Hi! It's Sarah again. I know I posted sort of recently, but I feel that I really need to blog the events of last night. Prepare yourselves for an exciting blog. :)
We spent the morning and afternoon at Yad VaShem and the Valley of the Communities, which was a pretty intense afternoon to begin with. At 4:00 pm that afternoon, we were supposed to go to the Western Wall where 3 boys on our trip were to be bar mitzvah'ed at our Shabbat service. Mommy and Daddy really didn't want to go, but Emily and I finally convinced them to go to celebrate with the bar mitzvahs and their families.
We didn't actually have the service at the Wall itself, as the women would not be allowed to go into the mens' side. Instead, we had it at the southern steps of the Wall, in front of the mosque. So there we were, 90 of us sitting on the southern steps, and about a third of the way into our service, right before the b'nei mitzvahs were going to read from the Torah, it happened.
I heard a scream from the back of the congregation, and I turned around to see the people behind me running and covering their heads. I was confused and didn't understand what was happening, but at that moment I saw something huge and white fly over my head. I heard Daddy yell "Run, run!" and for a split second I thought we were being bombed. Mommy pushed my head down and I ran down the stairs as fast as I could to the other side of the wall. Everyone else in the group was also trying to get behind the wall, and everything was in a panic. I learned later that some kids climbed up on the roof of the mosque and threw rocks at us. They hit two people in the head, one in the back, and one on the ankle, and three of them were bleeding. A few more people were hit in the leg, but nothing serious. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. Some people were crying, and everyone was running around.
Our tour guide, Ron, took control. He called the Western Wall security, and talked to the security guard for the mosque. They posted policemen on the roof so that we could resume our service. This was the last thing I wanted to do. But we did resume the Bar Mitzvah service, though we were all very shaken up. The security guards talked to the injured people, but they all had relatively minor injuries so they didn't have to got to the hospital.
After that, we went to the Kotel. We could see through the dividing wall to the mens' side, and we saw a huge group of them in all black just davening and praying obsessively. After that, I stood outside the exit waiting for the rest of the group, when a security guard came up to me and told me to put a scarf around my legs. Apparently, the Orthodox passing by had complained about me wearing shorts. I wasn't even at the Wall!
Dinner was good. Talk to you soon!
We spent the morning and afternoon at Yad VaShem and the Valley of the Communities, which was a pretty intense afternoon to begin with. At 4:00 pm that afternoon, we were supposed to go to the Western Wall where 3 boys on our trip were to be bar mitzvah'ed at our Shabbat service. Mommy and Daddy really didn't want to go, but Emily and I finally convinced them to go to celebrate with the bar mitzvahs and their families.
We didn't actually have the service at the Wall itself, as the women would not be allowed to go into the mens' side. Instead, we had it at the southern steps of the Wall, in front of the mosque. So there we were, 90 of us sitting on the southern steps, and about a third of the way into our service, right before the b'nei mitzvahs were going to read from the Torah, it happened.
I heard a scream from the back of the congregation, and I turned around to see the people behind me running and covering their heads. I was confused and didn't understand what was happening, but at that moment I saw something huge and white fly over my head. I heard Daddy yell "Run, run!" and for a split second I thought we were being bombed. Mommy pushed my head down and I ran down the stairs as fast as I could to the other side of the wall. Everyone else in the group was also trying to get behind the wall, and everything was in a panic. I learned later that some kids climbed up on the roof of the mosque and threw rocks at us. They hit two people in the head, one in the back, and one on the ankle, and three of them were bleeding. A few more people were hit in the leg, but nothing serious. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. Some people were crying, and everyone was running around.
Our tour guide, Ron, took control. He called the Western Wall security, and talked to the security guard for the mosque. They posted policemen on the roof so that we could resume our service. This was the last thing I wanted to do. But we did resume the Bar Mitzvah service, though we were all very shaken up. The security guards talked to the injured people, but they all had relatively minor injuries so they didn't have to got to the hospital.
After that, we went to the Kotel. We could see through the dividing wall to the mens' side, and we saw a huge group of them in all black just davening and praying obsessively. After that, I stood outside the exit waiting for the rest of the group, when a security guard came up to me and told me to put a scarf around my legs. Apparently, the Orthodox passing by had complained about me wearing shorts. I wasn't even at the Wall!
Dinner was good. Talk to you soon!
posted by csmcid at 2:30 AM
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