hello from jerusalem! we stayed in an extremely old fortress called the austrian hospice in the arab quarter of the old city, mere blocks from the western wall and the dome of the rock! the day we arrived here we explored the markets and alleyways of the old city. the via dolorosa, the path Christ took on His way to be crucified, runs right past where we are staying! we heard some perspectives from some christian zionists – a little disappointing, not just them but the whole movement in my opinion, but that’s more of an essay topic than one for an update. i supose my perspective on the current theological importance of this place is being developed, and i’m starting to think that “israel” isn’t really as important to being a christian as it has been implied to have been as i was growing up.
in jerusalem we went to yad vashem, the holocaust museum. definitely a sobering experience. the architecture of the museum is very evocative – it is shaped like a triangle that gets smaller and smaller as you go through it, then opens up to the “land” at the end. it has a zionist agenda, which is very understandable (but not so to many in our group – good discussions). we then heard from a really chill cultural expert about the different streams of judaism in israel. there are many, many. most israelis consider themselves secular. about 50% are ashkenazi (jews from western europe) and 50% have come from mostly arab countries (sephardim). these two groups have had significant divisions, even outright racism against one another.
the ultra-orthodox (wearing black suits, hats, and side curls) make up about 20% of israel’s population, but they punch above their weight in the political arena. this despite the fact that many boycott politics wholesale. there are seemingly infinite divisions between groups in the “ultra” classification. a couple interesting groups – one believes the messiah was a rabbi in brooklyn a couple years ago – they advertise him on busses, hand out tracks, etc. some ultraorthodox are even anti-zionist – one group went so far as to attend and give keynote speeches at ahmedinejad’s holocaust denial conference in iran. in the evening on shabbat (the beginning of the sabbath) we went to the western wall. that was a fascinating experience –thousands of ultra-orthodox jews praying, even in a tunnel-like addition to the western wall plaza that extends out westward underneath the city – following the wall of the temple. they bob back and forth, many of the evangelizing groups dance around and sing… it seemed to be quite a happy time.
ultra-orthodox men walk through our neighborhood in the arab quarter, but they keep their heads down; sort of sad. some of them hold onto their side curls lest the muslim kids pull on them. just down the road there is plaque for an ultra-orthodox who was stabbed to death because he was out too late. so the interfaith cooperation isn’t doing well at all on this level. that said – if a jew ever identified themselves as such in a place like syria or parts of egypt it would be infinitely worse than it is here. so after recently being in these places, i am actually a somewhat impressed with the fact that folks seem to be managing to coexist nonviolently here for the most part.
