How about we begin with a little game of ‘Let’s Pretend.’ You’re walking in Gettysburg National Park (which is in Pennsylvania, for the non-Americans reading this), and you stumble on the name tag of George Wilson, a Confederate soldier who must have been killed on the battlefield during the Civil War. It’s been raining a lot, which is probably why this item has come to the surface after all these years. You put it in your backpack and walk away. About an hour later, the thought occurs to you, can I keep it; is it worth anything? You do the requisite Google search and learn that there are folks out there hunting for these relics in Civil War sites, usually using metal detectors. (You just got lucky!) Yes, what you found might be worth something to a collector, and, most importantly, the name tag is yours to keep and do with it as you like. No one from the Parks Department, the State of Pennsylvania, the U.S. government, the Daughters of the Confederacy, or direct descendants of the fallen soldier will come knocking on your door in the middle of the night, demanding you hand over your treasure.

Fast forward a decade or two, and you and your family are hiking somewhere in the Galil, and your sons spot something lying in the middle of a field, near where there had been some road construction. It’s some kind of spear head; of course, you, not being an expert, have no idea what you’re holding in your hand. All you know is that, while your two sons are fighting over who saw it first, you are going to have to tell them that they can’t keep it. The GOVERNMENT wants it, or at least their arm of the law, the Israel Antiquities Authority is prepared to snatch it from you (or at least ask you politely to hand it over) and put it away for safekeeping several storeys below ground where there’s a strong chance that no one will see it – ever again.

Why is that?, some grumpy old guy might inquire. What ever happened to hefker (property being ownerless)? Whatever happened to ‘finders keepers?’ What right does the GOVERNMENT have – or its allegedly independent arm – to take something that’s been lying in a field for who knows how long and confiscate it from you the finder just ‘cause they can. You say it’s part of our nation’s history – our patrimony? I say horse feathers. This topic would be great for a late-night pontification session. (Where are you when I need you, Richard Levine?) Or else a proper topic for discussion at a Shabbat morning kiddush. (Let me pour you another cocktail and refill your coffee cup while we consider the matter from all angles.)

It was a while ago – the consensus being most likely seven or eight years – when we and The Levines, having visited the Bible Lands Museum, walked the few yards/meters over to the campus of the Israel Antiquities Authority, then under construction. The building seemed almost completed, there were several mosaics placed in the ground where they were supposed to be, and on one wall were the donor plaques. (You gotta have that!) What was the holdup? Had they run out of money and were waiting from a fresh supply of shekels – or, more likely, U.S. dollars? Or perhaps the holdup was caused by the ‘experts,’ whose knowledge of their own anatomy is scanty, being unable to agree on a plan. It was like we were standing outside a candy store looking through the window – except the store was closed and we didn’t have a lot of loose change in our pockets anyway. When would they be finished, so we could go inside and see what was going on?

One thing you learn here in The Land. Don’t waste your time expecting any construction project to be completed sometime soon, whether it’s a building, a road, or a light rail. You could get old before it happened. Just go about your business, and one day, when you least expect it, whatever it is you’re waiting for will be finished, and down the proverbial road no one will remember how long it took.

Savlanut, as they like to say in these parts. I have a suspicion that somewhere in some government office there is a leatherbound volume entitled, ‘sefer haterutzim,’ the Official Book of Excuses, with a list of the official reasons why things don’t get done when or as well  as they’re supposed to; as in why it took three years to add a third floor to our local mall when it took fourteen months to build the Empire State Building almost a 100 years ago. (Actually, three years from conception to fund-raising – just when the Stock Market was collapsing in 1929 – to demolishing the swanky hotel on the site, to erecting the building with more and more storeys being added while it was going up.) But I digress.

It always pays to pay attention, which might mean reading to the end of a press release or a newspaper article. Our friend Abby Leichman had done just that. There was something in the Jerusalem Post about a young man finding an ancient ring while he was hiking in northern Israel. And our friend read the entire article, including the telling last sentence: ‘Visitors to the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel can revel in ancient history through IAA tours throughout the summer.’

How’s that for an effective, well-coordinated publicity campaign! What a way to let the general public know that this place even exists, or that it might be open to the public in the next millennium! That there are tours of the place going on right now, as we speak! When Abby called to inquire, she was told that they’re having limited spots over the summer, and then they’ll be closed until the end of 2024, whereupon they will open for real for everybody to see. Which is how Abby, Barbara, and I got to hang out in the facility during its trial run.

On the bus ride going there, I shared my thoughts on the difference between how they deal with these artifacts here vs. in The States. Of course, both ladies were quick to point out some obvious dissimilarities between the two cases at hand. Should you find something that a Civil War soldier dropped along the way, you’re not really adding anything to what is known about the conflict. An archaeological antiquity in The Land, a semi-intact jug, for example? Depending on a lot of factors, it may have something to add onto what ‘we’ now know, or it may make ‘us’ reconsider what ‘we’ thought ‘we’ knew. Plus, much of what is being uncovered is in lots of teeny pieces, requiring meticulous, loving restoration – as in, done by experts. There’s that, but…

Abby had it figured out. We got on the same bus at our different stops in Ma’ale Adumim and changed in Jerusalem to a bus line I didn’t know even existed, getting us to where we had to be in time for lunch. They have a mini-mini-cafeteria with some of the worst coffee you’ll find in Jerusalem (Brandon, they need your help!), but as the sign said, it’s kosher. It didn’t say it was any good.

Suitably semi-nourished, we joined the few other people registered for the 1:30 English-language tour conducted by Nico, who we assumed was Italian by origin (if you pronounce ‘ceramic’ the way most of us pronounce ‘cello,’ you have to be Italian), except he was Romanian.

Wherever he was from, he was available to give us a tour of the facility and, with the help of a video here and there, explain what the Antiquities Authority is trying to accomplish. One thing they’re not is a museum, as in a place where you are free to wander around at your leisure, looking at what’s there and reading the signs. No. Even when they reopen at the end of 2024 or thereabouts (I wouldn’t hold them to any specific date), you will be taken by the hand and led around the premises, with the emphasis being on the wonderful work they’re doing in the laboratories behind the glass windows and how many tens of thousands of volumes they have in their library (which, to be fair, would be of immense use to workers in the field). And keeping to the ‘let’s be fair’ motif, lots of their treasures are on display elsewhere – the Israel Museum being one of their prime beneficiaries.

However, switching from the ‘let’s be fair’ to the ‘let’s put it out there for all to see’ mode, we were shown around the facility, with more attention paid to the work being done than to the objects themselves – nothing that knocked my white crew socks off –  until we came to one room, which I assume will be one of their main attractions, which included a short video to explain what was going on. A few months ago, some deep-sea explorers chanced upon a sunken ship in the Mediterranean that had sunk 3,200 years ago and found within its hull a trove of amphorae, two of which have been recovered from the ocean floor. (Link to article here.)

And there was one of these treasures right before our eyes, perched precariously in its cardboard box that was several sizes too small to secure it properly. Nico had begun our tour by explaining the one rule. Take as many pictures as you like of the objects on display; just don’t photograph the staff – not because they have anything to hide; it’s just distracting to have someone trying to get your attention when you’re trying to reassemble fifty fragments of pottery. Which made sense, and I was certainly willing to comply. But I found it hard to believe that this jug, finally on terra firma after three millennia, would be perturbed or upset in any way if I took its picture to show the folks back home. But the lady in charge of arranging the display looked down on me with disdain from atop the ladder on which she was perched.. GO AWAY! Or words to that effect. I could have persisted: but Nico said…, but I didn’t see the point. You have to know who is in charge, and it wasn’t me.

What will be different when you guys open for real the end of the year? That’s what I asked Nico when his tour was over. There were several large rooms with nothing in them. Something will be put there, and the display will be rotated. How much written explanation will be provided? Well there’s none now. Everything was left to Nico or whoever else was taking you around. Probably more of the same, but I’m willing to be surprised.

I left the building with the urge to scratch my head, as in I don’t get it. The folks at the I.A.A. certainly deserve an ‘A’ for protecting, preserving, and restoring what’s left of tens of thousands of years of human activity in this small corner of the world. But as far as ‘works and plays well with others,’ as in ‘sharing is caring,’ maybe a ‘needs improvement.’ For all these decades they had a reason for their obsessive hoarding of everything they could get their hands on, with little of it seeing the light of day. But now? They have their own facility. What are they planning to do with it once it’s finally open to the public after all these years of waiting? Let me put it this way. Every museum of note has a staff of highly trained preservationists and restorers. You can see some of what is involved on YouTube videos. But these specialists are not the main attraction when you walk around the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre, or the National Gallery. They have better things to do than show off for the public.

We did get to see the little ring that caused this commotion. It was available for us in a special pretend lab that was there to give visitors a hands-on experience. (You see where this is going.) Will this little trinket get a place of honor, appropriately show-cased and properly lit when the place opens for real? And what else will be on display – artifacts, that is, not just the staff? We’ll have to go back at the proper time, give the place the once-over, and report our findings to everyone out there waiting with bated breath. Will my white crew socks get knocked off or will there be a reference to a citation in the sefer haterutzim? Only time – and your faithful reporter – will tell.

(For those of you waiting for the next episode of  “The Dreaded ‘M’ Word, it will be coming shortly. Savlanut.)