The Bible Zoo

Eliana, Karina, Nick, and I went to the Bible Zoo. While there I learned that all it takes to turn a group of college student into shrieking, baby noise making children are baby meercats and penguins. It turns out that the zoo can be enjoyed at any and every age, at least for me. We walked around the different exhibits for about two hours which was a good among of time, we left just before the animals stopped being cute and started being obnoxiously loud and smelly.
The only part of the zoo that I found out of place was some of the animals. Perhaps I just did not understand what the zoo was or I just took the name “Bible zoo” too literally, but I assumed that only animals found in the bible would be found at the zoo. While I have not read the bible cover to cover (although I did take intro to the bible my first semester), I don’t think that there was any mention of kangaroos despite their presence at the zoo. Regardless, they were really cute and all cuddles up in the shade.

The other part I like about the zoo was the actual “coexistence”. During the seminar we spoke a lot about whether or not space could be shared between Israeli’s and Palestinian Arabs as well as if there were any shared space in the “unified” city of Jerusalem. I think that the zoo was the first place I have ever been to in Israel where it really looked like both groups were sharing it. When we were standing looking at the penguins there were children squealing in both Hebrew and Arabic, running around at pointing at the different birds while they cleaned their feathers and swam in the water. Nick and Hannah mentioned schools, such as the YMCA and the schools Hannah is interning at as other actually shared spaces. However, I do not think I would place those above the zoo because the Arab students have fewer options in terms of the education. The Israeli students many time will choose to go elsewhere for the education because they can, while the Arab student are far more limited in their options. This was also nice to see in light of our next paper about whether the city can actually be shared.

~Sarah