The Dead Sea and more Jerusalem Part II

We returned to the ancient city in the slowly fading light of a desert evening. The sunset comes upon you suddenly in this place, and then without warning, the street lights are on, the cool breezes of night begin to whip around the corners and Jerusalem, most of it, sleeps. There are areas, other than the old city and residential neighborhoods, in this town. There is downtown, the new capitalist-oriented section buzzing with modern restaurants, bars and shops. It was here that we stayed in an inexpensive hostel. We dropped our bags off and immediately headed for a grocery store for supplies. Ben-Yehuda is an exclusively pedestrian, broad, brick-lined street with a line of trees running down its spine. There are street-performers here, young men break-dancing, a woman playing a giant harp and other novelties. New women's fashions are stuffed into the glass fronts of the stores while the smell of schwarma, falafel, coffee and pastry shops is intoxicating. This is the new Israel: the modern, global, secular Israel. It reminds me of similar places in almost every other big city in Europe: Barcelona, Paris, Dublin, Rome etc. But the difference is that you know that this is just an oasis of modernity in a much larger landscape of religion and history, and not the general trend. This place seems almost anathema to what such a city represents. But it is also perfectly depicts the reality of Jerusalem. Just as the old city is divided between the Armenian, Christian, Jewish and Muslim Quarters, the neighborhoods outside those ancient walls represent more contemporary divisions: Russian neighborhoods, the downtown, the anglo-phone neighborhood where Hebrew is barely spoken, Arab neighborhoods, etc. And these places are just as strictly segregated. Jerusalem has been a divided city for thousands of years and nothing about its new developments tells me anything is going to change very soon.

We awoke in the middle of the night to the shouting of a woman from Trinidad and Tobago. Earlier in the night, she was very nice and talkative, speaking honestly about her perceptions of this country and its people, having a rather open mind, I thought. When she woke me up at 3 in the morning I had a less kind impression of her. She had, apparently, discovered bed bugs and was immediately packing all of her things. Everyone in the dormitory of eight was awake. After she had stormed out of the room and slammed the door after her, I leaned over my top bunk and asked Tucker if he thought there were any bugs. He replied no as did Annalise when I asked her. I took out my flashlight and inspected my own sheets, finding nothing alarming. I wasn't convinced. For the next two hours, every little sensation on my skin felt like a miniature bite and I couldn't convince myself otherwise. I didn't want to bother Annalise or Tucker but they were struggling with the same problem. It is such a difficult thing to control the sensations of your body when your mind is convinced of something, even if it is imaginary. There were no bed bugs after all but a nearly sleepless night made me think differently.

The Jerusalem International YMCA has been the home of the Jerusalem Rotary Club since 1921 when it was founded by the British in the first year of their mandate. The old and beautiful building resides directly across the street from the King David Hotel, which some of you may remember from the terrorist bombing of 1946, carried out by Irgun, a militant Zionist group, destroying much of the south wing. We joined the Rotary club for the weekly afternoon meeting, enthralled by their speaker that day, David Rubinger, probably the most famous Israeli photographer. His pictures have graced the cover of Time nearly a dozen times. He is now in his 80's and still taking photographs. He told us the story of how he got into photography, which I thought I would recount to you now because it has stuck with me. While in the British service, he was stationed for a month in Paris and one evening went to see the opera. He and his frined arrived late and unable to enter until intermission, decided instead on a bar around the corner. There he met a young Frenchwoman named Claudette who he immediately began a relationship with. When he left several weeks later on a train bound for Marseilles where he would board a ship for the Israel, she ran to the station to meet him. She kissed him and placed in his hands a new camera, which must have cost her several months wages. He had never before taken a photo. He was 21 and said that he never forgot that gift though unfortunately he forget about the girl.

We met a young Palestinian man at the Rotary meeting who was a pharmacist in Jerusalem but lived in the West Bank and he offered to show us around Bethlehem. We readily agreed. The checkpoints at the security wall, which I have heard much about, were a breeze for us Americans, though much more rigorous for Palestinians. On the other side of the wall, we hopped in one of the dozens of cabs waiting and sped away toward Bethlehem. There are five churches that now reside on the spot where Christ was supposedly born. The Christians came in droves, hoping to glimpse that sacred spot. The line to go under the altar of the Armenian church where 2008 years ago the most pivotal moment in the history of Western civilization took place was more than an hour and so we decided to move on. Although I must say that I was stunned how patient everyone in line seemed to be, compared to the mobs I had experienced trying to merely get on a bus. We moved through the other churches, catching snippets of Italian, French, Arabic, Hebrew, German, Hindi, and some African dialects which I couldn't pinpoint. After fighting our way through the mobs of pilgrims, we walked through the deserted streets of this Palestinian village. In the distance we could see the security wall snaking its way North and the pristine Jewish settlements just on the other side. I thought how difficult it must be to look at that landscape everyday, a constant reminder of the losses which this culture suffered over the past few generations. Our guide gave us a particularly one-sided perspective, which surprisingly was Pro-Israel. I had my doubts as to the motives of such rhetoric coming from a Palestinian but I said nothing and forced myself not to make any remarks. The return to Jerusalem was as easy and swift as the exit and before long we were back at the hostel. Tucker and I decided to sleep on some mats on the roof of the hostel instead of the dormitory. The sky was cloudless and I slept peacefully in the cool desert night and not a thought of bed bugs entered my dreams.

-N

King David Hotel from YMCA Tower

Annalise, Tucker and I atop the YMCA Tower

Peace sign hanging from the security wall

Roman Catholic Church service in Bethlehem

Bethlehem Courtyard

Crowd waiting to see Jesus' birthplace

Minaret in Bethlehem

View of Jewish Settlements (newer white buildings) from Bethlehem

Mural on the security wall