Friday in Jerusalem. The first day of Ramadan, Palm Sunday this Sunday, Easter and Passover next weekend (that's a lot of caps...)... this confluence of holy days happens once every 35 years, and we are here!
Here's a funny thing we've all been getting over the last year when the subject of us going to Israel comes up....
"Why?"
That's a stark, short question... but ok - food, people, a unique part of the world, one of the countries that has played a huge impact in western civilization, architecture, and... food. But really? Why?
"Are you going for religious reasons?"
I guess that might mean "are you Jewish/Muslim/Christian" as there are certainly huge reasons to come for all of those faiths (but they never ask about Baha'i or Druze.... never the Druze... lol). But no, quite the opposite in fact. I'm here to observe how religion shaped and continues to shape the region - and then speculate to myself if the younger generation here seems to be ditching religion like they are at home, and what happens in that case?
"Are you worried about security?"
Heellllll no... While a shooting in Tel Aviv killed 2 people a few nights ago which was apparently all over the news in Toronto based on the texts, we were a little hesitant to point out that over the last four days there had been murders in Niagara Falls, Toronto and Mississauga, not to mention people being pushed into subway tracks etc... For some reason those didn't make the Israeli papers. Like most places, you have to know when to go where, to avoid potential conflicts, or protests etc, but that's also why we had Eric here guiding us. The whole trip, not only did we feel moderately safe, we felt extremely safe. Yes it takes a little getting used to passing two teenager girls in pajamas holding sub machine guns (if you're in the army, you can't leave your gun at home unattended - even when you're off), but they the hatches pretty much battened down in Israel.
Ok, on with the show... we walked (Eric is really on board with the "active trip" mantra!)... up through the market, up and down Jaffa street to the Jaffa gate. Old Jerusalem is a one square kilometer walled sub city that not only contains many historical buildings and landmarks, but it's also a living city - home to almost 40,000 people who live, work, go to school and recreate in the city.
Geographically, it's broken down into 4 quarters: Muslim, Christian, Armenian and Jewish. It is basically built on the side of hill, sloping from the top near the Jaffa gate to the bottom near the Dung gate (to remember that gate... money runs up hill, shit runs down hill).
Eric took us by his favourite bagel shop.. fresh baked as we watched - but the bagels were giant ovals and thin like the ones in Tel Aviv. We had coffee in the Jewish quarter, then kept rambling down, through a rediscovered and rehabilitated Roman boulevard that now has art shops peppered all over the place. Eric was guiding us through the Jewish quarter shops and market area towards the Western Wall as he wanted to avoid the 12pm rush of the Muslims heading to temple mount.
Temple Mount, now home to the large blue mosque that we saw from Mount of Olives (or as Alex called it, Olive Mountain - ok, fair enough) was the original location of the Holiest site in Judaism - a temple built by King Solomon in 957BC (I know Fort York was built in the early 1800's and is way more important, but let's give kudos to the son of King David). It was destroyed and rebuilt a couple of times, but lastly built in 692AD (CE?) as the third holiest site in Islam.
In light of the dual claims of Judaism and Islam, it is one of the most contested religious sites in the world. Since the Crusades, the Muslim community of Jerusalem has managed the site through the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf. The Temple Mount is within the Old City, which has been controlled by Israel since 1967. After the Six-Day War, Israel handed administration of the site back to the Waqf under Jordanian custodianship, while maintaining Israeli security control. It remains a major focal point of the Arab–Israeli conflict. In an attempt to keep the status quo, the Israeli government enforces a controversial ban on prayer by non-Muslims.
If you read that passage from Wikipedia, it kind of encapsulated the woven mesh of middle east politics and religion, where "ownership", "management", "security" and "place of importance" can all be owned by very different stakeholders, all at the same time. It also really reminds me the Jewish ability to make deals/compromises to keep things going. The status quo, often thought of as a non-permanent solution to a détente, actually can be a good solution for many years while time passes and things perhaps find a way to work themselves out in the future.
The Western Wall is essentially the closest section to Temple Mount in Old City that Jews can get to. Although they could now get in to Temple Mount on some special times/days, there is a superstition to doing so. Jews pray, contemplate, and shove written messages into the cracks in the wall - it's quite fascinating to watch. Beth and Kim had to go the right side, while Alex, Eric and I went to the men's side. The men's section also had an indoor space against the wall that contained a few ornate boxes holding old Torahs.
After the wall, Eric had booked us on a tour that is relatively new (or expanding all the time, anyway) that takes in the Western wall UNDER the old city that has been built up over time and abuts to the wall now. It was pretty fascination to see the scale and extent of the excavation. The tour guide was a very obnoxious guy, but the place was well worth it. We ended at a Synagogue that they had built under the city, directly facing the foundation of the western wall, and it was quite spectacular. The layers of this city, like Akko on steroids, were fascinating, and I'm still shocked that there is so much ongoing discovery taking place.
After the wall underground tour, we headed up, and up, and up to the Jewish Quarter for... yes, shawarma lunch, then over to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This church contains the two holiest sites for Christians, the place where Jesus was crucified (you can touch the rock!) and the his empty tomb where his body disappeared. It also contains a hilarious also-ran group of things (the stone where his body was washed etc etc). Hard to prove but the symbology is nice I guess. If I wasn't sure I wanted to be religious or not, this place outright sealed the deal for me. If you read the section titled "status quo" in the link above, maybe you'll feel like me... the church is controlled by five Christian sects (Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox (those guys have cool digs by the way)), all with a separate section in the "Church" (though Eric joked that the Ethiopians had the windows at the top of the church - he may not have been joking). Over the years, numerous fights have broken out and there are often disagreements between the sects on various things. If five Christian sects can't get along in a huge, historical site, what chance do we have to end the greater Status Quo in Israel... ridiculous.
Jesus Christ!
We left the Old City, full of new facts and figures, but mostly an appreciation for the Old City and it's dynamics. Eric walked us through a cool, high end shopping area called Mamilla outside the gate that got us into the pedestrian malls surrounding Jaffa street. Love this place! Eric warned us that come sundown, shabbat was on and things were about to get pretty quiet. We left Eric by the hotel for his short commute back to North Tel Aviv and we retired for a brief siesta.
When we left the hotel, shabbat had started in earnest - the place was a ghost town. Milling throngs of people in the market went to an awesome place to shoot a Zombie Apocalypse. It was... really cool.
We walked down Jaffa Street - no trams, no cars, businesses all shut. People were starting to pop up, but they all looked like they had places to go. We passed a non-descript three story building that had a whack of Orthodox Jews milling in and out - I assume it was a synagogue but I've noticed the places are not highly advertised, unlike many religious buildings around the world.
We found a great vegetarian restaurant that was next to another bar-looking place that seemed to be the only places wanting to flaunt convention. During dinner, fifty or so Orthodox Jews came out from a side street up to a nearby police station and started chanting loudly. My guess was, and Eric later agreed, that they were not happy with these two restaurants that were open (here's a tip to those protestors... don't go live in Tel Aviv!).
Near our hotel on the way home, Kim cracked up as she pointed out the Super Cheap convenience store that offered "24/6" hours of operation... lol. Jerusalem, just 45 minutes away from the youthful, financial capital of Israel, was like a different world on shabbat.
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