The government district

All of the government buildings in Jerusalem are in the same general area (around Givat Ram), so we decided to combine visits to a few of them today (having called/emailed ahead to arrange tours - sites in Israel seem to be more geared toward tour buses that individual tourists, so it is necessary to arrange visits in advance rather than just showing up).

Our first tour wasn't until noon, so we headed
out in the morning to Gan Sacher - a huge park in the middle of Jerusalem (and near the government district). There were loads of school groups in the park, and the kids had a blast on the excellent playgrounds. One was a standard playground, but with a extra tall climbing structure. The other was like a gym with stairmasters and bicep curl machines, etc, except all were playground type equipment (for example, for one of the arm machines, you lifted your own weight by lifting the bars). There was a big group of boys from a local yeshiva there, all kind of showing off for one another how strong they were (they weren't). It was hilarious to watch them when Ella came along (mostly oblivious) in her very minimal sundress. You can pretty much imagine the scene :)

This one pretty much sums it up!

We had a nice picnic lunch in the park and then headed to the Supreme Court for our first excellent tour of the day. What struck me the most about the Supreme Court was how completely open it was to the public. There was security of course, but after that, anyone could go pretty much anywhere. If a door to a courtroom was open, that meant that court was in session and you were welcome to go in (the only exceptions were in the case of cases involving young children, rape, or national security). We did sit in on a case for a few minutes (this was Jonah's favorite part of the day), but as it was in Hebrew, we didn't understand any of it (and our guide, a really funny British woman, assured us that even if you do speak Hebrew, it's all so technical you can't understand anything anyway). There were three justices in the trial we saw. There is no jury system in Israel, so cases have between 3 and 15 justices (always an odd number) - and the justices of the supreme court include women, Orthodox, Arabs, etc. We learned a bit about the three tiered court system (local, district, and supreme court) and the religious courts which have jurisdiction over marriage and divorce (and any other matter if both parties agree to go there instead). The building was really beautiful and full of symbolism. To reinforce the idea that the court is open to everyone and the law applies on the street as it does in the court, many of the hallways were designed to evoke the feeling of being on a street in the city (e.g., lots of natural light, and street lamp style lights). There was a lot of juxtaposition of Jerusalem stone (representing the old laws and customs) with modern materials (representing the new modern state). Every straight wall was balanced by a curved wall - representing that although the law is fixed (straight) it has to be implemented with compassion and taking individual circumstances into account (curved). In the courtyard, the stone was not Jerusalem stone, but stone from the Negev to remind of where the original Law (the Torah) was received, and there was a thin pool in the middle to reflect the sky - as it is written in Psalms, "Truth will spring up from the earth and justice will be reflected from the heavens" We ended in a little visitors center that told the history of the judicial system in Israel (from the time of the Ottomans actually). It also had an interesting exhibit on the Eichmann trial (the only time the Israeli court has imposed the death penalty.

Ready for her tour of the Knesset

After the tour we walked through a passageway that connects the court to the Knesset (showing the symbolic connection between where the laws are made and where they are upheld). Getting through security at the Knesset and waiting for the tour to begin was a big mess (if they run the government the way they run the tours of the government, this country is in big trouble!), but when the tour finally got underway, it was fantastic. The guide was a student at Hebrew U in Political Science and Psychology, and she conveyed a lot of her opinions in addition to the facts, which was pretty interesting. She spent a lot of time talking about the amazing Chagall tapestries in the State Hall of the Knesset. We also went into the plenum hall, where the Knesset sessions take places Mondays through Wednesdays, and where we had an interesting discussion about the way the Israeli parliamentary system works, etc. This was Ella's favorite part of the day!

The tour of the Bank of Israel was actually
pretty interesting, even if we didn't quite
capture the excitement in a photo.

Following this tour we hurried over to the Israel Bank for our third and final tour of the day. This one turned out to be a private tour for just us (with a somewhat disinterested guide). We had some time in the visitors center learning about the history of Israeli currency. Some interesting facts are that just about all Israeli coins today have images that come from ancient Israeli coins that have been found. The bills mostly have political figures, although the new series that is about to be released all feature poets, and two of them are women to try to balance the gender issue a bit (interestingly, trying to correct the balance between men and women came up in all three of our tours today. This is clearly an issue on the minds of Israelis). We also learned about the introduction of the "shekel" as the Israeli currency (in 1980 - I would have thought earlier!) and the "new shekel" (in 1986). Then we saw a movie about how  the Israeli currency is protected against counterfeiting, and one about the history of currency. As we left, the guide gave each of us a bag containing 3,000 S"H (new shekels), shredded - about $800. I imagine the kids will be hard at work trying to reassemble the bills if they ever get a quiet moment!!

We walked back and at the intersection of Keren HaYesod and Gershon Agron, Abe and I took Sylvia to the grocery store and the big kids walked the rest of the way home by themselves (!) They had no trouble and by the time we got home, they had even made dinner!! Wow! After dinner, we had a little spa night for Sylvia. Poor kid has scraped knees, tangled hair, dry skin and other casualties of living life to its fullest in Israel. Fortunately, she has entered a more agreeable stage than even a couple of weeks ago, aided by the addition to her vocabulary of the word (in English) "gotcha."  As in,
Sylvia: No comb hair!!!!
Mom: I need to comb it. It's all tangled.
Sylvia: Ohhhhh. Gotcha. (and then she lets me comb her hair)
Hope it lasts!