Shabbat Shalom and Happy New Year!

Ever since I arrived in Israel I have felt like a child with a sensory integration disorder.  My nervous system does not seem to know how to make sense of sensory input it is receiving.  Some of the sensory messages a big and bold – angry voices, loud traffic noise, color-saturated fruit stands.  Other input is more subtle but pervasive – people are edgy, there is an underlying tension to everyday interactions.  Prior to arriving, my Israeli friend, Michal, warned me, “Israelis are tough, rude, pushy, drive insanely... be prepared...” She later added, “I hope you arrive in Israel well and strong to bare us.” But side by side with this “toughness” is also an unbelievable beauty to so much of Israel.  In the Babylonian Talmud it is written, “Ten measures of beauty were bestowed upon the world; nine were taken by Jerusalem, and one by the rest of the world.”  It is this beauty and brutality bumping up against each other that does not find a small, neat compartment of understanding in my experience.

We arrived in Tel Aviv on Monday, December 26th, after a long day of travel from Paris.  Arriving at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, it was easy to locate the check-in spot for El Al airlines.  It was the one surrounded by machine gun carrying French soldiers.  Each individual, or family, traveling to Israel needed to go through multiple security checks.  The first was basically an interview to determine the purpose of your travel.  We had a very nice, young security agent, who asked us in many different ways if we were bringing anything into Israel for anyone else.   After we had assured him we were not carrying anything for anyone else, and we were fine with Israeli stickers on our passports, he shrugged and said with acknowledged understatement, “Some people don’t like us so much.”

A fruit juice stand in Tel Aviv.

 
The flight was filled to capacity and well beyond the number of seats on the plane being as there were so many babies and young children on laps.  Two rows behind us was a young couple with twins that looked to be about 5 or 6 months old, and possibly suffering from some thing on the lines of double ear infections.  The poor babies cried the entire four and half hours of the flight.   As annoying as the crying was, I could only feel sorry for the parents – who looked exhausted beyond measure.  After arriving in Tel Aviv, we waited for well over an hour to have our passports checked, and, again, our reasons for traveling to Israel thoroughly vetted, and finally, we were off to grab our bags and head to our hotel.  It was a wild cab ride but we were prepared – thank you, Michal!

Tel Aviv is hip and cosmopolitan.  And during the just less that two days we were there it was WARM!  In fact, Tuesday was down right tropical – sunny and in the 70’s.  We sat down at a café just off the beachside promenade and Bob had a beer and Josh and I had fruit smoothies.  Looking out over the sunbathers, bronzed senior citizens, and families enjoying the day at the beach Josh said, “This must be the Miami of the Middle East.”  And that is exactly what it felt like.

On Wednesday we arrived in Jerusalem, along with a change in the weather.  The cold, grey and rainy weather that followed us all over Europe caught up with us in Jerusalem.  That said, the only thing that felt familiar was the weather.  We clearly were not in Kansas anymore, or any American or European city. 

Mosaic with Jerusalem as center of universe.

The history of Jerusalem is so complex there is no way I can attempt to do a one-paragraph synopsis.  For all of you with a far better religious education than me, feel free to skip over all of this.  But is impossible to put contemporary Jerusalem in context without some understanding of its history, so here goes.   About 3000 years ago, David made Jerusalem the capitol of the Israelite nation.  In transferring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem he made it the religious and well as political center of the Kingdom. When David died, his son Solomon became King and built an incredible Temple in Jerusalem.  Under the wise King Solomon Jerusalem expanded and thrived.  In 586 BCE, the Babylonians attacked Jerusalem, and King Zedekiah surrendered Jerusalem, ending the 400-year rule by the ancestors of David.  The Temple, King’s Palace, and all the houses were all burned to the ground and the walls of the city were destroyed.  50 years later, Babylon fell to Persia, and the Jews returned to Jerusalem, rebuilt the Temple and the city. Even though it was a Persian province, the Jews were granted cultural and religious freedom.  But even then, the peace was short lived.  Jerusalem was conquered by Alexander the Great, and eventually was under Greek rulers who attempted to stamp out Jewish religious practices by desecrating the Temple.  This lead to a revolt by the Jews lead by the Hasmonean family  - where the altar was rebuilt and the flame restored.  This is the story celebrated during the festival of Hanukkah.  

For about 80 years the city again thrived, until it became a Roman province.  A few decades later, King Herod, started a number of ambitious building projects including refurbishing the Temple to make it one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.  It was during this time, under King Herod, that Jesus of Nazareth lived, developed a following, and was crucified on the cross.

In 66 CE, the Jews revolted against the Romans, which ended catastrophically with the Temple burned to the ground, much of the city destroyed, and the Jews enslaved and deported.  (Many to Rome – to build things like the Colosseum.)  The Romans developed a new city on the ruins of Jerusalem and called it Aelia Capitolina, and banned Jews from entering its gates.  By the 4th Century, the land was part of the Byzantine Empire and Jerusalem had become a Christian city, attracting large groups of Christian pilgrims.

Dome of the Rock

During the 7th Century, Muslim Arabs, under Caliph Omar, conquered Jerusalem, built the Dome of the Rock, on the site of the First and Second Temple, and Jews were, once again, permitted to live in the city.  For the next four centuries the city was under Muslim rule from Damascus, Cairo and Bagdad.

Next came the Crusader Knights, vowing to “liberate Jerusalem from Islam” which lead to the slaughter of both the Muslim and Jewish inhabitants.  For almost 100 years Jerusalem was the capital of the “Latin Kingdom of the Holy Land.”  Finally in 1187, Saladin, a Muslim Kurd, conquered Jerusalem and the Muslims and the Jews returned to the city.  This was followed by seven centuries of Muslim rule, during which time the city remained mostly in ruins, and the population diminished.

It was during the 16th Century, under the Ottoman Turkish rule that the city began to rebuild and regain its elegance.  By the 19th Century the Ottoman power was diminishing and Europeans were rediscovering the Holy Lands.  By the mid 1800’s the population had increased dramatically and over half the residents were Jewish. 

Toward the end of the WWI (1917) the mayor of Jerusalem surrendered to Britain’s General Allenby and Jerusalem became the headquarters of the British Mandate. This was actually a period of prosperity for the city.  It was in 1917, the Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour, wrote a formal letter that would become the statement of policy by the British government:

His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

This became known as the Balfour Declaration.  Of course it took until 1948 for the State of Israel to be established, and sadly, all are still waiting for the day when the Prophet Isaiah’s words, Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore, come true.

Long history lesson, but the past and present, historical and holy, all contribute to Jews, Muslims and Christians feeling passionately about this parcel of land.  Perhaps no place is this as evident as the Temple Mount where the Dome on the Rock is located.  More significantly, it is the “Rock” or “Foundation Stone” above which this Dome is built that carries so much import.  Muslims believe the rock is the spot from which Muhammad ascended to Heaven accompanied by the angel Gabriel.  In addition to being the location of the First and Second Temple, Jews believe this is the Rock where Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac. Because Muslim authorities refused to permit Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, the custom developed of praying near the Western Wall, since it was the site nearest to the Foundation Stone, or on the Mount of Olives facing the site of the Temple.  (Of course, this was after Jews were allowed back into the Old City, which they were not when it was under Jordanian rule from 1948 – 1967.)

The Citadel - ancient walls.

We arrived in Jerusalem on Wednesday, and on Thursday we walked to explore the Old City.   Outside the Old City walls the streets are filled with tourists, pilgrims, soldiers and multi-ethnic residents.  Once you walk through the Jaffa gate into the Old City, the tourists are clearly in the majority. This entrance is closest to the Citadel (which is now are really well displayed museum of the history of the city) and almost immediately tosses you into the market streets, which are colorful but feel like row about row of souvenir shops.  Of course prices are not marked on anything, and bargaining is an expected part of the buying process.  We explored the markets, wandered through the ancient streets, watched a festive procession with drummers leading a young man to the Western Wall to become a Bar Mitzvah, and visited the Temple Mount area.  We found a small café and ate chicken shawarmas, drank freshly squeezed juice and jostled our way back out of the Old City and headed back to our hotel.

Friday morning, Bob and I went to the Mahaneh Yehuda Market, to stock up on food before everything closed for Shabbat.  Between 2 – 3 in the afternoon, shops, restaurants, basically everything – begins to shut down.  Not only was in Shabbat, it was New Year’s Eve.  Figuring that any hotel restaurant that was open would be packed, we decided to toast in the New Year in our hotel.  We stocked up on bread, pasteries, hummus, eggplant dip, avocado dip, dried fruit, nuts and oranges.  In the end the decision to “eat in” for New Year’s Eve turned out to be a good one because by about three o’clock, it began to rain, and it rained and poured almost non-stop until the next morning.  I loved this market.  My only regret was not buying more baked goods.  Should have gotten at least a dozen of those rugelach.

Friday morning at the market

On Saturday, New Year’s Day, we went to the Citadel and toured the museum there then spent time exploring the Armenian Quarter.  On Saturday evening, about 7:00PM the city comes back to life.  That evening, Josh and I met my friend, Michal, for dinner and later Michal and I walked along the Jerusalem promenade, caught up on each other’s lives, and saw the beautiful lights of the city.  I met Michal at a Body Mind Centering Introductory workshop in Northamption, MA, exactly twenty years ago.   We have only seen each other twice in the past twenty years, but we picked up right where we left off.  Spending time with her, and hearing her experience as a person born and raised in Israel, somehow grounded me.  In two weeks, Josh and I are going to spend our last few days with Michal, before we leave Israel.  I am looking forward to that.

Jerusalem at night.

We returned to Tel Aviv on Sunday, and early this morning, took the bus to Kibbutz Lotan.  We will be here for a week, and right now it feels like a welcome retreat from the noise and tension in the cities.  I still don’t really know what I feel about my experience in Israel.  I can only compare it to the feeling you get when you arrive at someone’s house and you sense you have walked in after a big argument.  Everyone is being polite, but the atmosphere just feels charged and fragile like an argument could erupt at any moment.  That is how Jerusalem feels to me – on edge.   Drivers lean on the their horns non-stop.  Individuals don’t speak into their cell phones – they yell into their cell phones.  There are thousands of years of violence embedded in the walls of the city and no one quite takes their armor off.

And yet, there is this incredible majesty to much of this city.  It has been destroyed over, and over again, but it has been rebuilt, time and time again.  There is a mosaic on a government building that depicts Jerusalem as the center of the universe.  And for so many, Muslims, Jews and Christians – it is.