Jerusalem

On Sunday, Ahmed took Chris, Geir, Elias and me to Jerusalem because he could finally enter Israel. A few weeks ago the Israeli government denied him a permit – but now that he has one, we celebrated by visiting some sites.

Getting into Israel proved to be very interesting. After taking the taxi from Ramallah (where we witnessed a growing fanfare of memorandum for Yassir Arafat who died 3 years ago today), we had to get off at the Wall and walk through 2 security “points.” The first seemed rather pointless, and the second felt like airport security (with a conveyer belt that stopped working when our turn came through to use it).

We took the bus/taxi to the Garden Tomb area and then walked straight into the Old City. It was really weird – like entering into this almost underground territory – no cars – only narrow, old, stone streets – with shops on certain alleys, and people walking around. Oftentimes we ran into little boys’ soccer games.

We headed into a small lunch shop and ate hummus and ful (which has beans) with pita bread. A couple bends around some corners and we arrived at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also called the Church of the Resurrection. There were tourist groups from everywhere. We didn’t really know where to start – but just walked around the inside circumference of the church and witnessed a unique procession of Armenian orthodox priests around the supposed “tomb.”

We tried to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock next, but the soldiers seemed to have a problem with Ahmed’s permit, and it was soon closing anyway. The Wailing Wall definitely took my breath away. I went to the womens’ section, and an elderly woman seemed to motion for me to use her chair to pray. A little later I peeked through the wall and saw Chris, Geir, and Elias with the Kippot on.

The next “site” included Jaffa street, where, Ahmed told us, the Abbas government had planned attacks before on Israelis, “…but don’t worry!” Haha! We ate delicious ice cream (the kind famous in Israel – mixing all kinds of frozen fruit with yogurt)… and then eventually headed back to Ramallah, and then Birzeit.