I wrestled a Jew once

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The guy in the seat next to me loses all colour in his face. He slowly bows his head in disillusionment, his sidelocks - full of elasticity and joyful bounce before - now drooping sadly. Our conversation up to this part went something like this:

"Is it your first time in Israel?"

- "Yep, first time."

"Are you enjoying it so far?"

- "Yeah, I'm having a great time."

He smiles benevolently.

"Where are you from?"

- "Germany."

Hence his reaction. I'm quite dumbfounded.

- "Um...you don't have anything against Germans, do you?"

He turns his head again to look at me in bewilderment and slight disgust, his mouth half-open. I don't get a reply to my somewhat naïve question, which says more than enough.

I don't know why an Ultraorthodox Jew on the bus to Jerusalem would disapprove so extraordinarily of the guy sitting next to him upon learning he's a German. I'm not wearing an SS-uniform, I don't sport a pencil moustache, my hair is long and messy and not neatly combed over and fixed with pomade. Plus, I'm quite young. So what's the deal? Did his grandparents tell him to stay away from Germans? Is it an Us vs. Them-thing, with the German being the ultimate bringer of evil due to the Holocaust? Did he just not learn how to form his own opinion, and that Germans in 2011 are quite different from Germans in 1938? I don't feel able to answer these questions, so I leave him be, and that's the end of our conversation. I'm left with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth for the rest of the trip.

I arrive in the Holy City just after sunset, and make my way to my host Noam's place. As I'm not able to find the right bus that goes to his neighbourhood, I walk. It takes me about 45 minutes, and when I'm finally there, Noam hands me the keys to his place, excuses himself, and is off to Tel Aviv on a business trip of some sorts. I use the chance to catch up on some much-needed sleep after the busy last few days.

In the morning, I head to Mahane Yehuda, the best market in Jerusalem. It's Friday morning, and the market is bustling with people stocking up on fruits, vegetables, oils, spreads, sweets, cheeses and bread before Shabbat. If I lived here, I would most likely hate it, seeing that there's so many people clogging up the alleyways. But as a visitor I take the opportunity to watch the locals and sneak some shots. I also try some of the minute pastries, like cinnamon rolls and croissants filled with whipped cream. For lunch, I stop at a tiny eatery in a hidden corner, where I eat yet another fantastic hummus.

Through the fashionable and busy Ben Yehuda Street, I walk towards the Old City. Passing through the New Gate, I am not quite sure if I'm already inside, as it all looks a bit to clean and neat for an ancient city. There are a few little churches in the small alleys, but not a lot of people out and about, just the odd tourist, a few monks and nuns, and a couple of local Arabs. This changes once I delve deeper into the city, penetrating the Muslim quarter. As you would expect, there's more activity there. There are stalls on both sides of the alleys, selling the usual array of souvenir t-shirts, fake antiquities, postcards, spices, incense and sticky sweets. Even the familiar "Hello, my fren'" and "Where you from?" make a comeback.

I zigzag and dodge my way through the tiny passageways and end up at a tea stall, in front of which sit a number of Palestinians in different groups, sipping mint tea or Turkish coffee, discussing whatever it is that's on their minds at precisely this moment. Probably the current state of affairs in this country, which is supposed to be their country, or is it? I don't bother asking and order a mint tea. I should have asked the price before, though. Of course the guy overcharges me, despite the fact that I'm the only tourist here, and I sit with them and drink the same tea as they do. But I'm not part of their group, I'm an outsider, an intruder, an infidel, or whatever, so it doesn't matter to them. I don't bother haggling, and try to see it as yet another lesson.

I move on to the Via Dolorosa, the road that Jesus is believed to have taken carrying his cross to Golgotha, the site of the crucifixion. There's a procession organized by Franciscan monks every Friday at 3pm, so I stick around to check it out. It starts in a schoolyard, where lots of obviously faithful people are gathering to watch the spectacle. There are scores of African and Asian nuns, as well as the obligatory American, Italian and Spanish tourists. It starts with one of the monks narrating the story in Italian of how Pontius Pilatus asked the crowd whether they want Barabbas or Jesus of Nazareth freed. Their decision seals the fate of the Jewish nogoodnik, and thus starts his bloody ordeal. Another monk reads an English version of the text, and finally the procession starts.

Outside, the alley is completely filled with onlookers, and I laugh at crazed American group tourists crowding in on and throwing their money at a half-witted Arab postcard seller, who still manages to outsmart his customers by being in the right place at the right time selling hackneyed, dusty cards with a Jesus theme for one dollar each. Blessed be the feeble-minded.
I abscond from the procession and head to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, to be there before this mass of people who are gonna end their little reenactment at this holiest of Christian sites. When I get there I realize that I'm probably not the only one who's interested in visiting the church this beautiful, sunny Friday afternoon. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is considered by Christians to be the biblical Calvary, or Golgotha, where Jesus was nailed to the cross, died, was buried, and rose from the dead.

The church is the biggest and most important Christian church in the Middle East, yet it lacks the grandiloquent splendour of many European ones. Still, it's a magnificent church, and I especially enjoy the paintings on the wall, depicting several of the stages after the crucifixion.
Probably the most entertaining spot is the Stone of Unction, where Jesus' body is believed to have been prepared for burial by Joseph of Arimathea. This stone appears to be of utmost importance to Russian Orthodox Christians, and I just place myself next to it, looking on as they get down on their knees and put their heads on the stone. All of the women wear headscarves, and after performing their ritual, they get up with red, swollen eyes, some of them still sobbing in grief and/or ecstasy. Many of them rub oil on the stone with handkerchiefs, to take some of the holiness back home, or they take out pictures of Orthodox saints, and rub them on it, to bestow celestial powers upon them.

It is beyond me how they can get so worked up about a simple stone, that was only added in 1810 anway, when the church was under reconstruction. I fail to grasp how non-believers can come here and claim to feel the spirituality of this place. If you are constantly being told how holy and spiritual a place is, then after a while you might delude yourself into believing it as well, or at least fake it in irder not to be left out and get a sense of belonging to this particular group. I realize that it means a lot to all those people, who throw themselves onto all the supposed stations of the cross, and maybe it is really the place where a Jewish guy named Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by Romans. Still, I feel nothing. It's a nice church, but I'm quite indifferent towards the imaginary holiness. Maybe it's a good thing for me to visit all these places and see how those people spend their lives on their knees, hoping for pie in the sky when they die and dreading an eternal inferno when they fail to conform with the rules set by a 2000-year old book of stories - that's more likely to spread hate than love and in practice rather divides than unites - and the subsequent opportunistic interpretations of power-hungry clerics preaching fire and brimstone to the gullible masses who are so easily kept in line when they have the Fear of God implanted in them. That way I can appreciate how lucky I am to be an educated individual who believes in himself rather than in an old man with a grey beard in the sky who's so damn picky and hard to please but is never there when you need him. You should try it, not giving a fuck about that saves you a lot of time, which you can use to live your life for yourself for a change.

Speaking of crazies; just in time for the beginning of the Shabbat, I go to the Wailing Wall. Before entering, I have to walk through a metal detector and have my bags searched by an Ethiopian guy. For some reason, it's always the Ethiopian Jews who do these kinds of jobs. I have to admit that the moment I first lay eyes on the Wall is something special to me. I can sympathize with the desperation that the Jewish faithful have felt for centuries, or rather millennia, mourning the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70, praying to the Shechina (divine presence) that they believe has never left the wall built around the Temple.

As I get closer towards the Wall, I see that the area where the praying takes place is fenced off from the big plaza in front of the Wall. There is also a fence between the men's and the women's sections, preventing them from seeing each other during prayer. Both sections are bustling with people standing in lines and rows directly in front of the Wall, rocking back and forth on their heels, bobbing their head in prayer. Some, especially older Hasidim, sit on white plastic chairs. Behind these, there are white-shirted yeshiva students, soldiers in their olive green fatigues as well as Hasidic Jews with different kinds of hats and kaftans, sporting long sidelocks and massive beards. They stand in big groups in circles, with one walking around in the circle, reciting a prayer, or singing the first line of a song, upon which the others join in. The songs sound more like something that you would expect in a football stadium. They have their arms around each other's shoulders, and start dancing, or rather jumping up and down, moving the circle to one side.

One or two of the motivators stand on plastic chairs directly next to the fence where the women pray, and I can see them stealing the occassional glance to the other side. I wonder why he is not immediately bashed up by the other ones for breaking that barrier and thus desecrating the spiritual atmosphere.

The songs that the women sing are much more melodic and fervent, and there's a lot more random acts of dancing than in the men's section. There are big groups of young, happy-looking girls singing loudly, closing their eyes and baring their teeth in religious frenzy. On their side as well, there are motivator girls, marginally older than the other ones, starting the songs and prayers in the centre of the circle. To me, these look like complete, veritable demagogues, ready to throw the first stone whenever the opportunity arises.
I wonder if these fresh, innocent, young girls have already resigned to their fate as future birth machines and servants to their almighty husband's needs. They still look happy here and now, but in 15 years, eight kids later, I can imagine that they might have at least one lucid moment in their lives when they realize that it's too late now, and that they should have stopped right there on that Shabbat.


***


I spend a very uneventful Saturday digesting my first impressions of Jerusalem, chilling out, doing not that much at all. Noam is still busy, this time studying, and, as he keeps the Shabbat, visiting his parents for the Shabbat meal.
On Sunday morning, I walk up the Mount of Olives. First, I check out the Garden of Gethsemane, where it is believed that Jesus was betrayed by Judas and subsequently arrested by the Romans. Some of the olive trees have been scientifically dated to be more than 2,000 years old. It is really hard to imagine that these trees might have witnessed whatever took place there in biblical times. Anyway, they are quite a sight to behold.

I walk all the way up the mountain, where I get an excellent view of the Old City, with Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock featuring prominently in the panorama. There is also a big Jewish cemetary, and it is popular as a burial site for a reason: Jews believe that when the Messiah returns on Judgment Day, God will redeem the dead from the Mount of Olives. Thus they feel it's a good idea to be as close to that event as possible, so they are among the first redeemed.

A bit further up, I walk through some tiny alleys, getting a bit lost. As per usual, there are numerous Palestinian kids stopping whatever they do to stare at me and comment in detail on my unusual appearance. Maybe I should really learn some Arabic before I embark on another trip to an Arab country, just to tell them off for being rude little shits. When one particular tenacious group starts annoying the crap out of me, luckily there's a dignified old man walking past, uttering the familiar, guttural 'hallas!' to indicate that the party's over.

After descending from the mountain, I walk up towards the Old City again. I arrive just in time to be let in to the Temple Mount through the gate for non-Muslims. Being cheeky, I jump the line, ignoring the Americans that "have been waiting in the sun for 45 minutes". There's another security check, then I'm finally inside, feeling immediately overwhelmed by the sheer size of the complex in the middle of the Old City. When it comes to historic sites in Jerusalem, this is the epicentre. It is here that the First Jewish Temple was built some 3,000 years ago, destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon in 586BC, before the Second Temple was erected in 515BC, to be destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. In 688 then, the Dome of the Rock was built by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik. In the early 8th century, Al-Aqsa Mosque was constructed on the edge of Temple Mount.

All historic confusion aside, I just take my time strolling around the pretty plaza of cypress tress and ancient paving stones, taking in the atmosphere. The Dome of the Rock, with its unmistakable golden dome covered in 80kg of solid gold, is even more impressive in real life than in picture. The contrast of the golden dome and the blue mosaics and writings of the main building is striking, and it looks even better in the glowing early-afternoon sunlight. One has to admire the craft of the Muslim architects who managed to plan and construct this building that emits magnificence and subtlety at the same time.


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After eating a delicious shakshuka in a little restaurant near the Old City, I end the day in a café, sipping a café au lait, relaxing, trying to put it all in perspective. To me, Jerusalem may not be as holy as it is to Christians, Muslims and Jews, but it is certainly an impressive, worthwhile city, that has an overwhelming array of things on offer for the curious traveller. Thus ends this important chapter of my trip to Israel.

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