Humans of Hebrew College Tiling the Temple Mount

By Wendy Linden

Frankie Snyder,

“I chose a different path than most Hebrew College MAJS alumnae. I made aliyah in 2007 and settled in Jerusalem. While waiting for my Ulpan class to begin, I volunteered at an archaeological site, the Temple Mount Sifting Project, and after two weeks of volunteering, I was hired. After about a year on the job, I began to work with opus sectile tiles that had been found at the Project: geometrically cut and polished stone tiles that were used to create beautiful floors on the Temple Mount. Some of these tiles are the very ones that King Herod used during the Second Temple period. Working with these tiles has become a full-time career, and I am now Israel’s expert in reconstructing the patterns of opus sectile floors from King Herod’s building projects. In the picture I am holding one of my reconstructions, a model of a pattern that was used in one of King Herod’s Temple Mount floors, and it incorporates some of his original tiles. Every day I get to hold in my hands actual pieces of the Second Temple!”

Frankie Snyder, MAJS’00

Learn more: https://www.hebrewcollege.edu/majs

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