Israel, Day 7: Old City Jerusalem

To successfully navigate the Temple Mount and see the sights in the Old City (especially as a group of mostly non-believers unfamiliar with the symbols), we booked a tour with Sandemans New Europe. The guides spoke excellent English and were all locals.

Our guide, Anat, told us about the different quarters of the old city (Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Armenian), showed us the Jaffa gate and told us about other gates to the Old City, and spoke about the city's defenses. The buildings were all added at different times, from ancient days to the Crusades to relatively modern.

Dome of the Rock and Western Wall

The Temple Mount contains several holy places for the Jewish and Muslim faiths primarily. The Jewish temple there was destroyed some centuries ago, and all that remains is the Western Wall, at which observant Jews pray, read from scripture, and insert notes into the stones.

Western Wall

I thought this was so interesting because the Jews' most holy place is where a temple was destroyed and never rebuilt, almost like something is missing or a regret. Obviously very important and fascinating.

The Temple Mount itself remains controlled by Muslims; there is a mosque where Mohammed (allegedly) ascended to heaven, negotiated with God about how many days observant Muslims should pray, then descended back down again. The Dome of the Rock (below) contains the rock that symbolizes the foundation of the world (for Jews and Muslims) and a well of souls where you can (allegedly) hear the souls in the afterlife. The rock is also where Abraham is said to have almost sacrificed his son, making it important for all three faiths.

Dome of the Rock

These are beautiful sites, but unfortunately non-Muslims cannot enter the buildings. Our guide told us not to try it, as even foreign Muslims have trouble entering because they get turned away if their Arabic recitation of the Koran is not up to snuff. (This is what I mean about the trip being fairly exhausting and frustrating about putting people in boxes. I was frustrated I couldn't enter, but can you imagine being Catholic, for instance, and not being allowed to enter St. Peter's Cathedral because your Latin isn't good?!) 

From the Temple Mount, you can see the Mount of Olives, which is more important for Christians because it contains some sites related to the days before Jesus's crucifixion. This is also allegedly the spot where God will come during the end times, so lots of people want to be buried here to have a good spot in line.

Mount of Olives

We shared lunch at Abu Shukri restaurant in the Old City market in the Muslim Quarter, then walked the Via Dolorosa - the path (allegedly) where Jesus walked the 13 stations of the cross during his crucifixion. There are a lot of Christian monuments and symbols in the area, and again, one area is as good as another, if you assume that it at least happened somewhere on the hill. But some things just stood out as hokey to me, such as a building where Jesus allegedly rested his hand (even though I am 1,000% sure the building didn't exist back then).

To me, faith is about belief in the unknowable, and the magic. I'm not a Christian, but to me, it's more magical to believe that the events of Jesus's life could have happened on any rock, any hill in the area. The magic is in not knowing. Trying to put a face on it is like ruing the movie by showing the horror movie monster. Our imaginations are better. Just my opinion.

At the end of the Via Dolorosa stands the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the spot where six sects of Christian faith hold that Jesus was crucified. (Protestants believe it was down the hill some 500 meters.)

What's interesting about this church is that it shows you how Christians have to work together on shared history, even if they don't have much in common. The site is put together like the Weasleys' home in Harry Potter - a room at a time, none of it matching or making sense as a cohesive whole.

For instance, each sect got a room, and you can see below how different the Orthodox folks are from the Catholics. The Armenians got a room in the basement, and the Coptics are elsewhere.

Scene inside Church of the Holy Sepulchre; Orthodox to the left, Catholic to the right

There is a room on site that was destroyed by fire in 1808 and the sects haven't been able to agree on how to renovate it. 1808!!

The tour was really thorough and even-handed, and I'm very glad we did it. Braving the crowds of pilgrims at any of the Old City sites would have been a handful.

Before dinner, we sampled some local beers at Biratenu, which offered flights of some fairly substantial pours. (No Israel badge yet on Untappd - boo!)

Then we headed over to the Mahane Yehuda market to try to find something tasty for dinner. There is a lot there - lots of groceries, dried fruit, baklava, kunafeh stands, sushi, spices, and bars (it was a fairly vibrant night life!).

We found some sabich (the Iraqi vegetarian pita sandwich) at Falafel Mullah near the market. Then we shared a kunafeh prepared to order. Another fantastic night!