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Published: September 30th 2015
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This is the second entry in a row where I have no idea how to write a single blog about a place that summarizes 3,000 years of history...shall I say three thousand years of religion who showed that humans can live next to each other in peace for a century, next century deciding simply to kill each others or expelled each others to the last one.
I told my good friend Christophe in Paris that I was going to Israel this August....and I told him this months ago. He told me, I want to go one day too....but be careful, over the last twenty years, every time there is a mess in Israel, it is over the summer! He was going to come years ago...and the mess started...I was convinced of coming here over a year ago...and it was war all over Gaza! So you will find me having a pretty peaceful stay this August...guns were down....because few weeks after, peace was already over. And over the last three weeks, the Temple Mount and Al Aqsa Mosque have seen a lot of fighting! Sad...but real!
Jerusalem welcome a lot of visitors, a lot of them.
A lot of these have a pure spiritual aim in their visit. But here is where I was really shocked, and slightly angry too! You will see thousand of Catholics, let them be from Europe, North America or South America. You will also meet a lot of Orthodox from Russia....all of them around Via Dolorosa and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. You will meet a lot of Jews from Europe or North America around the Wailing Wall, aslo known as the Western Wall. You will see less Muslims foreign visitors around the dome of Rock...don't ask me about inside the mosque Al Aqsa...as if you are not a Muslim you cannot go in...I could get in any sacred place in Jerusalem...respectfully and respectful...but Muslims are the only one to bare the entry to their sacred place to those not sharing their faith! Point noted!
So where do I get angry...well....there is a truly small minority of those "foreign visitors" visiting sacred places...from religions that are not their own! If you want to live in peace, you need to understand the other...to accept his difference, you need to understand him, to enter his home and share his
meals! And yes, to be able to enter his sacred places, understanding that his faith may not be yours, but that we can all have faith! And let me write it here...I don't even go to the point that we may all have the same god! The books have been written by different people at different time! So yes...here today, I witness a simple thing...human being today may feel global, he is still very much a blind eye to the other, to the different. Curiosity to the other is the wealth of our children....they may be very few of those in the coming years!
Inside Old Jerusalem, I though like any of you having been there. The place is simply magic...in this street I am in Armenia, in the next in Hebron, few streets further in Athens and next door in Rome or Israel....and still, all these people have learn to live mainly in peace over the years...not many military in the Old City...the guns are just outside of the walls! So yes, like any foreign visitors, like those few lucky one who have seen the world, I'm amazed, the place is magic...sacred...I'm in love! So I
spent hours and hours walking up and down, East and West, the streets of Old Jerusalem. All this while having a deep souvenir of Aleppo...where I spent the New year Eve of 2010...three months later, through the Arabs Spring, the mess started...Aleppo reminded me a lot of Jerusalem, but what is left of Aleppo!
Jerusalem is not only Old Jerusalem! I stay in a nice basic hotel in the Arab Quarter...I know, I start to be slightly biais here....but hotels are not cheap in this country, and I would not say you have any nice ratio quality to price for accommodation or food here. Israel is simply expensive and truly not the best deal I've seen while travelling the word!
I actually spent a big part of my first full day in Jerusalem visiting Yad Vashem. It may be a one-sided story museum, this is still a place we should all visit. I spent hours here. I recall asking to the staff at the entry how long the visit would take. Minimum two hours Sir, but most people spend way more than this here...I did spend way more than two hours here too. I
would not call this place an humbling one, but after visiting places in Europe such as Warsaw or Auschwitz, visiting Yad Vashem was very important to me...even spending some time in the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations was important to me. Here, one tree is planted for any single non-Jew who has saved Jews during the Holocaust. It was a very sunny day, Yad Vashem was packed, would have loved to see more people stopping by some of those trees! Don't forget the victims...but don't forget the courageous souls who didn't turn their back...these are the people who bring peace to the world!
I also spent a lot of time walking the streets of Jerusalem. Here, you see a lot of Orthodox Jews and a lot of Israelis young soldiers. Don't forget, here, it's two years of compulsory military service for boys and girls...sadly not for the Orthodox Jews! Sorry, radicals will never have my support...may their be from any faith! So for visiting a city full of welcoming people, Jerusalem is not the one! Glad I did spend some time in Tel Aviv to give a second chance to the country. Because Israelis here...in
Jerusalem, don't tell me that because you are under some kind of permanent threat....you have to be unwelcoming! And let me be very clear....I was truly nicely welcome in the Arab Quarter. If you want the stranger to be nice and friendly to your cause, maybe you should first be welcoming to him!
Next entry will be a funny one...and not really in the right way for Tourism Israel! Ah Israel, I'm so happy for you that Tel Aviv is what it is!
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