"Please don't stop the music."

7th June 2009
“Please don’t stop the music!”

My time in Jerusalem was not the Holy Land expedition I always anticipated. Perhaps, had I been traveling alone, I could have walked the various historical sites in deep introspection; as it was, I was in Palestine not on my own terms, tagging along after two Americans I had just met and their Palestinian friends. Speeding around Jerusalem while blasting “Please Don’t Stop the Music” with intermittent Palestinian commentary was not conducive to pilgrimage. That said, just being in Jerusalem was still moving. I was glad to be with these new friends and grateful to hear so many opinions and histories, and I was glad to be seeing the city from many sides.

The Old City with its maze of markets descending from the Jaffa Gate reminded me of Khan-al-Khalili in old Cairo, and was decidedly Arabesque, brimming with a mish-mash of Arab and Israeli tourist kitsch: from yarmulkes custom embroidered with one’s name to t-shirts which read everything from “Israel: Uzi does it” to the superman emblem labeled “Super Jew”, to tributes to Arafat and Palestine. We sifted through racks of postcards circa 1960 and laughed over their dated peculiarities; ran our fingers over exquisite textiles; discovered a new smell every few feet wafting from barrels overflowing with a rainbow of candy, nuts, raw meat, beautiful fabrics, spices, chemicals – sweet and foul all at once.

(The Church of the Holy Sepulchre)

From this bazaar, we emerged at the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, considered to be Calvary, or the site of Christ’s crucifixion and burial. The church viewed from the outside is not an impressive structure, especially as it is shrouded in the Old City. But inside, it is a cavernous and cool, bedecked in precious metals glittering in candlelight, flames flickering in a motion like lips moving in whispers and prayers, fingertips wiping moist eyes, heads nodding, figures pausing in reflection in dim corners, kneeling. Orthodox men in full regalia kept a weary eye on those snap happy tourists quickly passing through and passing their hands over artifacts like grave robbers. “Here’s where the earthquake cracked the foundations, here’s where they found the crosses, here’s where they found the tomb, here’s where they…”

Nidal, a Palestinian who attended Catholic school in Jerusalem, led us through this unceasing tour of artifacts. My head was dizzied by the ever ascending architecture, the stone steps worn down in the middle from tour groups crowding up and down them and into dim corners, straining to hear tour guides speaking in so many languages. Bump into something in that place and it was sure to be holy.
(Shrine)
Shabbat had begun while we were in the Church, and so we would not be visiting the Dome of the Rock (Temple Mount) or the Western Wall; maybe I’ll return one day to visit those sites. We emerged from the Church and back into the blinding heat. Nidal persuaded us to try the fresh squeezed orange juice at a small kiosk outside the bazaar, saying quietly that these oranges were from the area where his grandparents once lived; we sipped it beneath the Tower of David. As we surveyed the Old City and sipped the juice, there was a tinge of sadness: the battle in Jerusalem is fought everyday through such small tragedies: the best hamburgers in town are made (supposedly) by extremist Israelis; the Palestinians we were with constantly made wisecracks about Jews and admitted as to not having a single Israeli friend, refusing to get to know any Israelis; the best oranges, hommus and Taybeh beer brewed in Ramallah are popular with (if not claimed by) Israelis while Palestinians must purchase Israeli products almost exclusively. These small, daily tragedies foment the hatred, the sadness, the regret on both sides.

At night, the wind swept across the Mount of Olives and over hundreds of graves. I stood at the brink, staring down at the Dome of the Rock and across the sleeping city, wondering what the sunrise will be like.

(The Dome of the Rock, as seen from the Mount of Olives)

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” Matthew 24: 37

“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” Isaiah 40: 1-2