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Old City - Temple Mount Closeup
View of the Old City - Temple Mount in the center Well today was my first day in Israel and it was really awesome. Of course we had to wake up at about 6:30, which was not so awesome. The hotel included breakfast which was almost identical the typical American breakfast, nothing strange or completely different. After that we went on a tour of the Old City with our guide Nicola (who was hilarious).
Our first stop was Mount of Olives which had an overlook of the old city. Nicola outlined a brief but informative history of Israel, specifically Jerusalem, and we discussed Solomon to Alexander the Great to the Romans to the Ottoman Empire to the British Mandate and finally the current state. It was really interesting but also at the same time staggering dull. It seemed that every single person or entity did the same exact thing when coming to Jerusalem: take it over, subjugate/oppress people, build new holy sites. Sometimes to add a little variety, a conquering force would just come to the city, steal valuables, and then run away. The Romans even made a nice little fresco of it in Rome, which depicts five men running, carrying a Menorah and other valuables. Kick them while their down,
Jewish people have no luck with Italy... And of course in my head they are singing "Run Away" from Spamalot but I'm pretty sure that's artistic license on my part.
Next we went up to temple mount where we were stopped by a metro-sexual looking man with overly gelled hair in a rather blatantly logo stricken Armani Exchange t-shirt and aviator glasses who made sure we were dressed appropriately (and all I could think was, honey I don't think you're cut out for this job because you can't even dress yourself). Ben #2 got stopped because his shorts didn't cover his knees but he ingeniously got around that by pulling down his shorts (which in turned revealed his boxers but Mr. Armani Exchange didn't say anything, which shows you how under qualified he was for the job.) This guy did have an actual job, he was a member of the Muslim WAQF. The WAQF are in a religious police in a way, making sure that no disrupts the sanctity of the site, making sure non-Muslims don't enter the shrine or mosque, and kicking people out of the area during prayer time. The temple mount was really cool but we
Western Wall
...umm, this is my back at the Western Wall. weren't allowed into the the temple or the Mosque because we weren't Muslim. Also I learned that the Muslim call to prayer is very strident (and dare I say annoying... but that isn't PC at all).
Next was the Western Wall, more colloquially known as the wailing wall. It is all that remains of the retaining wall from the old destroyed Jewish temples built by Kings Solomon and Harrod. It is custom to go up to the wall and pray, sometimes writing your prayer down and placing it in the crevices of the wall. Once a year the scraps of paper are collected and buried. The prayer area in front of the wall was split into two sections, one for women and one for men because during services it isn't appropriate to be looking for hotties. Strange they chose the two most unsexy body parts to get upset about though.... knees and shoulders, just like Muslims. I'm hoping there is some other sort of historical context there and not just that one of the ancient Imans had a thing for knees and shoulders. And of course the prayer area for women is a third of the size of the
one for men, because the prayer areas were built by men 😊.
Finally we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This was the part I was most looking forward to, as a Christian. I'm not incredibly devout but I figured that God would be cool with that. It was a rather unassuming and inauspicious building from the outside but the inside is magnificent. The inside is covered with gilded gold and stones, there are paintings everywhere, and gold encrusted chandeliers just dripping from the ceiling. I took time to pray at the burial slab of Jesus and would have gone through his tomb but it was incredibly crowded. But as I said earlier, I'm sure Jesus would forgive me, and I've done more than most Christians. Also I might just go back.
Next we had lunch, which was a good thing, considering the entire group was making jokes about rioting if we didn't stop for food soon (the jokes were a lot funnier in context, considering we were talking about different religious and ethnic groups in Jerusalem rioting when they got angry). We went to a cute little shop in the Muslim quarter (the old city
is divided into four quarters: Armenian quarter, Jewish Quarter, Christian quarter, and the Muslim quarter). I had falafel, which was fried chickpeas and veggies inside pita bread, and holy crap it was good (but I might have been biased because I was starving!).
After lunch we meet up with the last two members of the group who had arrived that morning. We went on a political tour next, riding on the bus through Muslim towns and Jewish settlements, talking about the differences. This was the first time I saw the "Peace Wall" too. We talked a lot about the barrier, whether it was effective or not, whether the consequences of putting it up were worth it, and whether it was even responsible for the decline in terrorist attacks. The guide was a little biased but his information was very good, and I can hardly criticize considering I'm biased as well.
One thing that is so different than the US is the police and army presence. First, their are police all over Jerusalem and they all carry large semi-automatic rifles (I was trying to identify what they, popular consensus in the group says AK-47s but I don't think so,
Tomb of Christ
I'm pretty sure that this pic is awesome enough to win an award. and hey this is a totally legit reason for me to stop and chat with one!). And the army is everywhere also. We saw about three different large groups all around Jerusalem. Apparently on their days off, Sunday, members of the army take classes and visit the holy sites.
And that was our day. On to the West Bank tomorrow!
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