The Muslim Jerusalem

Trip Start Sep 17, 2007
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Trip End Oct 08, 2008

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Monday, June 30, 2008

I was enjoying a cup of coffee-hot chocolate (instant mocha) and chatting with Kareem. Kareem was a surly bloke with almost no patience, and he ran our hostel. I didn't know this as I was drinking my coffee, but shortly my comfort was squeezed. He asked what my husband did, and I said he was an engineer. Ah, my cousin is an engineer. There are a lot of Israeli engineers, I noted. It seemed like every Israeli we met in Guatemala was an engineer. "You should know that you are in an Arab area," he said. And so it was that I learned that even if you were born in Israel, you're not necessarily an "Israeli." At least according to some Muslim Arabs.

The conflict begins.

Daily I wandered through the souqs in search of good deals for our food. Just outside the Damascus Gate there was a shop for fruit and vegetables that was convenient and gloriously inexpensive. I also got Travis his daily dose of bread bagels there. They were less than half the price of the bagels at the Jaffa Gate. Inside the gate, past the slightly more expensive fruit and vegetable shops, at the intersection where three roads meet to pass out of the Old City via the Damascus Gate, I found my pita. You can get the smaller ones at two for a sheqel. Larger are two for 1.5. With my goodies I passed back through the crowded souqs. As the day progressed they got more and more full of people. Mostly they were Arabs doing their buying and selling. But as it was a main road that I traversed, the tourists would invariably appear toward the afternoon. Damascus Gate
Damascus Gate
 The shops were typically Arab - small, packed with merchandise, samples hanging outside, and a shopkeeper sitting waiting for you to come in. Candy shops lined one part of the street, and at one bakery I was tempted daily to buy baklava. As I got closer to King David St. the road branched. If I went this way it was the butchers' street, if I went another it was full of electronics shops. I turned onto King David on the way back to the hostel and passed all the shops selling tourist trinkets - inlay boxes and chess sets, t-shirts, jewelry, etc. These were the souqs of the Old City, clearly an Arab Muslim influence. As I got more familiar with my surroundings I loved joining the throngs, turning here and there to go exactly where I wanted in the warren of streets. And I knew that by doing my shopping like the locals, with the locals, I was experiencing Jerusalem in a way that most tourists never would.

The calls to prayer sounded regularly. They were especially obvious at sunset. The multi-cultural, multi-religious nature of Jerusalem meant that the calls weren't as prominent as they had been in Egypt, where you could easily hear five sounding simultaneously, but they were there.

Although Israeli Arabs have greater freedoms than Arabs in pretty much any other country, and although they are ostensibly equal to everyone else in the country, we could not help the feeling that they are second-class citizens. This is probably because they always seemed to appear in less glamorous jobs and their Jewish counterparts rarely did. At the Wall
At the Wall
 And of course there was always the inherent tension. Even if no one said anything about the Palestine issue there was tension. But no one had to say anything. It was all present in the "Free Palestine" shirts and the fact that Israeli soldiers always carry their guns and they're hardly ever Arab soldiers. (Arabs are not required to engage in military service.) It's just not a pretty situation. But the Muslim areas were nevertheless places of life and beauty.

The one truly Muslim site in Jerusalem is on the Temple Mount. That is, of course, the Dome of the Rock. But the Dome of the Rock is not as holy as the Al-Aksa Mosque, which is surprising (the mosque isn't as pretty). As a place of worship the Dome of the Rock is beautiful. It's colorfully tiled in that amazing, specifically Muslim style, and its location on the mount is lovely. Below the raised platform of the Dome is a garden - the actual Temple Mount - and people sit in the shade and kids play soccer, and it just feels like a lovely place to be. At the same time, it feels out of place.

There's a large contingent of Arab Muslims in Jerusalem, but the Dome of the Rock just doesn't seem to belong. In other parts of Jerusalem, while you might hear the call to prayer, I'd say I never saw a mosque. They aren't obvious. Long ago I didn't understand why Jerusalem was holy to Muslims. Then I learned about the Dome of the Rock and said, alright, that makes sense. But the myth regarding the Dome of the Rock was asserted post-Mohammed. So maybe that's why it doesn't seem to belong. Or maybe because it's one obviously Muslim thing in the middle of many terribly obvious Jewish things. And of course it's on the site Jews regard as the place of the Holy of Holies, and this produces some conflict. Anyway, it produced in me a very complicated feeling. The whole situation of Israel has produced in me a complicated feeling, which is possibly epitomized by the third holiest site in Islam residing atop the holiest site in Judaism.

Undeniably it was all beautiful. The souqs, with their unique bustle, the women with their clever, colorful head scarves, the architecture introduced by the Muslim invaders (mostly a long time ago), and the Dome of the Rock in all its shining glory atop its mount.

Erin
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