by Megan Buff

Created on: February 04, 2009   Last Updated: February 12, 2009

Music echoed through Ben Yehuda Street, Jerusalem, as dusk fell. Along a side street, a group of boys break-danced. Three young people played guitar and drum between shops. Further along the road, a woman plucked a harp. People of every description milled around foreign tourists, Israeli teenagers, men with Orthodox Jewish ear locks and black hats. The smell of falafel wafted from several restaurants.

The modern Jewish section of Jerusalem is often overlooked by tourists. However, it is definitely worth exploration. In the hot Israeli summer, activity continues here late into the night. Ben Yehuda Street alone, not far from the old city, has enough to keep tourists busy for an evening at least. Merchants sell everything from political T-shirts to fine jewelry. Street musicians abound to serenade window-shoppers. It's a side of the city you can't see from the old quarters.

Also worth a visit in the new section is the Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem. I boarded the bus for Yad Vashem at 10am on a hot June day. As anywhere in Jerusalem, I was surrounded by an assortment of people: Orthodox Jews, fully-covered women, children, women in tank tops and shorts, and people speaking with all sorts of accents. Forty-five minutes later, I stepped off the bus in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. Following a sign, I took a footpath through pine trees. I was enveloped by the welcome scent of heat in the forest. As I walked, I looked down through the trees at Jerusalem. After about a quarter mile, I arrived at the museum's front gates. (A free shuttle bus is available from the main road, but I was too impatient to wait.) Yad Vashem is not one museum but a complex of museums, remembrance gardens, memorials, a cafeteria, an art gallery, a theatre, and other exhibits. After going through a cursory security check, I walked into the main museum and began to experience stories of the Holocaust. Videos and photographs surrounded me, exploring this tragedy. The museum relies heavily on individual's stories and narratives, giving a human face to history. I stepped outside at the end, into the heat, with a greater understanding and more questions than ever. What is it in human nature that leads us to kill each other?

That afternoon, I returned to the old city, the city of sublime pain. History hovered above me like a phantom, and I knew: Jerusalem is truly beautiful in every corner. If there can peace there, it is possible anywhere. And I believe peace is possible.

Learn more about this author, Megan Buff.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.