Day 14 - Jerusalem, part II
Trip Start
Mar 21, 2008
1
14
15
Trip End
Apr 05, 2008
Jerusalem,
Jerusalem,
Israel
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Today Eva and Udo had to take their plane back to Frankfurt and thus we were bereft of the comfort of travelling by car. David kindly took us to the train station at the crack of dawn and we were off on our way to Jerusalem via Tel Aviv by train and then bus. We stayed in the old town in the Citadel Hostel. This was very cosy and friendly and offered great unobstructed rooftops views over the whole of the old town and beyond.
The famous Wailing Wall is in fact the Western Wall of the former Jewish temple. Ancient Jewish history traditionally places events in reference to whichever temple was standing on the Temple Mount at the time. The last of the temples (3 in total, I believe), was razed in the first century AD by the Romans, never to be rebuilt. As the wall stretches up to the Temple Mount you can see the different styles of masonry as the higher parts were added in subsequent eras. The wall works as an antenna to God and is a place of mourning and of sharing prayers and pressing requests with God. This is done either verbally or by sticking a rolled up piece of paper with the wishes inscribed into cracks in the wall, only to be washed out by the next rain.
We were lucky to be at the Western Wall on a day when countless Bar Mitzwas were taking place. What a celebration! A succession of countless boys on the brink of adolescence heaving and sweating under the large Torah scrolls they were carrying, encircled by their fathers and brothers and other male adults cheering them on.
Old man on the way to the wall
Depending on their level of religiousness we could either witness an exalted party with the boys carried around on their families' shoulders. Or you'd see them tied up with their prayer bands around arm and head (also an antenna to God), reading the open Torah or reciting solemnly from prayer books amidst their entourage. In the background you could see Hassidic Jews bobbing their heads in recital in front of the wall in defiance of the chaos surrounding them. The ladies in their separate partition were standing on chairs, peering over the fence and cheering the boys on; and to get at least a bit of attention were bombarding the boys and the Torah scrolls with candy: a true carnival atmosphere! We loved it. I ventured into the enclosure around the wall (you can borrow a kepi (round cap), but baseball cap is fine, too) and entered the underground part of the wall. That's quite spectacular: there's a giant library, lots of Jews in black reciting their scriptures in a trance-like state while African Jews were embracing and chanting a song. There were also a few Bar Mitzwa posses and sadly a few annoyingly persistent beggars. Afterwards we went onto the Temple Mount which houses two great mosques since the 8th century AD: the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. The latter allegedly houses the last footprint of the prophet Mohammed's horse before it left earth to take him to the heavens, making it the third holiest Muslim site on the planet. The Dome of the Rock is by far the more beautiful of the two: with its octagonal exterior adorned with bright blue ceramic tiles and it's golden cupola it is the centrepiece of most Jerusalem panoramas.
Hassidic Jews at the Western Wall
We couldn't enter the mosques, but enjoyed the views from the vast courtyards. What a beautifully serene place and an antithesis to the narrow winding souks of the old town. The souks are tight passageways, mostly roofed off and crammed with little shops. They're nice and shady, but can be very claustrophobic, with locals and tourists squeezing through them. Now imagine a Christian cross-bearing procession coming towards you or some water delivery men tumbling down a narrow corridor with their loaded cart at breakneck speed yelling "Hallo!!!" That can be exciting. Some nice stuff to be bought there. Hone your haggling skills, though. You'll always find some place that's open because all faiths close shop on a different day of the week: Muslims on Fridays, Jews on Saturdays and Christians on Sundays, obviously.
The next highlight was our ¾ circumnavigation of the old city on its wall. There was hardly anyone up there and it offered some intimate views onto Jerusalem's back yards. There were a lot of football (soccer) pitches with some incredibly talented Arab children playing in the Muslim and Christian quarters. There are only two interruptions to the city wall: the Temple Mount with it's tight security and the Jaffa Gate (a section of the wall was blasted off where the old gate was so emperor William II of Germany didn't have to get his arse out of his coach around 1900 to enter the Old Town). Otherwise you can walk all the way around it: much recommended if you want some peace and quiet.
