The last five days of my trip were reserved for Jerusalem. At first I thought I'd have enough time to venture to Haifa or Tel Aviv, but that was not to be. On Sunday, Aug. 12, I got a bus from Ramallah to the Qalandiya checkpoint, but was not even asked to get off the bus (which is apparently rare). I arrived soon after at the Arab bus station in East Jerusalem, just a five-minute walk north of Damascus Gate. Suitcase in tow, my first vision of Jerusalem was a walk below the ramparts of the old city. But rather than entering the gate, I continued west along Jaffa Street and up to HaDavidka Square, where Abraham Hostel is located. It was a hip place, complete with rooftop beanbags, bar, and Greek yogurt for breakfast. But after my majestic arrival in the city, a sad sort of culture shock sank in. I was so close to Ramallah and yet a world apart, and felt in some way more foreign in Israel than I had in the West Bank despite the fact that my looks blended in much better. This alienation I felt was no doubt due in part to the language, but I felt a bit at sea wandering through the clean and European-feeling streets of West Jerusalem that first day. I spent the afternoon at the state-of-the-art Israel Museum near the Knesset, working my way through the archaeology wing and trying to create a mental timeline of all the civilizations that had dwelt in this city over the millennia. I pored over tablets with the earliest references to the House of David and over proto-Canaanite texts, jewelry from magnificent desert hoards, board games, sacrificial altars, ancient pull toys, pre-Canaanite polytheist figures of the sacred prostitute goddess, and even bits of cloth worn by Biblical peoples. When I had finished, I hurried across the verdant museum grounds to the Shrine of the Book, an odd, funnel-shaped building/fountain that houses the Dead Sea Scrolls. Unfortunately, I didn't have much time to inspect them really closely and was of course unable to read any of the originals. I also took a look, though, at the Aleppo Codex exhibit -- a 10th-century copy of the Torah stored in the Aleppo synagogue for centuries that is considered to be the most accurate version of the text.
After the museum, I returned to my neighborhood and took an evening stroll through the Mahane Yehuda market. It was packed with street performers of every ilk: puppeteers, dancers, magicians, and even women engaged in some kind of gag with clotheslines strung across the street. There were the usual vegetable, fruit, and pastry stands (none cheap, more like an American farmers' market) as well as kippah salesmen and "I <3 the IDF" souvenir t-shirt shops.
The next morning, my brooding mood had faded a bit and I determined to enjoy the Old City. I entered through Jaffa Gate near the Tower of David and took a morning stroll through the clean and tranquil cobblestone streets of the Jewish Quarter, arriving finally near the Temple Mount. I could not see the golden cap of the Dome of the Rock until I reached the back of the Jewish Quarter and it emerged suddenly from behind a building. I descended to a security checkpoint and then moved toward the Western Wall. The Wall is divided into men's and women's sections: most of the women, rather than praying at the wall, were perched on their tiptoes atop chairs so as to peer into the men's section. There, mostly Orthodox men with their black suits and curls came bearing velvet pillows and Torah scrolls to pray at this holiest of sites. After taking my turn watching, I made my way to the line to ascend the Temple Mount itself. Jews are not supposed to enter the Mount itself (but rather stop at the Wall), since the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque were built over the remains of the Temple and one might accidentally step on or otherwise trespass against the Holy of Holies. The Temple Mount (or, al-Haram al-Sharif) is controlled by the Muslim authorities in Jerusalem and the city's Muslims regularly go to pray inside. People of other religions (i.e. tourists) are allowed in during limited hours on certain days through a tunnel that attempts to conceals visitors from those who might find it sacrilegious. Unfortunately, I tried three times to go up to the Temple Mount during my time in Jerusalem and each time it was entirely closed to tourists. What I did get to see, though, were a whole lot of 13-year-old boys marching awkwardly to their bar mitzvah surrounding by fascinated tourists and shofar-blowers.
After my first attempt, I decided to turn my attention to the Christian sites of Jerusalem and walk the Via Dolorosa. This is the route that Christ is believed to have followed on his way to the Crucifixion, and starts in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. I started a bit out of order, with the Chapel of the Flagellation (whose importance you can probably deduce), then made my way to St. Anne's, which is not an official station on the route but hosts what is purported to be the cave where Mary was born. In addition, an archaeological site on the premises reveals the remains of the Bethesda pools where Jesus healed a paralytic, according to John. At the same spot is the ruin of an Aesculapian Temple, demonstrating that the pools were associated with healing even before the time of Jesus. Station 1, nearby, has no church these days but is rather an Islamic school, Al-Omariyya. I was the only visitor on the deserted grounds and so had a lovely view of the Dome of Rock all to myself. The later stations are all marked by plaques and special doors: while this is still technically the Muslim Quarter, you can find anyone passing through these streets. At the intersection of El Wad St., for instance, which is packed with Arab vendors selling prayer beads and belly dance costumes, a crowd of Chinese Christians was gathered around one of the stations of the cross reciting Bible verses in Chinese.
At the end of the Via Dolorosa, I made perhaps a slightly wrong turn and wound up in the deserted courtyard of a Coptic monastery seemingly inhabited only by a single long-bearded priest rocking back and forth, back and forth. Asking for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a man pointed me to the Ethiopian Monastery jammed vertically into a tiny slice of the church grounds. As I descended, I passed through a couple dark chapels with peeling walls and flickering candles inhabited by ancient Ethiopian priests. Then, suddenly, I emerged onto the bright, crowded plaza before the main entrance to the Holy Sepulchre just as the bells were striking noon. Inside, on the upper floor, are found the final stations of the Via Dolorosa, marking the supposed site of the Crucifixion: there are two chapels, a rather simple Franciscan one and an elaborate Orthodox one, where visitors (mostly from Eastern Europe) prostrated themselves and lit candles. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is an enormous place decorated in many different styles, since every inch is owned by a different faction. I spent a couple of hours exploring -- the large mosaic in the Chapel of St. Helena, Constantine's mother and the one responsible for building the church, the cool grotto known as the Chapel of the Discovery of the Cross, and of course the sepulchre itself. The tiny chamber fit just three of us, myself and an Eastern European couple who prostrated themselves on the tomb and murmured their prayers before moving with the crowd to light candles alongside the tomb.
While Jesus's final days were on my mind, I decided to walk the short distance to Mt. Zion, just outside the gates of the Old City. Here is found the room where the Last Supper is thought to have been held, which was later turned into a mosque during a different phase in the city's history. It was an odd sight to see a flock of Zimbabwean Christian bent in prayer before the mihrab. Nearby, I visited the modern Church of the Dormition, said to be the site of Mary's death.
I then walked around the southwest walls to an Israeli archaeological park wedged in alongside the Temple Mount. As it turns out, this is a controversial place because it is built on Arab land. It focuses on remains of the 1st and 2nd Temple complexes, with a bit of Umayyad palace thrown in for good measure. One of the highlights, IMHO, was the set of latrines dating from a Second Temple-era palace. There were also bits and pieces of the First Temple street that led up to the Temple itself and an excellent video that helps one imagine what the Temple looked like and the experience of pilgrims who came to it.
By the time I had finished, it was already nearly dinner time, and Clare had come in from Ramallah to meet me. We met up with Robin and her boyfriend (who were also visiting Jerusalem) at a sushi restaurant near Ben Yehuda St. in West Jerusalem, reveling in the wide variety and accessibility of ethnic food in the city. After dinner, we went for a nighttime walk around the Muslim Quarter of the Old City in search of the best Ramadan lights and garlands. Other than the civilian who ran by with a large gun, the Muslim Quarter was in many ways much friendlier than any other part of the city: children came to chat with us, vendors offered us discounts, and there were few foreign tourists there beyond the main thoroughfares. At 'asha time, people burst forth from their houses into the empty streets, moving as one toward Al Aqsa to pray.
The next morning I spent at the City of David, to the south of the Old City walls. It was a bit difficult to navigate on my own, but was valuable at least for establishing in my mind the geography of Jerusalem's origins, from the Valley of Kidron to the Mt. of Olives and the Temple Mount. The bits that remain of the original Biblical settlement include parts of David's palace, the city walls, tombs of the Davidic dynasty, and the Pool of Siloam. The complex is most known for its 45-minute walk through the waist-high water of the Canaanite aqueduct known as Hezekiah's Tunnel, but after a few minutes bent over in the dark wetness by myself I got claustrophobic and took the dry route.
I had a hummus and falafel lunch with Robin at the Old City staple Abu Shukri before making my way to the Museum on the Seam -- the Seam meaning the pre-1967 Israel/Jordan border, now the rough border between East and West Jerusalem. I was expecting a history museum but got an avant-garde gallery exhibiting art that deals with conflict and memory broadly speaking. While I found some of the work just too abstract and deconstructed for my taste, my favorite piece was a poignant video of Afghan children stuffing a rusted warplane with cotton in the hope that plugging the holes will allow them to fly it like a kite. Across the street in East Jerusalem, I visited the Garden Tomb, a quaint English-run garden that Anglicans believe is actually the site of Golgotha because of the quarry that directly abuts it. Whether or not it is the site of the garden of Joseph of Arimathea, it is a lovely spot for contemplation.
That evening, I signed up for a tour to the Dead Sea with a group from my hostel. Our leader was a hip, ex-Orthodox Jewish South African, and my fellow travelers included a black American woman who had lived in an American settlement near Eilat for 40 years, a heavily tattooed 30-something Mexican guy who regaled us with stories of Tel Aviv's nude beaches, a pair of middle-aged Turkish ladies, and a friendly German medical student. We drove, of course, through the West Bank, but arrived at an Israeli beach. We floated, as one inevitably does in the Dead Sea, hoping that we had followed the essential pieces of advice: don't shave, don't wear a tampon, don't swallow, don't open your nose, don't get cut, and don't pass gas. The salt will hurt you. I covered myself in the goopy mud we dredged up from the seabed and stretched out to dry. The feeling one has after a Dead Sea bath rivals the post-hammam sense of clean. Despite the mud. Our driver had brought dates, nuts, and tea for us to down before heading back to the city.
Back in Jerusalem, I decided to experiment with hostel socializing. My German friend and I hung out in the lounge, where we encountered a Texan apparently researching British Mandate Palestine. Although it all began in a friendly vein, things started to devolve when our new buddy announced: "Settlements in the West Bank? Yeah they're a great idea! I'm real down with Zionism 'n all that, and Palestine doesn't exist anyway." They took a sharp turn for the worse when the German asked the Texan about American politics: she couldn't believe she'd met someone who seemed to fulfill all the stereotypes and, besides that, had at age 27 just ridden his first form of public transport ever there in Jerusalem (the bus). By the time I called, quite literally, for a truce, the Texan was shouting at her: "Oh, okay, so you won't come to Texas because you don't agree with our conservative politics? Ok, ok, see if I care. I don't care. You're so shallow!" As we made our way upstairs, we were rehashing the night's debate when a middle-aged man in a kippah approached us to express his own solidarity with GW Bush. "Jerusalem is better than rehab," he told us before fumbling into his room. "It's a great place to heal."
It was a strange night, and reminded me how you can find just about anyone in Jerusalem without looking too hard. I had hoped to visit a college friend in Haifa or spend a day at the beach in Tel Aviv, but I still didn't feel like I'd done everything I wanted in Jerusalem, so I stayed. August 15 was my last full day in the city, and I spent that morning at The Book Gallery off King George St. sorting through old postcards and newspapers. I came across a special edition of the Jerusalem Times published to commemorate Sadat's historic visit in 1977. The tone was extremely optimistic. One Egyptian reporter covering the event was quoted as saying: "Sadat has said a major aim of his visit is to break the psychological barrier between Arabs and Israelis, which, in the president's opinion, accounts for 70% of the Middle East conflict. If the experience I went through can be considered a yardstick, then Sadat may well be on the way to realizing his aim." Well, perhaps things have not gone quite so well as hoped.
A walk through the swanky Mamilla development brought me back to the Old City, this time to the outskirts of the Christian Quarter (Latin Patriarchate St.). It was silent in the early afternoon but for the occasional bearded priest or brown-robed monk padding past. I wandered but didn't linger, aiming rather for the Mt. of Olives to the east of the Old City. Much of the slope facing the Temple Mount is covered with the white tombs of the Jewish Cemetery, perhaps the most desirable place in the world to be buried. The views of the eastern side of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa were spectacular -- the closest I came to going inside the grounds myself. Panting my way up what turned out to be really quite a steep slope, I visited the Tomb of the Patriarchs, an ancient cave manned by burly Russian priests. Even higher, I came to the rather disappointing Mosque of the Ascension, and the Church of the Pater Noster. This is a French-run fief where Jesus may have taught his disciples in the final days (there's a cave). The best part is really the 100+ renditions of the Lord's Prayer in nearly every language of the world, tiled throughout the garden. From the top of the mountain down the eastern side of the mountain is Palestinian territory, if one doesn't count the fortress-like homes flying enormous Israeli flags. But I went west anyway, back down the mountain to the Garden of Gethsemane. If indeed this was the location of Jesus's arrest, several of the gnarly olive trees in the garden personally witnessed the event. They have been scientifically dated to be more than 2000 years old. These days one can't sit beneath the trees. The interior of the site's modern yet beautiful basilica, the Church of All Nations, has a blue and gold mosaicked dome, a starry night, under which I sat instead and reflected on my days in Jerusalem.
Later on, I met Clare for a sharp jab of modernity. We went for a walk through Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in Arab East Jerusalem that has been a lightning rod for conflict in recent months and years. Settlers have evicted Palestinians from their homes in the middle of the night based on Ottoman-era deeds and in some cases houses are split between Israelis in certain rooms and Palestinians in others. There are almost weekly protests in the neighborhood and the walls are covered with political graffiti. We watched as a large Orthodox family emerged from a house topped with a huge menorah and something like "We Will Return" in Hebrew. A Palestinian woman emerged from the house next door, waited until the family was in their car, and then crossed the street to one of the split houses, watching us with caution.
Just 15 minutes later, we were back in the other world, West Jerusalem, at a vegetarian restaurant called Village Green. We were downing plates of tofu and exotic vegetables next to Israeli hippie families (not something you get at all in the Arab countries really). But stress and conflict are never far away in Jerusalem, and for that reason I would find it strangling to live there very long. Our last sight of the night, as I walked Clare back toward the bus station, was of an anguished middle-aged man, apparently Arab, lumbering down Jaffa Street cursing and beating walls, lampposts, signs, whatever he could find. "Mosh el awwal hayk!!!" he moaned -- something like "You weren't the first ones here." "Crazy," murmured the Jewish families who passed, giving him a wide berth.
The next morning I awoke at 6:50am for a last-ditch effort at seeing the Temple Mount. Little did I know, just two nights before (while I was at the Dead Sea), the Israeli authorities had decided, in an unprecedented move, to allow in almost any Palestinian who wanted to come pray at Al Aqsa for Laylat al-Qadr, the Night of Destiny. This is the night during Ramadan when Muslims believe the first verses of the Qur'an were revealed to Muhammad. With all this extra traffic, tourists had no hope of getting in. Meanwhile, while approaching Jaffa Gate, a Palestinian teenager climbed the stairs in the same direction as I was descending, intentionally running his clammy hand down my arm as he passed. I had been rehearsing appropriately insulting responses to harassment, but they rarely come out when and how you imagine. When you're actually touched, as happens not infrequently in this part of the world as I have noted, it's hard to respond in Arabic and with something that elicits embarrassment rather than high-fiving on the part of the males. "You're disgusting!" I yelled at the boy, clicking my tongue. Even though this was not particularly extreme harassment, I felt so angry that this teenager had stolen the feeling of serenity I had finally achieved on my last morning in Jerusalem. As I stormed off, I was particularly upset that not one of the three or four other women on the steps had said or done anything. That is not uncommon in Egypt, either - people always look the other way, and you are lucky if you can find another person to berate the harasser. Overall I felt that harassment throughout my trip had been so much less bad than in Cairo, particularly in Lebanon and to a large extent in Jordan.
I checked out of Abraham Hostel and made my way to the servees depot in East Jerusalem in order to catch a ride back to the Allenby crossing. It was tediously long, though in this direction the cause was Jordanian chaos rather than Israeli meticulousness. When I arrived several hours later in Amman, I joined Sheeba, her visiting father, and some friends on a visit to the possible site of the Cave of the Seven Sleepers (mentioned in the Qur'an in the context of something like a Rip Van Winkle story). It is a Byzantine tomb, still with bones inside, that has become a Muslim shrine in the midst of Amman's bleak industrial suburbs. Although I had grand designs for my last night of vacation, my energy had run out and I passed out early. By 1pm the next day, I was back in Cairo, with the odd feeling for the first time ever that being in Egypt was both a homecoming and, in some unimaginable way, relaxing.
After the museum, I returned to my neighborhood and took an evening stroll through the Mahane Yehuda market. It was packed with street performers of every ilk: puppeteers, dancers, magicians, and even women engaged in some kind of gag with clotheslines strung across the street. There were the usual vegetable, fruit, and pastry stands (none cheap, more like an American farmers' market) as well as kippah salesmen and "I <3 the IDF" souvenir t-shirt shops.
The next morning, my brooding mood had faded a bit and I determined to enjoy the Old City. I entered through Jaffa Gate near the Tower of David and took a morning stroll through the clean and tranquil cobblestone streets of the Jewish Quarter, arriving finally near the Temple Mount. I could not see the golden cap of the Dome of the Rock until I reached the back of the Jewish Quarter and it emerged suddenly from behind a building. I descended to a security checkpoint and then moved toward the Western Wall. The Wall is divided into men's and women's sections: most of the women, rather than praying at the wall, were perched on their tiptoes atop chairs so as to peer into the men's section. There, mostly Orthodox men with their black suits and curls came bearing velvet pillows and Torah scrolls to pray at this holiest of sites. After taking my turn watching, I made my way to the line to ascend the Temple Mount itself. Jews are not supposed to enter the Mount itself (but rather stop at the Wall), since the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque were built over the remains of the Temple and one might accidentally step on or otherwise trespass against the Holy of Holies. The Temple Mount (or, al-Haram al-Sharif) is controlled by the Muslim authorities in Jerusalem and the city's Muslims regularly go to pray inside. People of other religions (i.e. tourists) are allowed in during limited hours on certain days through a tunnel that attempts to conceals visitors from those who might find it sacrilegious. Unfortunately, I tried three times to go up to the Temple Mount during my time in Jerusalem and each time it was entirely closed to tourists. What I did get to see, though, were a whole lot of 13-year-old boys marching awkwardly to their bar mitzvah surrounding by fascinated tourists and shofar-blowers.
My first view of the Dome of the Rock from the Old City
At the end of the Via Dolorosa, I made perhaps a slightly wrong turn and wound up in the deserted courtyard of a Coptic monastery seemingly inhabited only by a single long-bearded priest rocking back and forth, back and forth. Asking for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a man pointed me to the Ethiopian Monastery jammed vertically into a tiny slice of the church grounds. As I descended, I passed through a couple dark chapels with peeling walls and flickering candles inhabited by ancient Ethiopian priests. Then, suddenly, I emerged onto the bright, crowded plaza before the main entrance to the Holy Sepulchre just as the bells were striking noon. Inside, on the upper floor, are found the final stations of the Via Dolorosa, marking the supposed site of the Crucifixion: there are two chapels, a rather simple Franciscan one and an elaborate Orthodox one, where visitors (mostly from Eastern Europe) prostrated themselves and lit candles. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is an enormous place decorated in many different styles, since every inch is owned by a different faction. I spent a couple of hours exploring -- the large mosaic in the Chapel of St. Helena, Constantine's mother and the one responsible for building the church, the cool grotto known as the Chapel of the Discovery of the Cross, and of course the sepulchre itself. The tiny chamber fit just three of us, myself and an Eastern European couple who prostrated themselves on the tomb and murmured their prayers before moving with the crowd to light candles alongside the tomb.
Ladies praying at the last Station of the Cross in the Church of the Holy Selpulchre
While Jesus's final days were on my mind, I decided to walk the short distance to Mt. Zion, just outside the gates of the Old City. Here is found the room where the Last Supper is thought to have been held, which was later turned into a mosque during a different phase in the city's history. It was an odd sight to see a flock of Zimbabwean Christian bent in prayer before the mihrab. Nearby, I visited the modern Church of the Dormition, said to be the site of Mary's death.
I then walked around the southwest walls to an Israeli archaeological park wedged in alongside the Temple Mount. As it turns out, this is a controversial place because it is built on Arab land. It focuses on remains of the 1st and 2nd Temple complexes, with a bit of Umayyad palace thrown in for good measure. One of the highlights, IMHO, was the set of latrines dating from a Second Temple-era palace. There were also bits and pieces of the First Temple street that led up to the Temple itself and an excellent video that helps one imagine what the Temple looked like and the experience of pilgrims who came to it.
By the time I had finished, it was already nearly dinner time, and Clare had come in from Ramallah to meet me. We met up with Robin and her boyfriend (who were also visiting Jerusalem) at a sushi restaurant near Ben Yehuda St. in West Jerusalem, reveling in the wide variety and accessibility of ethnic food in the city. After dinner, we went for a nighttime walk around the Muslim Quarter of the Old City in search of the best Ramadan lights and garlands. Other than the civilian who ran by with a large gun, the Muslim Quarter was in many ways much friendlier than any other part of the city: children came to chat with us, vendors offered us discounts, and there were few foreign tourists there beyond the main thoroughfares. At 'asha time, people burst forth from their houses into the empty streets, moving as one toward Al Aqsa to pray.
The next morning I spent at the City of David, to the south of the Old City walls. It was a bit difficult to navigate on my own, but was valuable at least for establishing in my mind the geography of Jerusalem's origins, from the Valley of Kidron to the Mt. of Olives and the Temple Mount. The bits that remain of the original Biblical settlement include parts of David's palace, the city walls, tombs of the Davidic dynasty, and the Pool of Siloam. The complex is most known for its 45-minute walk through the waist-high water of the Canaanite aqueduct known as Hezekiah's Tunnel, but after a few minutes bent over in the dark wetness by myself I got claustrophobic and took the dry route.
I had a hummus and falafel lunch with Robin at the Old City staple Abu Shukri before making my way to the Museum on the Seam -- the Seam meaning the pre-1967 Israel/Jordan border, now the rough border between East and West Jerusalem. I was expecting a history museum but got an avant-garde gallery exhibiting art that deals with conflict and memory broadly speaking. While I found some of the work just too abstract and deconstructed for my taste, my favorite piece was a poignant video of Afghan children stuffing a rusted warplane with cotton in the hope that plugging the holes will allow them to fly it like a kite. Across the street in East Jerusalem, I visited the Garden Tomb, a quaint English-run garden that Anglicans believe is actually the site of Golgotha because of the quarry that directly abuts it. Whether or not it is the site of the garden of Joseph of Arimathea, it is a lovely spot for contemplation.
That evening, I signed up for a tour to the Dead Sea with a group from my hostel. Our leader was a hip, ex-Orthodox Jewish South African, and my fellow travelers included a black American woman who had lived in an American settlement near Eilat for 40 years, a heavily tattooed 30-something Mexican guy who regaled us with stories of Tel Aviv's nude beaches, a pair of middle-aged Turkish ladies, and a friendly German medical student. We drove, of course, through the West Bank, but arrived at an Israeli beach. We floated, as one inevitably does in the Dead Sea, hoping that we had followed the essential pieces of advice: don't shave, don't wear a tampon, don't swallow, don't open your nose, don't get cut, and don't pass gas. The salt will hurt you. I covered myself in the goopy mud we dredged up from the seabed and stretched out to dry. The feeling one has after a Dead Sea bath rivals the post-hammam sense of clean. Despite the mud. Our driver had brought dates, nuts, and tea for us to down before heading back to the city.
Dead Sea monster
Back in Jerusalem, I decided to experiment with hostel socializing. My German friend and I hung out in the lounge, where we encountered a Texan apparently researching British Mandate Palestine. Although it all began in a friendly vein, things started to devolve when our new buddy announced: "Settlements in the West Bank? Yeah they're a great idea! I'm real down with Zionism 'n all that, and Palestine doesn't exist anyway." They took a sharp turn for the worse when the German asked the Texan about American politics: she couldn't believe she'd met someone who seemed to fulfill all the stereotypes and, besides that, had at age 27 just ridden his first form of public transport ever there in Jerusalem (the bus). By the time I called, quite literally, for a truce, the Texan was shouting at her: "Oh, okay, so you won't come to Texas because you don't agree with our conservative politics? Ok, ok, see if I care. I don't care. You're so shallow!" As we made our way upstairs, we were rehashing the night's debate when a middle-aged man in a kippah approached us to express his own solidarity with GW Bush. "Jerusalem is better than rehab," he told us before fumbling into his room. "It's a great place to heal."
It was a strange night, and reminded me how you can find just about anyone in Jerusalem without looking too hard. I had hoped to visit a college friend in Haifa or spend a day at the beach in Tel Aviv, but I still didn't feel like I'd done everything I wanted in Jerusalem, so I stayed. August 15 was my last full day in the city, and I spent that morning at The Book Gallery off King George St. sorting through old postcards and newspapers. I came across a special edition of the Jerusalem Times published to commemorate Sadat's historic visit in 1977. The tone was extremely optimistic. One Egyptian reporter covering the event was quoted as saying: "Sadat has said a major aim of his visit is to break the psychological barrier between Arabs and Israelis, which, in the president's opinion, accounts for 70% of the Middle East conflict. If the experience I went through can be considered a yardstick, then Sadat may well be on the way to realizing his aim." Well, perhaps things have not gone quite so well as hoped.
A walk through the swanky Mamilla development brought me back to the Old City, this time to the outskirts of the Christian Quarter (Latin Patriarchate St.). It was silent in the early afternoon but for the occasional bearded priest or brown-robed monk padding past. I wandered but didn't linger, aiming rather for the Mt. of Olives to the east of the Old City. Much of the slope facing the Temple Mount is covered with the white tombs of the Jewish Cemetery, perhaps the most desirable place in the world to be buried. The views of the eastern side of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa were spectacular -- the closest I came to going inside the grounds myself. Panting my way up what turned out to be really quite a steep slope, I visited the Tomb of the Patriarchs, an ancient cave manned by burly Russian priests. Even higher, I came to the rather disappointing Mosque of the Ascension, and the Church of the Pater Noster. This is a French-run fief where Jesus may have taught his disciples in the final days (there's a cave). The best part is really the 100+ renditions of the Lord's Prayer in nearly every language of the world, tiled throughout the garden. From the top of the mountain down the eastern side of the mountain is Palestinian territory, if one doesn't count the fortress-like homes flying enormous Israeli flags. But I went west anyway, back down the mountain to the Garden of Gethsemane. If indeed this was the location of Jesus's arrest, several of the gnarly olive trees in the garden personally witnessed the event. They have been scientifically dated to be more than 2000 years old. These days one can't sit beneath the trees. The interior of the site's modern yet beautiful basilica, the Church of All Nations, has a blue and gold mosaicked dome, a starry night, under which I sat instead and reflected on my days in Jerusalem.
Later on, I met Clare for a sharp jab of modernity. We went for a walk through Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in Arab East Jerusalem that has been a lightning rod for conflict in recent months and years. Settlers have evicted Palestinians from their homes in the middle of the night based on Ottoman-era deeds and in some cases houses are split between Israelis in certain rooms and Palestinians in others. There are almost weekly protests in the neighborhood and the walls are covered with political graffiti. We watched as a large Orthodox family emerged from a house topped with a huge menorah and something like "We Will Return" in Hebrew. A Palestinian woman emerged from the house next door, waited until the family was in their car, and then crossed the street to one of the split houses, watching us with caution.
Just 15 minutes later, we were back in the other world, West Jerusalem, at a vegetarian restaurant called Village Green. We were downing plates of tofu and exotic vegetables next to Israeli hippie families (not something you get at all in the Arab countries really). But stress and conflict are never far away in Jerusalem, and for that reason I would find it strangling to live there very long. Our last sight of the night, as I walked Clare back toward the bus station, was of an anguished middle-aged man, apparently Arab, lumbering down Jaffa Street cursing and beating walls, lampposts, signs, whatever he could find. "Mosh el awwal hayk!!!" he moaned -- something like "You weren't the first ones here." "Crazy," murmured the Jewish families who passed, giving him a wide berth.
The next morning I awoke at 6:50am for a last-ditch effort at seeing the Temple Mount. Little did I know, just two nights before (while I was at the Dead Sea), the Israeli authorities had decided, in an unprecedented move, to allow in almost any Palestinian who wanted to come pray at Al Aqsa for Laylat al-Qadr, the Night of Destiny. This is the night during Ramadan when Muslims believe the first verses of the Qur'an were revealed to Muhammad. With all this extra traffic, tourists had no hope of getting in. Meanwhile, while approaching Jaffa Gate, a Palestinian teenager climbed the stairs in the same direction as I was descending, intentionally running his clammy hand down my arm as he passed. I had been rehearsing appropriately insulting responses to harassment, but they rarely come out when and how you imagine. When you're actually touched, as happens not infrequently in this part of the world as I have noted, it's hard to respond in Arabic and with something that elicits embarrassment rather than high-fiving on the part of the males. "You're disgusting!" I yelled at the boy, clicking my tongue. Even though this was not particularly extreme harassment, I felt so angry that this teenager had stolen the feeling of serenity I had finally achieved on my last morning in Jerusalem. As I stormed off, I was particularly upset that not one of the three or four other women on the steps had said or done anything. That is not uncommon in Egypt, either - people always look the other way, and you are lucky if you can find another person to berate the harasser. Overall I felt that harassment throughout my trip had been so much less bad than in Cairo, particularly in Lebanon and to a large extent in Jordan.
I checked out of Abraham Hostel and made my way to the servees depot in East Jerusalem in order to catch a ride back to the Allenby crossing. It was tediously long, though in this direction the cause was Jordanian chaos rather than Israeli meticulousness. When I arrived several hours later in Amman, I joined Sheeba, her visiting father, and some friends on a visit to the possible site of the Cave of the Seven Sleepers (mentioned in the Qur'an in the context of something like a Rip Van Winkle story). It is a Byzantine tomb, still with bones inside, that has become a Muslim shrine in the midst of Amman's bleak industrial suburbs. Although I had grand designs for my last night of vacation, my energy had run out and I passed out early. By 1pm the next day, I was back in Cairo, with the odd feeling for the first time ever that being in Egypt was both a homecoming and, in some unimaginable way, relaxing.
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