Tour of the Busan Israel House | Einstein's Letter, David's Sling, Holocaust Photos, Unleavened Bread, Decorative Shofarot, & the Dead Sea Scrolls

ASIA'S FIRST HOLOCAUST MUSEUM

This past Sunday, we translocated the English Church Service usually held at Holy Joy Center to the Centum "IS" Tower in Haeundae that holds the recently-opened Busan Israel House - a kind of mini museum dedicated to Jewish culture and history. Incredibly, according to this Busan Haps article by Michael Fraiman, it is also Asia's first Holocaust museum!

Museum turned Church

A COUPLE COMMISSIONED TO BUSAN

The Pastor was one Jay Kronish, an Israeli-American who became a Christian when he married a Christian Korean woman also residing in the U.S. The Kronishes opened the Israel House at the urging of the Israeli ambassador in South Korea, who Fraiman writes had told them:

"Everybody that comes from Israel goes to Seoul, 

has meetings in Seoul, 

mixes with government people in Seoul, 

does everything in Seoul." 

A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

Worship was led by Tankut Church, and then Pastor Kronish took over for the message. His topic was "A Stranger in a Strange Land," primarily appealing to those of us with alien status in South Korea. When he brought up Jesus Christ as the prime example of someone who is "a stranger in a strange land," I thought, "Duh!" and, not long after, remembered Lucille Clifton's Superman poems. 

After the message, (and the seemingly-random connections I was making between it and English literature), Pastor Kronish took us on a tour. 

This is a photo story of that fascinating tour, beginning at the entrance of the House.

A wall dedicated to Albert Einstein

These words are heavy with inspiration!

This means something to some people...

A picture of a man praying at the Western Wall

Korean pastor, Pastor Kronish, and others appreciating the memorabilia on display

Books carefully selected for display at the Israel House

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN ISRAEL AND SOUTH KOREA
Fraiman mentions several reasons why South Korea is more than just an "Israel-friendly" country, calling the two nations "practically parallel states":

• "Both are home to repressed, centuries-old civilizations, but were only legally created by the UN around the 1950s
• Both were forcibly divided by arbitrary political lines and remain at war with their closest neighbors
• Both demand mandatory military service and boast among the heaviest and most advanced armies in the world
• Both are frankly tiny nations, necessarily cozied up to American military might."

Kudos to Fraiman and whoever else did the research/was wide awake enough to notice these similarities.

Knock yourself out if you can read Korean

This is a special bracelet wrapped in Scripture

Challah or Sabbath bread, made only on Fridays. They come in loaves or woven like this to represent a Golden Crown. There is meaning in every little detail!

Correcting my misconception of what David's sling looked like

One of many decorative shofarot I saw on display

Israeli president

The Ark of the Covenant, taking me back to my quarter studying Bible as Literature!

The Ark of the Covenant

A portion of the Dead Sea Scrolls on display, as well as one of the cases holding them

Decorative shofar, again! I took many pictures for my mom, who has one proudly on display in our living room

While the adults dutifully shuffled about following Pastor Kronish, this little girl and her older brother skipped and played behind everybody else - adorably oblivious to the authentic Jewish memorabilia surrounding them.

While Pastor Kronish was giving us a tour, his wife Keum-won was preparing a small snack feast for all of us. We stayed at the House for nearly four hours and left, I'm sure, thinking and feeling many things.