Here i am at the Citadel overlook. As you can see this was another ancient Roman ruin. It wasn't that big but both of these pictures are in front of the remains of the Hercules Temple. So of course I needed to show off my massive muscles and hold up the columns.

Our first stop in Tel Aviv was the Diaspora Museum. You probably don't know what diaspora means because i didn't know what it meant until i came here. The diaspora refers to the scattered Jews after they were exiled from Jerusalem after the second temple was destroyed by the Romans.This is a monument inside the museum built for those Jews. It is symbolic of what the Jews had to go through after being exiled and scattered. Our guide said that the best explanation that she heard of this came from a little 8 year old boy. He was standing beneath and exclaimed "This is a Jew trap". After learning about the history of the Jews i think that this is a very good interpretation. When the Jews were exiled and persecuted a lot of time they weren't allowed to live their lifestyle because many times if people knew that they were Jewish they would be persecuted if not killed. This little lights in the middle represent the jews trying to cling together while the cage like structure around represents the many people who tried to stop the Jews from being Jews and not letting them live their lives.

The next stop that we made was to Independence Hall. This was where Israels Declaration of Independence was signed. When i was sitting through the presentation that they had i noticed that there was some Israeli people on our tour too. I kept watching them as the program went on. They explained the history behind it and then they played for us the recording of when they signed the Declaration and then had us listen to their National Anthem. Watching the Israelis sing along with their National Anthem made me think of how much I am proud of America's Independence and how i feel when i sing our National Anthem. It made me realize how much this place and what went on here means to the Israelis that live here. Israel became a state two years after the end of the holocaust when there were 1,000 of Jews who literally did not have a home. I can see why this place means so much to them. The lady that was speaking to us mentioned that there were still a lot of ugly things here like the seperation wall and all the checkpoints that they have in the Palestinian Territories. She said how these things were keeping both the Palestinians and the Israelis in the Ghetto. I hope and pray that they will be able to find a solution to the problems over here and really be able to extablish the Independence and equality for all that their declaration talks about.