Jerusalem :: Israel
I will not bitch about Israeli customs. I will not bitch about Israel customs. I will...
Places: Jerusalem.
Coolest thing I did: Saw the Dead Sea Scrolls. Or some of them anyway.
Coolest thing I didn´t know: Falafels are better in Israel than even in Lebanon. Viva life!
Ok, I lied. It took me 10 mins to get out of Jordan and walk to the Israeli border. It took 20 mins for an army of babes (due to compulsory military conscription for both sexes there are alot of very fit women with guns walking the streets of this country) to dismantle my luggage and go through my dirty underwear. These things I can understand. It then took 1.5 hours from the time I handed over my passport to the time I got a stamp. Any explaination? No. I just stood in the sun at the window and waited. Whenever I asked what was going on I got told to stand to one side. Man, was I pissed off at the other end. I think they made me wait 30 mins for every Arabic country I'd visited. Arse.
Jerusalem. So much history, most of it involving words like "bloody" and "destruction" and sometimes "religion". As home to the three biggest monothesic religions in the world, and being in a stategic crossroads between empires for a very long time, little Jeru has been destroyed by many interesting peoples. While some were good and left the people alone to do as they pleased, the owners of the big J have included Canaanites, Egyptians, Hittites, Mesopatamians, Hebrews, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Macedonians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Persians, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Egyptians, Turks, Britans and finally Israelis. That's alot of people.
There's too much to detail, read your guidebooks. Every spot in the city has a shrine to something or other and it has to be said the Christians are the most over the top about it. Here's the church where Mary was born. Here's the one where she died. Here's the one where Mary's mum Anne was born. Here's the chruch where Jesus stubbed his big toe. It goes on and on. My favourite story is about the Church of the Holy Sepulture. It's the church the Byzantines built when they converted the Roman empire to Christianity. Constatine the emperor wanted a tour of the big event spots of Jesus' life. He was, after all, the emperor of Rome, and that means you pretty much get what you want. He sent his mum to check it out for him. The local priests didn't know where the big J had been buried and they told Mrs Constatine so. Knowing an answer like that was going to get someone thrown to the lions, she had to come up with something. She had a dream the spot was under an old Roman temple (which makes no sense because the big J was buried outside the city walls) so they did some digging. Lo and behold, they found a lot of wood. "Pieces of the true cross!" they decided. When Consta showed up he was so impressed he founded the chruch that has been there in some form ever since. A couple of hundred years ago an Greek was digging in his garden just outside the walls and found a stone tomb that had never been used. Nearby, archeologists found a hill with the shape of a skull visible on it's side, matching Golgotha in the bible (meaning place of the skull, where they nailed Big J to the Cross). The C o E recognises this place as the probable Sepulture, whereas every other Christian sect has too much riding on the original church. So illustrates how irrelevant religious tradition is. Who cares where he was burried?
I also find the Muslims claim to the Dome of the Rock pretty tenuous too. Jerusalem is never named, only that Mohamed went from the "big mosque" (mecca) to the far mosque (Jeru?) on his winged horse? Oh come on...
Anyway, say what you want about the past, the Jews are firmly in control now. I mean that as no understatement. There are police and troops on every corner practically, and thanks to the 18-22 band for conscription, most of them are boys and girls with very big guns. The entire population, from my parents age down has spent 4 years in the armed forces and retains a bloody great big firearm in their house or on their possesion. I have to look at all this and wonder how they live in this state. I don't want to get too deep into politics, but surely the current actions of the government here are going to prolong the time these people must live in this constant state of fear. The trouble is, it seems to be accepted as normal. It's quite simply terrifying.
The hostel I'm staying in (oddly enough, the Petra Hostel) is a study in Jerusalem Syndrome. This is the name given to people who come to this place and go a bit over the top religious-wise. Psychiatrists have named it it's that common. There are South Africans learning Hebrew, more devout Catholics than you can poke a stick at and a whole lot of African Jews that quite simply scare me a little. I've not had a conversation that dosen't dive into the deep end of someone's beliefs very, very quickly. While I'm all for freedom of religion, I'm a child of the Western al-la-carte style spiritualism that's so common today. Anyone who holds views that are this extreme make me uncomfortable. It's a good learning experience to watch but man, I'm quite keen to get into the secular world I've been promised in Tel Aviv.
I've had to put into words more than once my views on the "solution" to this countries problems. Everyone wants and opinion and many won't let you just be polite and say "hey, not my bag to tell you what to do". I'm quite a big fan of states founded with no ethnic or religious grounds, because that's what I see working in Australia. This is NOT a popular view here. Everyone want's you to say either "2 state solution" or one of the sides is right and should wipe the other one off the face of the Earth. I find this later view particularly worrying coming from the Jews. Ever hear of the Nazis? What did they do to you? Egads.
Having said all this, Jerusalem is unique. I'd say, seeing as some 2/3rds of the Earths poluation have been aligned with one of the religions represented here at some part of their lives should visit it. If nothing else it gives you a first hand view of the realities on the ground all that history has brought this part of the world. Not alot of it is good.