A Jerusalem Treasure Hunt

We headed out on our morning walk. High school students were flying by us, backpacks flapping, sandals pounding the asphalt . . . seemingly in a race with one another. We carried on with our pace . . . another 3 students seem to come out of no where. We turned the corner on our normal route and 5 students ran up to us inquiring, "Do you live in this neighbhorhood? . . . Can you tell us where an ancient mosaic floor is laying on display?"

We knew exactly what they were looking for having passed by this spot a number of occasions. This mosaic floor lay where the ancient aquaduct ran to the Temple Mount from the hill in our neighbhood, a peak in the south part of the city.

"Sure! Go along the Promenade road and turn right at the light . . . follow the park . . ." We found out these students had come up to Jerusalem from their homes in northern Israel just prior to the Jerusalem Day celebrations. Their teachers had planned for them to view the archeological sites in a fun way . . . they were given a laminated chart of sites throughout the neighbhorhood to locate. The first team to finish wins the big prize.

We sent this team on and up came another, then another, and another . . . For the next 45 minutes, we became the neighborhood tour guides, directing teams of students - and parents! - on a Jerusalem archeological treasure hunt.

Rounding the corner we arrived at the promenade plaza greeting a friend from Tel Aviv, an Israeli tour guide with a small group of American tourists. All the while the high school students from the north of the country were running all over the promenade in search of the next ancient site on their map. Two very husky buff and stern-looking border police stood guard with their guns positioned . . . many buses unloaded their tourists who were grouped in units around the national park. Units of IDF soldiers come to this panoramic viewpoint on a regular basis and are taught by Israeli tour guides the history of the battles fought on the mountains all around Jerusalem. I have often thought as I see them that hearing the history from this vantage point would inspire a fresh motivation to guard the citizens of Israel.

"Hey Ron!" called the muscular border policeman. My husband heard someone calling his name. It was our neighbhor in the special police forces who was assigned the job of protecting the citizens at this site . . . a very pleasant and welcome change from his normal watch duty on the frontlines. We chatted with he and his partner for a time . . . occasionally pausing to congratulate the high school students running by at their treasure hunt successes! They were nearer to the finish.

Returning home via our normal circuitous route, my husband and I talked about how fun it would be to discover Jerusalem's hidden treasures as the high school students were doing - on such a treasure hunt, much of which is still hidden in the earth waiting to be unearthed and discovered. But the real treasures are the people within its walls . . . Jerusalem's living treasures.