The Jewish Shavuot holiday is often one of the most exciting and busiest times on Mount Zion. According to Jewish tradition, Shavuot commemorates both the birth and the death of King David, which would certainly be a special time at David’s Tomb.
It is customary to recite Psalms and study Torah all night on Shavuot. Therefore, beginning in the evening hundreds of people started to gather. Huge signs were hung welcoming people to David’s Tomb, and booths with food and drink were set up to fortify the visitors.
Nearby ןn the Greek Garden, dozens of families set up tents during the Shabbat and throughout the holiday, in order to be close to the festivities on Saturday night. This “Tent Festival” has taken place for more than a decade.
Later that night, hundreds of people crowded into David’s Tomb to study and learn until dawn.
Shavuot Festival
During the holiday itself on Sunday, thousands of Jewish visitors came to David’s Tomb to celebrate. At the same time, a great number of Christian pilgrims came to visit the Cenacle, the Room of the Last Supper. (The stream of Christian visitors to this site has grown over the past few weeks because of different denominations’ Pentacost holidays.)
During the holiday there were several out-of-the ordinary visitors. One was a woman in a religious ecstasy, who was eventually escorted out by the police.
Blowing a shofar outside the Cenacle
At the same time there were two Christian groups visiting the site. One was from the Far East, and a second was from North America:
Shortly afterwards, Window on Mt. Zion held its own Shavuot celebration with a fascinating lecture by Prof. Ilana Pardes on the story of David and Michal, and the transferring of the Holy Ark to Jerusalem. Afterward, Yisca Harani led a tour of Mount Zion and the David’s Tomb complex and the viewpoints of Judaism, Islam and Christianity to them. During the tour we met up with an additional group from the Far East, which sang songs and blessed passersby, many of them Haredi Jews on their way to David’s Tomb:
Reactions to the tour and lecture were very positive – thanks to all who came!
