Anee Ohevet...

I am in love with Jerusalem. I'm in love with wandering but going nowhere, with making friends with strangers, with the intense sensory overload of this city, with stopping to taste fresh dates, with old winding streets. I'm in love with haggling down prices and pretending I speak another language, with falafel, hummus, and pita, with the smiles of the Arabs and the sarcasm of the Jews. I'm in love with crowded shops and bright alleys. I'm in love with the wailing of the call to prayer and the reflection off of the dome of the rock. I'm in love with the sea of kippas on every head and the tassels bouncing from under men's shirts. I'm in love with the sunset over the skyline, with reading every street sign in hebrew and arabic. I'm in love with feeling like each day there is a new experience or exploration, a new lesson or opportunity. Mostly, I just love the sense of discovery and energy I get after wandering the streets after class. four months is not enough....

still have shivers in my bones....

Today was my first trip into the old city and I feel totally overwhelmed by it. There is this special tension here between conflict and harmony, diversity and unity, tradition and modernity, love and hate, and everything in between. Just the fact that we walked through the holy sites of three major world religions within one day and only a few square miles of each other is staggering. And it’s not only the looming structures of the dome of the rock, the Cotel and the Holy Sepulchre that exist side by side but the people too. All the stories told and warnings given against danger and conflict in the old city seem completely disjointed and removed from our walk through its winding streets today. We started out in the most beautiful warm sunny weather we’ve had so far and entered the walls in the christian quarter through Jaffa Gate. The covered streets of the bazaar-like markets were eerily quiet and peaceful even though they were lined with the loudest clutter of souvenirs, hookahs, pashminas, juice stands and bright colors i’ve ever seen! we literally stumbled on the church of the Holy Sepulchre and went inside through this humble, plain entrance. I didn’t expect it but the moment we walked in we all got shivers. The sheer amount of history and human emotion, prayer, and passion inside it just makes your heart flutter. The ornate decorations are awe inspiring but I wish I had had a tour guide to explain the centuries of history within the walls. We were lucky enough to be there during mass and witnessed the ceremony. I don’t know much about the significance, but hearing the singing echoing off the wall and watching the incense swinging made me feel like I was in another time, like the exact actions I was seeing in this exact place have remained so unchanged throughout history and have existed and held meaning for so long to so many people that It somehow connects you with the generations and generations of people who have stood there before you. I lit a candle for my grandma, and I have to admit I even cried (but I wasn’t the only one!) because it felt so powerful somehow. We hung a left out of the church and found ourselves instantly in the Muslim quarter and wandered through a residential neighborhood for a little while. The Muslim quarter is really only distinguished by a somewhat more impoverished feel, by the colorful graffitti and symbols all over the walls, and by the Arabic script on all the signs. I thought I would feel some sort of discomfort or sense of danger just because of everything I’ve been told but we were greeted with nothing but smiles and welcomes and squeezed past the cutest kids playing in the street! We got directions from a nice shop owner to the dome of the rock but were only able to get a view from one of the covered archways before being stopped by soldiers, it was the time of the friday prayers and non-muslims are only allowed in sunday-thursday through a special side entrance. The gold dome was blinding though and i can’t wait to go back! We found a nice cavernous stone restaurant right before the security check point to get from the Muslim quarter into the Cotel, or the wailing wall. The waiter there, Aboudah was so friendly and sat with us and chatted with us about the old city and Israel. He pointed out that while maps divide the city into christian, Jewish, and Muslim quarters its really mixed and the people find a way to get along peacefully. He himself was taught English by his Christian neighbors when his dad took him out of school at a young age even though he’s Muslim. It was crazy to see orthodox Jews in their black suits and hats wandering past the Muslim men smoking their hookahs in cafes, the contrast is so shocking to me, but that kind of diversity is just everyday life to them. After amazing hummus Aboudah “invited” us to some free chai and sat with us some more. It was nice to speak a little Arabic, even if i can’t remember that much. Then we went through the metal detector into the Cotel right as Shabbat was about to start. I didn’t go all the way up to the wall this time because I want to write some sort of note or prayer to put in it and have a skirt on just to be respectful, but we stood a little ways away and watched everyone sing and prepare for Shabbat. The whole day was somehow relaxing but powerful in this weird way. There’s so much tangible human emotion in the city, especially in the wall where generations and generations of tiny paper slips representing so many hopes and prayers have been stuffed into its cracks. It’s hard not to be deeply affected by living in this city...