People actually live in the old city of Jerusalem, surrounded by temples and churches and mosques and touristy bazaars. Later in the afternoon we would witness children of about this age breaking pots and tiles and throwing the shards at each other… The police were even called in to break it up.
Old Jerusalem is an ancient, fragrant, complex, dusty, emotionally-, politically-, and religiously-charged space, and the best way I can describe it is to say: It feels heavy. As you walk through it and hear the call to prayer or the church bells or guttural Hebrew, it’s almost like 2,000 years of weighty history coming crashing in all at once.
We loved it. But it was difficult. And without our friend Ronen there to decode the goings on, we might have been pretty lost. We didn’t blog then but I’ll attempt to capture some of the things we learned in the following pictures and captions the best I can.
This is kind of what an Old Jerusalem Bazaar feels like.
And this is what it sometimes sounds like:
Another amazing thing about Old Jerusalem is that people actually live here, crammed in between these overwhelmingly significant structures, going about their daily business, and kids here have their scuffles here just like anywhere else in the world. In this photo, two boys are picking up pottery shards from pots they had smashed with the intention of chucking them at another group of children. The other group of children was retaliating with broken bits of tile. Mothers came out and scolded, as mothers do, and eventually the police stopped by to break it up. This event was significant enough for us that we scooped up a bit of tile as a keepsake and still have a piece of it glued on a magnet on our fridge.
Two boys gathering pottery shard ammunition.
Very old stone buildings were retrofitted with electricity, modern kitchens, and, of course, Coca Cola machines.
Old nails in old doors.
One of my favorite places in Jerusalem today was this unmarked, forgotten arch in the Jewish quarter.
The Western Wall. This Wall is the holiest place where Jews are permitted to pray, due to its proximity to the Temple Mount. For Muslims, it is the site where the Prophet Muhammed tied his horse on his night journey to Jerusalem before ascending to paradise. This site felt a bit inaccessible and awkward to us, and out of respect for the religion we kept our distance.
After seeing this so many times on TV, I have to say: it’s smaller than you’d think.
Watching the sunset and sleeping out next to the Sea of Galilee (Kinneret) is one of my most cherished memories of Israel. We picnicked at night and bathed in the Sea in the morning, and I received a marriage proposition from a stranger along with a really strong cup of Turkish coffee. This place reminded me of the lakes and campgrounds my family would visit growing up. Even though it had a different texture, flavor, and language, the underlying core of it was comfortingly familiar.
Children play in the waves at sunset.
Picnic dinner, including bread, sausage, and olives.
Our good friend Ronen.
The morning after. With weather this temperate, who needs a tent?
We always had the vision of the Jordan River as a wide, formidable, ageless, and important-looking. It’s not. In fact, it looked just like any other river in the world, complete with a nearby bar, live music, families, and swimming children.
The Holy Sepulcher/ Things I Didn’t Quite Understand
We walked out of the hot, bright Israeli sun and were immediately surrounded by darkness, cool stone corridors, clouds of incense and candle smoke, richly colored paintings, haunting music, and hordes of crying pilgrims. There is something about this place that makes it one of the more emotionally charged places I’ve ever been.
As I entered the tomb where Christians believe Jesus’ physical body was laid to rest, I even found myself wiping away some tears. As a long time atheist, this makes no sense. I cannot explain why an emotionally saturated atmosphere would have caused a semi-religious experience in an absolutely not religious person. But I think it’s okay that there are still some things in this world that I don’t understand.
Here are a few photos from in and around the Church, for those who are interested. I feel privileged to have gotten to visit this important place.
The hot, dusty exterior of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. If you look closely at the top right window, you can see the immovable ladder. This has it’s own crazy story: According to tradition, it has been sitting in this spot since 1728 because someone accidentally left it there way back when and no object in this church can be moved without the agreement of 6 religious sects and, frankly, they can’t get it together. Google it if you don’t believe me. It’s a hoot.
Decorated dome.
The Stone of Anointing, where Jesus is said to have been anointed prior to the crucifixion.
This is the location where the cross is said to have been located at the time of the Crucifixion. In a very large coincidence, it is also the exact place of the burial of the skull of Adam. As In Adam and Eve.
A painting behind the stone of anointing. Notice the skull of Adam in the bottom of the photo.
We stuck out like a sore thumb. I, for one, was nervous. Our comfortable rental car was parked in a gas station parking lot many miles away and we had negotiated our way into the heart of Palestine by taxi using sign language, nods, smiles, cash, and the help of an occasional translator. We were aware we were getting ripped off and understood that this was the price of visiting a place without knowing any of the language or much of the culture, on our own. We hadn’t seen anyone who looked like us since we left westernized Israel.
Our first stop was the Mount of Temptation, where a very well-dressed man followed us around the site, lurking nearby. We debated: was he there to give us a hard time, or to make sure we were okay? Either way, we tried to stick ourselves in packs of middle eastern and Indian tourists, preferably near mothers and grandmothers. The site itself is interesting and said to be the location that the devil tempted Jesus in the desert. Given that it was 9am and already 100 degrees, I could imagine that spending any amount of time here was a bit of a trial. We snapped some photos and snuck away from the well-dressed man, unsure if we should be mentally thanking him or relieved to get away.
The harsh and desperate Mount of Temptation. Fortunately, we took the easy way up in the teleferique.
Still smiling!
Josh wanders around the monastery at the top of the Mount. The cool shadows were a welcome relief.
Back at the base of the mountain, we approached the ancient Tell es-Sultan. Tells are fascinating. They’re hills that are literally made out of the rubble of thousands of years of cities, built and collapsed and re-built over time. They are an archaeological goldmine and this particular one is one of the oldest known settlements in the world. It dates back to 10,000 BCE. Remember those Canaanites, Phoenicians, and Philistines from the bible? They lived here. Remember that story about Joshua fighting the battle of Jericho, marching in circles and playing trumpets and the walls came a-tumbling down? Whether or not the story happened exactly like that, these are those walls. It. is. magnificent.
Tell es-Sultan, a 12,000 year old settlement and the original site of biblical Jericho.
In a perhaps misguided decision, we took a hike around the tell.
Shade, finally. By the time Josh took this picture I was not doing great and no longer smiling.
It was also scorching hot. By this time, the thermometer was nearing 120 degrees Fahrenheit. I was a bit dizzy and very dehydrated; we had to keep moving. We panted our way to a roadside juice stand with fresh squeezed juice that we really hoped was sufficiently safely prepared and stored for our weak American stomachs. Happily, we met a Palestinian boy there who spoke decent English and scooped us out some. It was sweet, and fresh, and refreshing. We didn’t talk about anything particularly important but this chance meeting would have a lasting impact on us: anytime Josh or I hear about a Palestinian young man who was killed in the news, this boy flashes in our mind, and we hope it wasn’t him. I know this is morbid but this is one of the hazards of traveling, right? It puts a face on the conflict in far flung lands and makes every sad NPR article a bit more painfully real.
This boy was just one of the kind-hearted people we met while wandering around the city of Jericho. The atmosphere in the town of 18,000 was a mix of hope and desperation. Tourists haven’t been coming here much in recent times because they are afraid of unrest and conflict, cutting off the economic inflow. Possibly because of this, the Palestinians were extremely happy to see us and every person who we passed took time to say “Welcome to Jericho!”. The vast majority didn’t appear to speak a single other word in English, but they had all memorized that phrase and we heard it over and over throughout the day with smiles, waves, and gifts of crunchy dates pressed into our hands. Sometimes the desperation peeked through, like a man who started haggling a simple salad at 15 US dollars when we could get large sandwiches for a dollar or less 5 feet away. The poverty in many places was apparent. Still, there was an undercurrent of hope. There were election posters hung about, including the faces of some female candidates, and piles of construction materials on the street corners. Men placed bricks and stones happily, seemingly optimistic about the future of their town.
Construction on the streets of Jericho.
State of Palestine ministry of the interior building.
Election notice and some other things we couldn’t read.
An ordinary street in downtown Jericho.
Eventually, it started to get late, and we were hot and dusty and parched. We needed to arrange to meet our taxi driver and make our way back to Jerusalem. As we drove west, it was a bit like driving forward through time. From stone ruins and dirt roads, past whitewashed mosques, simple dwellings, a gas station and small settlements, right up to the modern skyscraper construction of Tel Aviv. I would go back in time to Palestine in a heartbeat.
The Dead Sea is simultaneously harsh, desolate, and devastatingly beautiful. It is the lowest elevation spot on Earth. Touching the water, it almost feels slick or oily from the dissolved salts, and that density makes for amazing floating. I hope you can enjoy it vicariously through this video of Josh’s first float.
One of the craziest things about Israel is recognizing names and places from the bible ALL THE TIME. These were just a few. You can take the literal-ness of these sites with all of the grains of salt in the Dead Sea, to taste.
Who here knows the story of Lot’s wife? Well, this pillar of salt is said to be her.
Camels hanging out on Mount Sodom. You know, the one with the sodomites, fire and brimstone? Anyhow, there’s no town here any longer.
Nimrod’s Castle is formidable, even thousands of years later.
This one you may recognize from history. This is the hill of the ancient city of Gamla. There was still several thousand year old pottery strewn about the site.
This is where those famous walls of Jericho are said to have come a-tumblin’ down. If you have interest in this site, see our Welcome to Jericho post!
The Mount of Temptation, where Jesus is said to have gone into the desert and be tempted by the devil. For more information on this site, see our Welcome to Jericho post!
Remember that pesky, baby-slaughtering King Herod? This is a room in Masada, his fortress and pleasure palace.
Most of the time, Josh and I focus on being travelers, not tourists. That being said, sometimes you just need to float in the dead sea, or take a selfie, or RIDE THE FRIGGEN CAMEL. Because you’re in the Middle East and you stick out like a bright white sore thumb anyway, you might as well: Just do it! Forget the traveler pride and do the touristy thing.
He’s my buuuuudddyyyyyy!
Squee! If only the photo wasn’t still blurry. Still. Squee!
People actually live in the old city of Jerusalem, surrounded by temples and churches and mosques and touristy bazaars. Later in the afternoon we would witness children of about this age breaking pots and tiles and throwing the shards at each other… The police were even called in to break it up.
