Farewwell Old City

Shabbat in Jerusalem. All quiet until you get into the Old City which is bustling. It was packed with religious Jews, Christian tourists and tons of Moslems. We went to the Western Wall. I didn't want to leave Jerusalem without another prayer at the Wall or miss the opportunity to see the men (and men only, gals) reading the Torah portion of the day in that holy place. As you walk onto the plaza, there are signs asking that you don't use phones, write messages on slips of paper to place in the Wall, or use cameras, out of respect for those observing Shabbat. Yikes, people were paying no attention. Cameras, phones, etc. One woman (American or European) was using a video camera to record the scene of women on one side of the fence separating the men's section from the women. When the men brought the Torah to the fence so the women could kiss it after the Torah reading for the day, I found it very moving and annoying all at the same time. Moving because of the devoutness of the women and their intensity; annoying because I am so used to seeing women reading from Torah in the US. Rabbi Deanna Douglas, who Am HaYam is fortunate to have for the High Holidays, is as devout as these women, but has full access to her religious expression. But I digress; while this was happening at the fence, the woman with the video camera was recording away on some kind of anthropological quest. I just thought it was rude to disrespect others' beliefs.

After leaving the Kotel, we wandered around the Old City and walked too far on the Via Dolorosa and landed in a Moslem neighborhood where the IDF was taking Arab youth and searching them. Michele got VERY nervous and we hightailed it out of there. All is could hear in my head was our guide Isaac saying "stay close to me". I wasn't particularly worried and figured we had the whole Old City experience. I did feel badly that I started to go up a stairway that would have led to a mosque; the guy who stopped me was gracious however and realized that we just didn't know where the staircase was leading. Large police and IDF presence in the Old City today. Once back at the hotel, we realized that we had walked through every sector of the Old City and had walked on almost every street.

We leave Jerusalem tomorrow early in the morning for Eilat. I hope I will come back here some day. The usual Passover phrase "next year in Jerusalem" has more meaning for me now.