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Published: December 7th 2007
“What’d he say?” I asked the young Jewish boy to my right. “They are going to shoot it,” he replied in his classroom English. Brushing the traditional curls out of his face, he reemphasized, “The robot will shoot the bomb.”
Standing on an elevated portion of a building, Raf, Dan, and I lean against the wall, taking in the scene below us. The Israeli police have established a 50 meter perimeter around a bicycle chained to a street sign. An innocuous looking backpack hung on the rear of the bicycle. Every move cautious and calculated, a bomb disposal robot inches closer to the backpack while a somber policeman focuses on a television display, his hands resting on an array of joysticks on the side of the bomb disposal truck. A crackle of Hebrew on a megaphone, a few whizzes from the robot, and a side-mounted 12 gauge shotgun pumps blast after blast into the backpack. While I jumped like a little girl at the first shot, the boy next to me didn’t flinch. “How often does this happen?” “A few times every week,” he said, looking at me under the wide brim of his hat. As it turns out, the bomb was just a (destroyed) day-planner. The policeman blew his whistle, and the crowd continued along its way, stepping over stray buckshot and shreds of the day planner - business as usual.
It’s moments like this that remind me where I am. Walking through the ancient, winding roads, there was no shortage of surreal moments. It was not uncommon to hear a church bell toll the hour, only to have a Muslim prayer tower begin its eerie call to prayer. The two sounds would struggle for a while and then eventually fall silent, bound to repeat the same discordant fight a few hours later.
Seeing a company of teenagers, men and women, stroll by with M-4s and two magazines readily accessible gives a glimpse of this Israeli culture. Military service is mandatory for all Israeli citizens, both men and women, beginning at age 18. It is entirely normal to be sitting on a bus, or in line for food, and have a soldier share a seat or queue up next you, gun in hand. Israel has decided that it needs its soldiers because there is something worth defending. Here, in the holiest city in the world, stability is anything but common.
And it is a holy city. We easily spent two days hopping from site to site - Gethsemane, the Mount of Olives, the Western Wall, the Via Dolorosa, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the tomb of the Virgin Mary, the room of the Last Supper, King David’s tomb, the Dome of the Rock - all these places are within a stones throw from each other. To be able to read a passage out of the Bible, Peter’s denial of Jesus for example, on the site where historians say the event actually occurred, is simply surreal. So as the day went on, we went to different holy sites and read the accompanying Biblical passage. The tour ended at the Eastern Orthodox Church of the Holy Sepulcher, a place that supposedly encompasses the site of crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Although the church was technically in the Christian quarter of Jerusalem, walking out of the door we were immediately confronted by Arab merchants selling us wooden crosses, rosaries, and nativity sets. Along the same thread, we learned that the famous Dome of the Rock was built directly on the ruins of the old Jewish temple. As we left Jerusalem, I began to see that clear cut religious divides were just as scarce as political stability.
I was fortunate enough to meet some incredible people in Jerusalem - Christian, Jewish, and Arabic. In fact, this country is where I think I met some of the best characters of our whole trip. The owner of our hostel was an easy-going Middle-Eastern Christian who renovated a 700 year old building and turned it into a hostel. King Hubble-Bubble, whom Raf will talk about later, was an Arabic hookah dealer that had us for tea and hookah in his shop. The rabbi in charge of the Western Wall also initiated a conversation with us.
Jerusalem was an amazing city. There was so much to experience spiritually and culturally that I feel like there was no way I could take it all in on this trip. And when I leave tomorrow and simultaneously see the Dome of the Rock, a church steeple, and Orthodox Jews walking down the street, I know that I see myself coming back to this incredible place.
Thanks for all the emails from everyone. I really miss Duke basketball, so I hope everyone isn’t taking it for granted, and that you all are going to/watching every game. We leave for Egypt tomorrow, so I’ll try and post some good stories from there. Hope everyone is doing well.
-Kevin
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TDollaz
non-member comment
Sounds like a fantastic experience. Wish I could've been there with you guys! Stay safe in Egypt.