At 11, I headed off with my sister and 2 other guys from the trip to catch a breakfast and then head to Jerusalem. It was a good feeling to be out on my own again, back wandering the streets and negotiating public transport in a foreign environment. After investigating a few things on the internet while eating a cafe we headed by bus, luggage in tow, to the main bus station and to Jerusalem. It was smooth sailing except that the others with me were weighed down by absurdly large bags. I had also made us a reservation to sleep at a hostel i had been recommended to that was run by Palestinians in between the Armenian, Jewish and Christian quarters in the old city. A friend of a friend met us at the bus station and helped us navigate to the old city gates. Once we got there, however, we had some problems finding the place. Eventually, I would call them and one of the employees would come and fetch us. However, the interesting part was what i ran into on the way while in the Jewish quarter, local people were baffled that we would stay outside of the Jewish quarter and were unable to help us. This is mind blowing because you can walk from one end of the old city to the other in just under 10 mins, it confused me how you could possibly be so blind to the goings on around you.
Once we arrived and got settled we found the place was super cool, cave-like architecture that went almost straight vertical and the view from the roof-top terrace was the best id seen in the city. We arrived just before sunset and headed to the roof to smoke some nargila. The colors of the sunsetting sky shone over the places of worship that dotted the skyline, and you could hear the beautiful bellow of the muslim call to worship followed by the ringing of church bells.
After relaxing a bit we headed off with the friend of a friend who met us at the bus station to eat his favorite falafel. They were delicious, but everyone was looking tired after dinner so we headed back to the hostel to allow those who wanted a nap, i took the opportunity to spend a couple of hours on the internet. By the time everyone was waking, however, i was about ready to sleep for good so we decided to just take it easy on the roof until the draw of sleep became to much to resist.The next morning we awoke determined to see the parts of the city we had missed out on during our organized trip. The first place we hit was the market, which had been decidedly out of the green zone during the trip, the smell of cooking meat and the wafting of fresh spice stands danced in the air. We did some minor shopping before heading back to the western wall to witness a friends bar mitzvah and attempt climb the temple mount and go in the western wall tunnels, both of which we failed to accomplish because they were closed.
We decided to head towards the Christian quarter to check out the church of the holy sepulcher. Along th
e way we also managed to negotiate a pretty good deal on a backpack for my sister which made travel the rest of the trip much easier. The church was beautiful, a stark contrast from the austere stone beauty of most of the sites we had scene. What took place at the location is up for debate by different sects of Christianity, but if you believe in it, there can
't be a more holy place on earth. Within the walls of the church are the locations of the crucifiction, burial and resurrection, literally meters apart from each other. Regardless of your belief system, the story behind the place and the place itself have tremendous social and political implications. By the time we finished there, it was nearly 2 o'clock when a large portion of the city starts to shut down for shabbat. We met up with our friends and made our way to the hostel to rest until it was time for shabbat dinner.There is a man who runs a Jewish youth organization in the old city who sets up students and pretty much anyone who rolls up with a family with whom to eat shabbat dinner. We decided that after all it was shabbat in Jerusalem and we should give it a go. We waited with all the others at the western wall and were sent with a group of about 20 to the home of Yosef David, aka hippie joe. He was not so much a hippie, but a pretty chilled out dude dressed in flowing white clothes that looked like they were from Thailand or India and a simple black kippa. There were 30 people or so in all and we helped set the tables and i also helped to cut some vegetables for the salad. The dinner was a bit too long for my sister and my friend, but all in all it was enjoyable for me. I thought the food was incredible, plentiful and after all free. I also enjoy the concept of the shabbat dinner, even if I don't always agree with its ritual trimmings. I did have a couple of observations, however. We were joined by a bunch of yeshiva students (Jewish studies college basically), mostly early 20 somethings from NY and the mid-Atlantic states. I found them overall to be obnoxious, rude (eating before blessings, talking over our host, ect...) and uniformed. I spent some time talking to a 30 something rabbi who was pretty cool, but he was drilling me about how little I knew in general. His meaning was that how could I know things about my religion or life without being, doing and studying orthodox practices. I found this conversation a strong juxtaposition to what I heard one of the yeshiva students say earlier in the night. There was a older women among us who had fled her home in Zimbabwe after her house was claimed by the ruling government, as she was speaking the student said aloud, “what is Zimbabwe?” another replied, “It's a country” and the first responded, “oh, where is that?” I know it may be an unfair to draw from a single incident, but my question is how can one possibly be considered a learned man of Judaism or the world, regardless of their knowledge of Torah and Talmud, if you don't know where to look for Zimbabwe on a map?
After dinner, we thanked our gracious host, who i thought was very interesting because he seemed to read and study and then make his own interpretations on ritual rather than staying lock step with the masses. We headed back to our hostel to digest and sleep.
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