"There is only one religion, though
there are a hundred versions of it," the stone-walled, battle-scarred,
square kilometer of old Jerusalem is the holy and most fascinating fountain
of three very prominent versions.
Within the high stone walls of this crammed, 100 street maze, which King
David of the Israelites captured 3000 years ago this year, are contained the
Western Wall, the holiest place in Judaism; Haram ash-Sharif/Temple Mount,
the third holiest Muslim site; and the 14 Stations Of The Cross, beginning
where Jesus Christ was tried, and ending in the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, containing his empty tomb.
Jaffa Gate is the largest entrance to old Jerusalem, and the one most
utilized by Christians and Jews. It is the largest because in 1898 Kaiser
Wilhelm II insisted that he be allowed to enter Old Jerusalem pompously
riding in a carriage. Inexplicably, a portion of the circling wall, which
the Turk, Suleiman the Great, caused to be built over a 5 year period ending
in 1542, was opened for him. A street now passes through the wall at Jaffa
Gate. The primary Arab gate is Damascus, facing East (Palestine) Jerusalem.
I sat in the Lido Cafe, three doors on the left, past the dog-leg
pedestrian passage through the high, fortress-like Jaffa Gate, past the
Brazilian jewel merchant's shop and the Jerusalem tourist information store
front. The cross and Christian calendar on the back wall of the Lido made
clear which Jerusalem faith was adhered to there. I was alone, with a beer
and a bag of peanuts, an afternoon respite from my explorations. Most of the
chairs around the 12 tables were occupied by men drinking coffee or tea and
playing cards. I was the only outsider. There were no women in sight.
"My son, Sami, lives in Bakersfield California. I just got back two months
ago. My son owns 2 tobacco shops in Bakersfield."
A man, sixty-ish, slight, handsome, with a white mustache and white hair combed back
wearing a tan raincoat, had seated himself at my table.
"I have a Green Card, but I am too old to live there. I prefer to be here,
in Jerusalem, with my friends."
I had just met Raja A. Nassar. I assumed that because we were in a Christian cafe in the
Armenian Quarter of the Old City, my new companion
would be Armenian.
"I am a Coptic Christian. My family comes from Egypt. We have
been in Jerusalem for over a hundred years, since the Egyptians fought the
Turks, before the British mandate," he explained. “Come back, we'll talk
again", he said after I finished my beer and he rose to return to the card
game with his friends. It was my fourth full day in Jerusalem, and after
touring much of the Old City, I had returned to focus on the Jaffa Gate
area.
A non-eventful $500 courier trip (with TWA frequent flier miles) with
Courier Network (and its zany crew) began at the company office/warehouse on
W. 29th St. in Manhattan; I rode with the computers I was couriering in the
company van to JFK. Upon landing, I took the United Tours #222 bus ($US 6.50) from
Ben-Gurion Airport into the secular, seaside resort of Tel Aviv, where I
spent a couple of days walking the beach and taking in the sights.
To get to the holy city I took the one-a-day train from Tel Aviv; it wove
through the irrigated vegetable fields in the low lands, as we moved away
from the Mediterranean and into the foothills. After an hour, the diesel
locomotive slowly pulled us up-mountain, through a deep gorge. off to the
left, at the bottom of the gorge, I could see a surprisingly full stream in
that arid land, as we climbed through the mountain of bright, beige Jerusalem
Stone; of that stone, modern Jerusalem is constructed. The sun-glistened
rock reflects from each building, in the predominately Jewish "New City".
There were less than a dozen passengers on the four car train, and as
everywhere in Israel, security was tight. "Don't worry," said the young,
steely-eyed, security agent, Uzi submachine gun strapped over his shoulder,
after he had checked the IDs of three apparent-Arabs who boarded enroute. As
an innocent abroad, I didn't intend to worry.
After a short, but expensive, taxi ride from the main Jerusalem rail
station, I registered at the year-old, Dan Pearl Hotel; it was a lucky
choice: 150 yards along and across Old Jaffa Road was the Jaffa Gate, an
entrance through the high stone wall of Old Jerusalem. It was Friday. At
check-in I was given a sheet of paper informing me that there would be a
ceremony in the hotel at the precise minute the Jewish Sabbath was to begin
that afternoon; the written sabbath alert was a unique experience in my
lifetime of travel.
After depositing bags in the room, I walked along the outside of the wall
and through Jaffa Gate and into the Armenian Quarter of Old Jerusalem.
Immediately on the right was the Citadel (Tower of David), with its series
of towers, now a large museum of Old Jerusalem. One of Israel's most
impressive restorations, it was built as the palace of Herod the Great in
the 1st century. I walked uphill beside the Citadel. On my left I noticed a
high iron gate and a large round sign: "Christ Church. The oldest Protestant
church in the Mideast." The church also had a guest house. I continued up
Armenian Patriarchate Road, past a restaurant, and found myself looking down
into an Armenian ceramic shop. I walked down three steps and chatted with
the craftsman-owner, Vic Lepejian. As I browsed, it occurred to me that
Vic's Jerusalem ceramic plaques, each customized with the name of a
grandchild, would be a permanent keepsake for the five children of my sons.
The deal was struck (approx. $US 10.each).
There are Jewish, Christian, Moslem and Armenian quarters in the walled
city. Vic explained that the Armenian people have maintained a constant
presence---and thus their own quarter---in old Jerusalem since the 400s,
because theirs was the first nation to convert to Christianity (303). 1500
Armenians now lead sequestered lives in the quarter, with their own homes,
schools, library, church and seminary, walled off from the rest of Old
Jerusalem; an old religious walled city, within an old religious walled
city.
I retraced my steps down the hill to David Street, the main street of the
Jaffa Gate area, walked to the right and immediately into the descending
steps of the open market (souk), believing I was on my way to the Western
(wailing) wall. To my astonishment, thousands of men were rushing up the
steps, many of them long-robed and head-wrapped (in the manner of Yasser
Arafat). The slippery, timeworn steps appeared to tumble down for a hundred
yards or more and they were filled with men eager to push their way up, and
out of old Jerusalem. I cringed to the right, attempting to slowly move
against the mound of men.
"What's going on?," I asked a spice merchant after ten minutes of
shoulder-thumping contact with the contrary moving mass of men.
"It is the last Friday of Ramadan, and 500,000 men from the West Bank and
Gaza have come here to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It will go on like this
for two hours," answered the merchant.
I crept on. "Where are you going my friend?," asked one of the men moving up
the stairs.
"To the Western Wall," I answered reflexively.
"Follow me." I changed directions and did as I was told. "I am Palestinian.
I know this area very well. I will show you how to get to the Wall. I am a
tour guide."
"Oh, oh," I thought to myself. But what did I have to loose? If this guy
could get me out of the crowd and to the Wall, I was far better off than
pushing against the seemingly endless stream of men. We turned left at the
first narrow cross street, as we moved with the flow. In three or four
minutes we were at a point overlooking the Western Wall.
"My friend, I am a tour guide. This is how I earn my living. I have been
with you for 30 minutes. You owe me."
I gave him a 10 shekel coin ($US3.) "No, No, you owe me much more; this is
nothing," my erstwhile guide moaned. I was unmoved.
>From the vantage point to which I had been delivered I could see the white
stone blocks of the retaining wall of the Second Temple. Black shrouded
Hasidim Jewish men bobbed and bowed to the wall as they prayed. Above them, the
afternoon sun reflected a gold radiance from the Muslim Dome of the
Rock. It was an essential scene of Jerusalem: two great faiths, piled, one
on top of the other, seemingly scrambled together in that tiny, holy city.
In the plaza that fronts the Western Wall, I saw over a hundred, heavily
armed, flac-jacketed, Israeli troops and police, waiting. There were
hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in old Jerusalem that day, and the
Israeli security forces were on alert. I walked down the steps to the vast
Wall plaza and watched at closer range the fascinating confluence of faith
and force, an apt Israel metaphor.
Saturday morning the Hotel Dan Pearl offered a complimentary walking tour of
Old Jerusalem; I was on it. It, of course, began with a walk through the
Jaffa Gate and into the Armenian Quarter. The 11th Century St. James
Cathedral is the core of the Armenian community, where services are exotic
by most Christian standards: incense in the air, glowing, golden globes hung
from the ceiling and luxurious rugs under foot. We then walked inside the
wall, past Zion Gate, and into the Jewish Quarter, with its subterranean
Sephardic synagogues, bright, sand-blasted Jerusalem stone buildings, and
sense of uncluttered order, so in contrast to the other quarters of the old
city.
"Look down that well," commanded Meir Friedel, our native born, Israeli war
veteran-tour guide. "Down there, way down, you can see where the city was
at the time of the First and Second Temples. All above has been piled-on
since."
Our tour had paused in the restored Roman/Byzantine Cardo Maximus, the
Jerusalem main street and market center of that time, which ran the length
of the city. The graceful, dug-out and restored columns, which once
supported the roofs of the arcades along the street, reach for the sky, far
below the present street level. Below ground gift shops today operate in the
Roman Cardo.
Finally, Meir walked us into the Muslim Quarter. "Watch your pockets and
pocketbooks in here," he warned us, with perhaps a dose of Israeli
chauvinism.
Through the narrow, and adult and children-jammed (it appeared that each
Arab mother was carrying/dragging at least 3 children, 5 years and under),
streets of the Muslim Quarter and into the Christian Quarter, Meir walked us
along the Via Dolorosa (Way of Sorrows). We stopped at each station of the
cross leading to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; our little band moved
slowly. through the tight and teeming streets, from the place where some
believe Jesus was condemned to death, to, and into, his claustrophobic,
Greek Orthodox-bearded-priest-controlled crypt within the Church. The route,
from Jesus' trial to burial, is much in dispute. Some historians believe
that Jesus was tried---where else-back at the Jaffa Gate area. Herod's
palace (the Citadel) was Pilate's residence when he was in Jerusalem, and
the New Testament refers to the trial taking place on a platform (which the
palace had) and in open spaces, which it had in abundance.
After two nights at the Dan Pearl and one at the luxurious and historical King David,
where my rose wood-trimmed room overlooked the Jaffa Gate, I sought a room within the
Old City itself. I remembered the Christ Church guest house.
An unimposing stone structure, sitting across the street from the Citadel,
the guest house is attached to the most interesting Protestant church I have
ever encountered: Consecrated in 1849, it is a Messianic Jewish Church,
developed by an Anglican missionary society devoted to the promotion of
Christianity among Jews. I stood in the back of the church during an evening
service. The music was spirited, Jewish in origin. the waving of arms to
heaven, tambourine-beating and praise-singing went on, seemingly
interminably. While a Protestant church, it was built to resemble a
synagogue, in structure, with an ample use of written Hebrew.
The rooms in the stone guest house were small, Spartan (no phone or TV),
clean, with private bath and reasonable ($40.), and include a cold breakfast
(yogurt, cereal, rolls).
After my last night in the Christ Church guest house and
Jerusalem, I walked the 20 yards down Armenian Patriarchate Rd. to David
Street, left toward the Jaffa Gate and into the Lido cafe. I had a hunch if I
met Mr. Nassar there again, my last day in what the Lonely Planet guide book
describes as "perhaps the most fascinating city in the world" would be more
interesting.
"You haven't been to Bethlehem Yet? You must go, on your last day, but first
I will show you my home. Not where I live, but where I was born and grew up,
here in Jerusalem. Come!"
Mr. Nassar and I abruptly left the Lido Cafe and hurried up the alley past The New
Imperial Hotel, a Greek Orthodox Church-owned establishment (where a Peter Lorre-like
little man had shown me a very cold, less-than-Spartan room).
"Wait!", said Mr. Nassar as we rushed through a narrow market street, "You
must meet my priest!" Before me was a dark beige-skinned, black-bearded man, wearing
a heavy, navy blue, double breasted overcoat and a black and brown, tight, knitted skull
cap, which completely covered his head and framed his face. I shook his hand. I had met my first Coptic Christian priest.
Mr. Nassar and I continued to the plaza fronting the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, and around to the side of the church where we walked into the
Queen Helen Coptic Orthodox Church, seemingly part of the Holy Sepulchre
church. Mr. Nassar whisked me past an attendent at the tiny chapel and into
a dark, stone corridor, where my 6' 2' height was a great disadvantage.
"Look, down at the water. This cistern is where Queen Helena, of Greece, got
the water for the concrete to build the Church of the Holy Sepulrchre. The
water is still fresh. You can drink it," said Mr. Nassar. "Wow", said I.
Back out through the Coptic Church entrance, and through an arch and into
the Coptic Church Convent; up a flight of stairs we went and onto a second
story patio, from where the up-close dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre gleamed
in golden splendor.
"This is my home, my family home for over a hundred years,", exclaimed my
guide. Mr. Nassar unlocked the door of the small, cave-like apartment, and
we entered his very basic, ancestral home. "If they gave me a $1 million I
wouldn't give up this place. I belong in Jerusalem."
Mr. Nassar removed a bird cage ("this is for a friend of mine"), relocked
the door to his family home, and we returned (more slowly) to the Jaffa Gate
and the Lido Cafe.
"Now, you must go to Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity,"
Mr. Nassar instructed. He walked me out the Jaffa Gate to make certain that
I got on the right multi-passenger taxi to Bethlehem; it is only 8 miles
from Jerusalem, on the Arab West Bank. On his instructions, I did visit the Church of the
Nativity, the oldest active Christian church in the world, and was glad to have the
opportunity to talk to a few persons living in the Arafat controlled West Bank.
As I had suspected in the morning, my last day in Jerusalem and Israel was
much more fulfilling because of the man in the tan raincoat at the Lido
Cafe, with a son, Sami, in Bakersfield, California.
Graphic: photo courtesy Shenandoah 2000 Galleries, Ron and Diane Elliott.
"Why indeed must God be a noun? Why not be a verb...the most active and dynamic of all?" -- Mary Daly, theologian
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