Jewish history as well as 10 hours of Hebrew language.
Learning Hebrew proved to be quite the task, as our instructor informed us that she normally takes 50 hours to teach the letters completely. We only had 10 hours to learn the letters and some basic phrases. The pace of the class did not stop us from giving our best effort to learn. We ended up being able to sing some songs to help us remember how to say “good morning, evening and goodnight” and some traditional shabbat songs. Continue reading