City of David

For the first two weeks in Jerusalem, I participated in an intensive workshop in Academic Hebrew. Participants from all over the world (U.S., Germany, Italy, Armenia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and even China) who were either graduate students in Judaic Studies or teachers of Hebrew (most were not Jewish, however) and came to read articles selected by the participants themselves and improve their Hebrew reading fluency. We took one afternoon fieldtrip to the City of David and walked through Hezekiah's tunnel. The tunnel was dug nearly 3000 years ago in preparation for a siege on the city of Jerusalem, then a small, walled city on a single hill - a mere fraction of what it is today. The tunnel carries water from outside the city 1/2 km into the city and is tall enough that you can stand up in it. Water still flows through the tunnel to this day.

I wasn't comfortable taking pictures in the tunnel (I worried I might drop my camera in the water - at its deepest 70 cm -- and didn't think a tight, dark tunnel would take very good pictures anyway), so here are just a few from before and after the experience.

Lined up outside the Rabin building on the Hebrew University campus, about to head out to the City of David:

A kitten trying to scale one of the walls in the City of David. Cats, by the way, run wild in Jerusalem and most of Israel much like squirrels in North America.

Noam, our teacher and also intrepid tour guide explaining the geography of the area.

The Kidron valley, which we crossed under when we walked through the tunnel. The archaeological site where the City of David is being uncovered is in the right foreground of this picture. To the left is an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem. 

 A local boy has found his way into the ruins and is playing around.

 Exiting from the tunnel; a few kids are still splashing around in the water.