Sarah arrived in Israel early, early in the morning. She'd told me when her bus was departing the airport and I popped out onto the balcony around when I expected her to arrive to find her waiting to cross the street 50m away. After three weeks apart we were reunited in Jerusalem before sunrise.
Jerusalem is a fascinating destination. For the past three thousand years it has been the site of more significant events in western history than anywhere else in the world. For all three of the Abrahamic religions, Jerusalem has always been a focus. For millions of people it has been a pilgrimage site, battleground, a living museum and a home.
On our first day there while Sarah recovered from her forty hour journey from New Zealand I walked to the western wall. The last remains of the second Jewish temple constructed on the Temple Mount at the heart of the city. I arrived moments after sunset on the first evening of Rosh Hashanah, the two-day High Holiday that celebrates the Jewish new year.
There were crowds of prayers, men in big furry hats, or in black coats, or in jeans and t-shirts, with long spiralling earlocks or with shaved heads women in shawls or bare headed, in dresses or jeans. They were singing, dancing, bobbing their heads, reading, talking, placing written prayers in the wall's cracks. The variety of activity amongst the Jews in the prayer areas at the base of the wall was amazing in its diversity.
Meanwhile, behind them in the plaza, about 100x100m, were just as many tourists. Milling about, peering over the barriers behind the prayer areas and trying to take selfies. This last was much to the chagrin of the Kotel administrators, who allow photos except on the Sabbath and Jewish holidays. It was an uphill battle. The signs were clearly not having much effect, and really all they could do was politely ask anyone they saw taking photos to please stop, then walk a few metres to tell someone else the same thing, while three more people snapped away behind them out of sight.
Another day, another religion, another visit to the most holy of holy sites. We strolled around the outside of the old city walls to the Lion's gate, the entrance closest to the start of the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sadness, is the route many Christians believe Jesus followed on his way to his crucifixion at Calvary.
Visitors can (and do, in great numbers) follow the stations of the cross (except for number one, where Jesus was condemned, whose purported location is inside a Muslim school and not open to the public). But from the Church of the Flagellation onwards, the path (actually named Via Dolorosa) can be followed through the cobbles and smooth paving stones, with a couple of twists and turns, up to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The church is built atop the final four stations, which means it occupies (at least) the two most important sites in Christianity: those of the crucifixion and the resurrection.
Sarah and I climbed up the Via Dolorosa with hundreds of other tourists and pilgrims. The courtyard outside was crowded and the inside was more than a little chaotic.
Much of this chaos can be attributed to the fact that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre isn't a Catholic church, or a Greek Orthodox one, or a Coptic one, or a Lutheran one. It doesn't belong to any one denomination. Which means that no specific denomination gets to set the rules. And since many of the rules that the individual denominations might like to apply are directly contradictory, this effectively mean that no one's rules apply. So aside from a general requirement for modest dress, people inside jostle, shove, stop in heaps of odd places to pray, graffiti on the walls (seriously! And it's not like it stopped in the 70s and people know better now. There were big lists of pilgrims names written or carved into the walls in recent years (including a 2018 group from the Cook Islands).
For similar reasons, the church is a bit of a mess architecturally as well, with various extensions and chapels having been tacked on, built and decorated in styles popular at various times in the past 1700 years at various points all over the Christian world. Kind of as if you tried to cram all of the Buddhist temples in Bodhgaya into one building with no central authority overseeing the lot.
Interestingly, almost nothing has changed since the Ottomans arbitrated amongst disagreeing Christian sects in the 19th century, setting up the Status Quo agreement. Meaning that things as mundane as where the Greek Orthodox monk overseeing their portion of the church is supposed to sit, and even leading to a small ladder placed on a balcony on the outer church facade having been left in place untouched for over a hundred years! (Look for it in the photo of the courtyard above!)
The place got more and more crowded and we escaped the heat for a rest before walking back through the old city, down from the temple mount into a valley then back up to the Mount of Olives to watch the sun set over the city as a whole, the old city in particular, the Temple Mount in particular in particular and the Golden Dome of the Rock in particular in particular in particular.
Another Day, another exceptionally holy religious site. The Temple Mount, in addition to being the site of the Holy of Holies, the place some Jews believe to be the spiritual junction of heaven and Earth, is also the site of the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa mosque, from where Muslims believe Muhammed ascended to heaven.
These days the Temple Mount is controlled by the Waqf, a Muslim authority. And while people of any faith can visit, any non-Muslim prayer is strictly forbidden, to the point that simply standing on the mount silently moving one's lips can get you thrown out by the Waqf or even arrested by Israeli police for potentially fomenting trouble. Further, many Jewish religious authorities say entrance to the mount is forbidden to Jews lest they accidentally walk over the exact (unknown) location of the Holy of Holies to which only the High Priest is meant to be admitted, and only once a year.
There are twelve gates leading up to the mount, but inexplicably (I've asked multiple people for explanations) the only one accessible to non-Muslims is the one that required construction of a big wood and steel viaduct over the Western Wall plaza (which was actually okay, as there are no prohibitions on photography (or at least no signage indicating prohibitions) and it was possible to get some amazing views out over the Western Wall on the second day of Rosh Hashanah as we climbed.
The top is remarkably quiet and peaceful having come from the bustle of the plaza and the alleyways of the old city. The Dome of the Rock shone in the early sun on its vast, polished stone platform. Olive trees provided shade. Waqf caretakers chastised tourists who got too noisy while arranging group photos, and others who got too close to the entrance to the Dome. Other parts of the mount were still less busy, with men (and some women) sitting relaxing and talking. At the north end, a school was in the middle of changing classes (imagine what it must be like to grow to ignore one of the first sites of your religion because it's just sitting there as you walk between math and science classes).
As we were sitting and planning out the rest of our day, a large group of Jewish men walked past, escorted by Israeli soldiers who were there to at once keep them safe and to ensure that they didn't cause any confrontations with the Muslims.
After another afternoon siesta, we visited the smallest section of Jerusalem's old city, the Armenian quarter. As the Armenians were the first nation to officially adopt Christianity, they have a long history in Jerusalem (and there are even signs on the public transportation system printed in Armenian!) We visited the Saint James cathedral to join the afternoon vespers service. The inside of the church was filled with silver and gold icons, blown glass lamps and thickly piled with carpets. We sat down on the carpets across from a small group of Armenian schoolboys (this felt a little more natural than just standing at the back and watching) and did our best to follow their lead through the thirty minutes of sermons and chanting in Armenian, swinging of the clanking censer and coming and going of various holy men. We had very little idea of exactly what was going on, but it drew inevitable comparisons with our visit to the seat of the Armenian church in Echmiadzin, and we felt welcome in the cool, dark and mystical church.
I'll save a bit more discussion or old Jerusalem and the city as a whole for our return visit (which took place about five days later), but before concluding this entry, I've got a few more thoughts about the holy sites and pilgrimage places we spent much of our time in Jerusalem visiting.
It's interesting that much of Jerusalem, and almost all of its holy sites in particular really aren't that outwardly impressive. The remains of the Jewish fortress at Masada are much more impressive than the Western Wall. Without even trying I can think of a dozen churches in Europe that are far grander than the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. And pretty as the Dome of the Rock is, the Medrassas and mosques of the Registan in Samarkand or those in Esfahan are much more beautiful. And the spiritual wonder of them is, I must admit completely lost on me.
Even the historical interest of the places isn't quite what it's made out to be. There is no archaeological evidence that the First Temple (of Solomon) existed in Jerusalem at all. As far as I can tell, the only time Muhammed ever visited Jerusalem was when Allah whisked him there on the Night Journey, of which Muhammed himself was the only human witness, which effectively makes it not a "historical" site of early Islam at all. And it's fairly unlikely that all (or even any) of the Christian holy sites are where they claim to be, as even the oldest of them weren't "designated" as such until at least three centuries after Jesus' death.
Even so, they manage to be wondrous places. Not because God really created the entire universe starting with this exact stone. Or because this is the precise spot where Jesus was crucified. But because the masses of other visitors believe so strongly that these things are so. And because they've been visiting this city for centuries, if not millennia, always believing its so. And the power of their beliefs do somehow create a sense of magic.
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