The bus ride from Ein Gedi to Jerusalem was the first of many long distance bus rides in Israel. I was putting my Rav Kav (bus pass) to good use. This ride, thankfully, was the most dangerous and treacherous of all of the rides I would have during my stay in Israel. The bus was standing room only. I was holding on to the luggage rack of the bus with my finger tips as the driver sped through the swerves and curves of the desert mountains. There were many short stops and many times when it felt like the bus was going to flip over. About a week later, on the same road, there was a terrible bus accident.

(My previous experience in Jerusalem has been relegated to the Old City. I was in the New City in 1998 but I don’t remember much about it except the Ben Yehuda Pedestrian Mall. Since 1998 there were multiple suicide bombings there and it’s luster faded. On a yoga retreat in Costa Rica a few years, I met a victim and survivor of one of the attacks. She had quite a few reconstructive surgeries after the experience and is on permanent disability. She spends her days with her dogs now.)

I befriended the other backpacker standing next to me on the crazy bus. He had a British accent. We talked about his experience in Israel thus far. He said he had been pleasantly surprised by his experience and had not understood the nuance of the political situation before spending time here. We talked about Israelis and Palestinians sharing roads. We then passed by a sign for a Palestinian village that said in English that no Israelis were allowed past this point. More commonly, you’ll read about roads that are made for Israelis only to reach West Bank settlements. You don’t read about how there are roads for Palestinians-only as well. The political situation has never been as simple as the media narrative, I explained.

We decided to get off the bus as soon as we entered what looked like the city of Jerusalem. The announcements were in Hebrew only and the online bus map was useless to English speakers. We were headed in the same direction so I told him I would navigate and he could follow me. We ended up getting off in the ultraorthodox neighborhood of Mea Shaarim. This was another Israeli first for me. It wasn’t terribly unlike being in Borough Park or Hassidic Williamsburg. I imagine for my British friend, he must have felt like he was on Mars.

I noticed immediately that many of the bus stops in Jerusalem have digital arrival clocks. While they only showed information in Hebrew and Arabic, it was still more advanced than New York City. Since my last visit to Jerusalem, the light rail line had opened. I was eager to take it and see how well it functioned, as Israeli is not known for its quality public transportation. I did not have much of an itinerary so I figured I would just go where the light rail takes me.

During this trip, I had the time to rediscover Jerusalem. The city is completely transformed from what I remember when I was 16 years old. The country’s first line rail line operates through the center of the city in a car-free pedestrianized street. Jaffa Road used to be a major traffic artery filled with cars, honking, fumes and angry/aggressive drivers. Today it is the focal point of the city.

Jerusalem, before the light rail, did not really have a city center, as the New City grew in phases around the Old City. With the pedestrianized nature of the new Jaffa Road, people flock to commercial storefronts. The outdoor cafes along the road allow you to watch as the tram goes by and lets people off. In some ways, it is even more European than Europe because many of the roads in Europe that have trams share the streets with cars as well.

My first full day, I got on the train and took it to Mount Herzl. I knew that there would be spectacular views and I knew that this was the same station for Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Museum, Library and Archive. When I got off the train and started taking pictures, I found myself walking down the path to the museum. I knew they had some sort of library but I had not planned on going there because I figured I had done enough research in Poland.

I guess my mission was not over. I had built my family tree so deeply and found so many documents in Poland that there was a certain magnetism towards the Yad Vashem Archives. I made my way to the Archive building and filled out a researcher form. It was in Hebrew. The librarian was working with someone but she came over to my computer workstation minutes later to assist me. She told me she didn’t speak much English so we would have to communicate in Hebrew. My Hebrew isn’t fluent but I know enough to ask questions when I don’t understand something. She asked me what I was looking for and I told her that my grandparents were all in DP camps. She made an acknowledging facial gesture and opened up the DP camp archive software. She asked me for the family name and typed in a few search fields and promptly showed me the results and identified DP camp records and rejected victim compensation claims from my family. I asked a few clarifying questions about these records and she left me at the workstation to have at the records.

I think I found 80 pages of documents in this database. I spent at least two hours there photographing each page of each document. There were some names that were Grafs from Jozefow, Poland but seemed unfamiliar. I figured I’d copy the document and spend time later trying to figure out if we were related.

The Yad Vashem Museum is a sprawling campus including a series of gardens and monuments, dedicated to people and places all around the world. One of the monuments is a maze of stone pillars with the names of all of the towns and cities where significant Jewish populations once lived in Europe. I spent a good amount of time finding all of the towns that I had just visited in Poland. Luckily, they are grouped geographically.

After this emotional experience, I figured why not made this experience even more emotional by visiting the military cemetery and seeing some graves of famous people. I was curious about the story of Chaim Graf during my time in Jerusalem. I remembered from my first trip to Israel in 1996 that there is a very elaborate military cemetery on Mt. Herzl, located near the Yad Vashem museum. Because Chaim Graf died as a solider, I figured he would be buried with the other soldiers on Mt. Herzl. The cemetery is so big and has so many sections. My cell phone signal wasn’t working and I couldn’t locate a map anywhere. There sections for different wars. It was all terribly sad. I figured there must be a welcome center or a visitors center. I had entered from the Yad Vashem Museum entrance and not the street entrance. Eventually, I found the visitor center and I saw a solider sitting at a desk with a computer outside the front entrance. I approached him and told him I was looking for a gravestone for deceased solider Chaim Graf. He asked me how to spell it and looked it up. He told me there was no record at Mt. Herzl for him. He then searched some other public database in Hebrew and allowed me to watch him. He showed me on the screen exactly where he is buried: at the military cemetery in Haifa. I had no idea there were multiple military cemeteries. I guess it makes sense in a way because that’s where the family lived back then? However, at this point, I still did not have a connection on the family tree to him. I knew this would have to be on my to do list for my upcoming visit to Haifa.

When I made my way back to the center of town, I visited the famous Mahane Yehuda market and wandered around the surrounding neighborhoods. I wanted to see the local forest park. I also wanted to get a sense of the New Jerusalem architecture and judge it. The light rail connects to a modern Central Bus station that is across the road from a brand new Central Rail Station which connects to the high speed line to TLV (the line is opening in phases).

I spent the next few days in Jerusalem touring around different neighborhoods, eating food in the markets, walking through gardens and admiring the architecture. What I realized was that the light rail completely transformed the city. The building of the light rail created an actual city center and a completely pedestrianized arterial pathway. All of the energy of the city emanates from the path of the light rail. Before the light rail, Jaffa Road was a busy, congested and uninteresting road. It is now the definition of the vibrancy of Jerusalem.

I also enjoyed the nightlife in Jerusalem. It is a different pace than Tel Aviv but has many options. I liked the quieter vibe and, of course, the car free Jaffa Road at night. It becomes a social hub for the nightlife scene.

I left Jerusalem feeling great about it. I was completely shocked. For so many years, I’ve been part of conversations about how Tel Aviv is the only “real” city in Israel. Haifa, if it ever had it, lost its shine years ago. Jerusalem was known as “a religious town”. It’s simply not true. Jerusalem is a fantastic city and has great chicken shnitzel prices. Where I once thought of Jerusalem as religious, stuffy and lacking organization, I now see Jerusalem as a lovely place. It has distinct neighborhoods and many architectural highlights. Food prices are lower than in Tel Aviv. The weather is less severe. I tried a little bit of the bar scene. It definitely exists and does not hold a candle to Tel Aviv’s ridiculous hipsterdom but it is real and energetic.

My second cousin Irit invited me to stay with her for the weekend at her house in the countryside in Moshav Nir Tzvi. I figured I’d go to the bakery and buy a bunch of Jerusalem treats for Shabbat.