COMO É A VIDA JUDAICA EM JERUSALÉM? As roupas, comidas e dia a dia dos judeus ortodoxos

Shalom and welcome back to 'Israel with Aline! ' We are in the middle of the Old City of Jerusalem, in the heart of the Jewish Quarter! And today we are going to get to know a little bit more about daily life in this neighborhood; the dress, the customs, the synagogues, and much more!

So, if you are ready, let's get started! The Old City of Jerusalem is divided into four neighborhoods; the Christian neighborhood, the Muslim neighborhood, the Jewish neighborhood and the Armenian neighborhood. And today we are going to focus on the Jewish quarter and so I want to start here in front of the golden Menorah, which is the symbol of the whole Jewish quarter.

This Menorah was made according to the instructions of the Bible; and that includes the materials and that is why it is made of gold! Guys, this Menorah cost a million dollars to make, and that is also why underneath it has the name of the person who donated the gold for the construction and so we also see that the Old City of Jerusalem and Israel are very safe, because there is a million dollar Menorah here, in the middle of the Old City! But now let's continue our tour of the Jewish Quarter.

And we are going together now to enter this synagogue that is called HaHurva, which means "the ruins". But why does such a beautiful synagogue have this name? Because it was destroyed and rebuilt four times.

The last destruction happened in 1948, with the invasion of Jordan you can see the photos of how they left the place completely in ruins and it will be rebuilt only in 2010, a little while ago, but exactly as it was. And when they finally do the reconstruction, they started to dig a little bit to build the foundations of the Synagogue and what did they find? Remains of the city of Jerusalem from two thousand years ago and a huge house was found here!

We could say maybe even a mansion, and inside this mansion there was a Mikve, which you can see right here; these steps that go down, they are a ritual bath that was done by the Jews to purify themselves. So in everyday life, the Jews purified themselves, but especially before going up to the Temple in Jerusalem. So if we arrived here two thousand years ago, this would be a class A neighborhood, of religious Jews and they would come here and prepare themselves to go up to the Temple of Jerusalem.

It is even believed that in this area, not far from here, lived the High Priest of Jerusalem. And I think it's incredible that a mikve has been found here, a ritual bath that is one of the many Jewish traditions that continue to be performed until today. But let's go back now to the main part of the Synagogue, here as in all Orthodox Jewish Synagogues, the three daily prayers take place.

But besides that, we see Jews that gather here throughout the day to do Bible studies, studies of Jewish books, and now we are seeing the most important part of the Synagogue, which is the Aron Hakodesh, that is this gigantic and super decorated cabinet where the scrolls, the Torah, the Hebrew Bible, are kept. And there is a little bit of a hard climb, but it is very worthwhile to go up to the Dome of the Synagogue because you can have a 360-degree view of the Old City of Jerusalem, and we can see here the four neighborhoods that we commented on in the background we can see the Armenian neighborhood, if we keep looking in that direction we will see the Christian neighborhood and if we keep looking with this wonderful view we will reach the Muslim Quarter, the most striking thing is without a doubt the Golden Dome, the Dome of the Rock, which is on the site where the Temple of Jerusalem was. We have seen so far many Orthodox Jews passing by, walking with the little threads sticking out of their clothes that are called "Tzitzit" and I wanted to show you one, so I had the idea to come into this store here, let's go in and open some and show you how they really are, so you can come with me.

Well, in the store there is everything as you can see, there is Menorahs, there is Mezuzot, there is everything. We have here the Kipot, which we are seeing and which we saw many Jews also using. in Portuguese, we call it "Solidéu" and the idea of the kipah is that when you wear it, the men always remember that there is someone above them, women in Judaism remember on their own, so we are not obliged to wear it; this is a tradition of the men.

And the Tzitzit, it is down here so let me open one here for you. And to be more exact this part that looks like a T-shirt is called the "Talit Katan" which is supposed to hold the Tzitzit, the Tzitzit is how we can translate these fringes. But what is the origin of this tradition?

It comes from the Bible, from the book of Numbers where the following is written: "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'Throughout the generations to come you are to make tassels on the corners of your garments with a blue cord on each tassel. You will have these tassels to look at and so you will remember all the commands of the LORD, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by going after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes. " Numbers 15:38-39 The tradition of fringes continues to this day, but part of the Jews stopped wearing the blue thread after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the exile by the Romans.

The idea is that men will put it under their clothes, and on top of that they will put on a shirt, a jacket, whatever they want to wear in their day-to-day life, and here at the end there are the little threads as you can see. The little thread, it can be inside or outside, so we often see Orthodox Jews who look like they don't have one, but not necessarily. It could be that they just decide to wear it on the inside of their clothes and not on the outside.

So this is what an adult's Tzitzit looks like, I mean, the Tzitzit is the little thread and the Talit Katan is the whole traditional garment, and this is an adult's. Now let me show you the cutest thing, which is down here too. Look, isn't that sweet, folks?

This is a child's Talit Katan! Boys start wearing it from the age of three on, it is not mandatory at this age but is usually put on children from the age of three. So here you can see the Talit Katan and also the mini Kipah, the tradition is to wear it from the age of three, but it is not mandatory but normally children participate fully in the Jewish traditions from the Bar and Bat Mitzva, which for girls is when they are twelve and for boys is when they are thirteen, but it is also used to younger children to be able to wear it and thus walk around so cute.

Another thing that calls attention in Jewish dress is the colors; they are mainly white, black, and sometimes blue. This is not a Jewish law, not a Biblical commandment, but a tradition that comes from the idea of wearing modest clothes, clothes that don't attract too much attention. But you will also see Jews wearing very colorful clothes.

But most Orthodox Jews actually wear black and white clothes. Jerusalem has 4,000 years of history, but in that time it was destroyed and rebuilt many times and so every building, every stone that you see here has a different age. For instance, this floor that we are walking on are small stones, they are modern; they are less than fifty years old.

But if I walk up now on these huge stones that you see, this is part of the original floor of the Roman Period, I mean, about two thousand years old these stones are! And so you have very modern things, but you also have buildings here that are almost four thousand years old! And it is really amazing to walk through the alleys and get to know a little bit more of this history!

Another big difference between the Jewish neighborhood and the other neighborhoods is that the food here is Kasher, it is Kosher, meaning that it follows the Old Testament food laws; pork is not sold, no seafood and they follow the rules that come from these verses you see above. (Leviticus 11:2-31, Deuteronomy 14:4-21) And without any doubt, the most important place in the Jewish quarter is the Wailing Wall, we will go there quickly to look at it, it is the remains of the Temple of Jerusalem, the most important place that ever existed for the people of Israel! But if you want to know more about the Wailing Wall, I will also leave above a link to a video that tells the whole history of the Wall, including its secret parts.

And here from the Wailing Wall, one of the most important places in the Jewish World, I want to say goodbye to you and thank you all for liking and sharing. A big kiss and see you next time!