Carillon, Seder Dinner, Tours, War and Greece Departure Announcement

 Every Sunday Leah played the carillon at the YMCA from 11 am to noon.  There are hotel rooms in the YMCA and a stairwell open to the public that goes to the top of the tower where people can have a great view of Jerusalem.  The carillon keyboard is on floor 5.  There were many times where visitors would drop by on their way to the top.  It was always special to meet several students there each week where they could come and watch and even play simple songs.  The video is Leah playing the Harry Potter song Sedgewick's Theme.

Every semester gets to experience special events that do not take place on the calendar during their time at the Center. Examples of this include the Seder Passover Dinner and Upper Room last supper activity.  The Jewish Culture teacher led a seder dinner activity for the fall semester students. It featured the special plates, menu items and activities that normally take place at this Jewish Passover tradition.  Here are some photos.

One of our main jobs was to give tours of the Jerusalem Center to visitors from all over the world.  During the low tourist months we were there, we had an equal amount of church members and local Jewish people coming to visit.  As part of this update, I wanted to take you on the tour.  

The guests enter the building through a beautiful walkway and front doors into the Floor 8 entry area.

The tours start with a 13-minute video about the Center.  See previous post from August 10 to watch the very informative video.  We had two seminar rooms that held 50 people to begin the tour.

Following the movie, the guests would go across the entry hall to the upper auditorium for a 12-minute organ concert by Leah.  The local visitors do not hear organs in their synagogues or mosques, so this was a special treat for them. The view from the auditorium and the special music was the best place to feel the spirit of the beautiful Jerusalem Center.  Leah did an amazing job playing difficult music!!

Following the concert, we would take the guests outside on the patio on Floor 7 for and excellent view of the old city and all of Jerusalem.  My job was to explain the view and take their picture with the view.  Here's our picture from the viewpoint.

There are four models of the Old City at various times in history along the tour route.  The close up is what the current walls and features look like.

Following the view and model discussions, the tour proceeded through the biblical garden and ancient olive crushing facilities.

 

Every October, the students crush and squeeze the olives to make olive oil form the trees growing on the property.  We missed the activity by one week due to our evacuation.

This is the Music Office.  I spent much time here answering emails and scheduling tours and church members visits for Sacrament Meetings on the Sabbath while Leah was in the auditorium diligently practicing the organ.

October 7th was the day that changed everything when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel citizens near the Gaza Strip.  We received a text that morning to stay inside until further notice.  There were air raid sirens in Jerusalem that day.  The siren system is very conservative and the sirens sound whenever a rocket is tracked to be headed anywhere near Jerusalem.  The rockets are always aimed at West Jerusalem.  The Center is in East Jerusalem.  In the time until our evacuation, there were very few rockets aimed at Jerusalem because their tracking system is primitive and there are sacred Palestinian sites on temple mount.

On October 13th the decision was made to evacuate all of the students, faculty and Service Couples to Greece.  During that one-week period, we were all very safe in the building.  The streets of the city were quiet and there were just a few sirens from rockets that came nowhere near our building.  Here is the music number that Dr. Huntsman prepared as part of the evacuation announcement meeting.