Postcard from Jerusalem

It shouldn’t be so hard to get to Jerusalem.

Likewise, it shouldn’t be so hard to write about going to Jerusalem.

Still, on both counts, it took more time and focus and energy than I imagined.

Weekend before last I made the journey to Jerusalem for the first time.

Again, it shouldn’t have been so hard. For those of us who understand New York and New Jersey geography, the travel time from KA to Jerusalem, should be similar to if one drove from Tarrytown, across the Tappan Zee bridge and ended up at the airport in Newark, New Jersey.

So while the miles aren’t that great—as the proverbial crow flies—it wasn’t as simple a bridge to cross and trip to make.

This trip was planned several months ago. Lilli, one of my lovely colleagues at KA, has a sister in Jerusalem, and last year took some of our colleagues on a trip (I think two) to Jerusalem, showing them around, and introducing them to her family in Jerusalem. Lilli mentioned at one point she would love to take me too. Then, as happens, it got a little lost in the shuffle. In January Lilli remembered the invitation and suggested March was a great time to take me “to Palestine” to see her sister.

That comment should have given me a little indication that everything dealing with a trip to Jerusalem is a little tough. I thought it was Israel? The semantics of “Palestine,” or “Israel” depends on your politics. Either way—Jerusalem—is certainly one of the world’s oldest travel destinations! I had been waiting to go for the 18 months I had been in Jordan. I had decided it would be easiest if I went with someone very familiar with the city, and it would lend such a personal touch to have my own travel planner and guide. So we decided to go over this long weekend in March (we had two days off of school, one to mark the end of the second trimester, and one to commemorate the birthday of the prophet Muhammad). Lilli was so excited to visit her sister and also to show me the places she loved in Palestine. She booked a hotel for me and I was going to be a privileged guest.

The day before we left I learned the travel plans weren’t simple. While there is a bridge that goes from Jordan to Israel (signs of the treaty agreements and friendship between the two nations) one just doesn’t drive across the bridge. It isn’t as simple as sashaying across the Tappan Zee bridge in the lovely Hudson River Valley. To cross this bridge of the Jordan River Valley, you have to be dropped off on the Jordan side, go through customs and stuff and take a special bus and arrange for transport across the bridge and then into Jerusalem. I had to take a taxi to Amman and then Lilli’s brother would drive Lilli (and her delightful young boys) and me down to the King Hussein bridge.

As we get out of the car to go through the customs I learn there are more fees involved than expected. There is an exit fee, the baggage handling fee, the bus fee, and the anticipation of more fees on the Israeli side.

Again, if we had jumped in my Toyota Camry in Tarrytown, crossed the TZ bridge, entered New Jersey and ended at the airport in Newark, we would have traveled about 50 miles and made the trip in about an hour. Not as simple getting to J-Town.

First of all, the entire trip changed when Lilli was refused entry. She had warned me that Palestinians had enormous troubles making this trip (stories of 2-4-6 hour waits, and answering many questions are common) and that I should prepare to wait for her. Americans have it much easier, but Lilli had prepped me anyway for the questioning by the Israeli guards. But Lilli’s passport was due to expire in about 10(she also has a Canadian passport), and she was refused the border crossing since there was no guarantee she would return to Jordan to renew her passport.

This was hardly a Casablanca-esque moment of separation, but Lilli fought back some tears and said, “You go on to Jerusalem. I’ll tell my sister you are coming and she will show you around. I’ll just miss spending time with my family. I’m sorry for the boys, too.” Go on to Jerusalem? Oh. I hadn’t prepared to go on my own. The ‘German’ in me knew I had no map, no guide book, no itinerary—yikes, and the Hebrew/Arabic language choices. Good grief! But Lilli insisted I make the trip, and so I began the waiting process.

There is waiting to pay the $7.50 exit fee from Jordan, waiting and wondering when the bus will leave, waiting and wondering when you will pass through the guards, waiting and wondering when the van will take you into Jerusalem, and whether I will recognize the name of the school where I am supposed to alight in Jerusalem.

In short, lots of waiting and wondering. I left KA at 11:00 am bound for Jerusalem, and finally got off the van at 4:30. It shouldn’t be so difficult!

Lilli’s incredibly gracious sister Lamees picked me up—I had never met her nor spoken to her—and she dropped me off at the hotel with the promise to meet me and show me around that evening for a little while. She apologized that she couldn’t act exactly as a tour guide—she teaches music full-time, has a husband and two sons ages 2 and 3—she is a little busy!

From the beginning of this trip it is obvious that this is not like other fairly frivolous weekend trips, to Budapest, Istanbul, or the Dead Sea. There is a tension surrounding Jerusalem, suffusing it like a miasma. Just after getting off the bus over the bridge, I went through five—count ‘em, five—separate security checkpoints. I mean, this weekend trip perplexed a few (maybe more than a few) friends and family given the city’s reputation for terror and warfare (although Lilli had pointed out months ago that traffic fatalities in my home towns in the US are more frequent than terror attacks in Jerusalem) and the stigma of having an Israeli stamp on your passport adds to the tension. (The “stamp stigma” hovers over the infamous Israeli stamp and how it bars your entry from, among other places, neighbors Syria and Lebanon.)

So Lamees picks me up after I get off the van from the bridge. I am right there—by the gates of the Old City, by the Damascus Gate, and in the late afternoon with the golden light bleaching the ancient stone buildings, the sound of church bells clanging and the muzzeins calling for the Islamic call to prayer, the smell of spices wafting out of the bazaars, even with the distinct tension in the air, it was also a thrill. The Old City of Jerusalem is a feast for the senses.

Lamees has promised to get together a few times—she keeps apologizing! She has a music concert over which she must preside that evening, and I am invited to the concert, and then, she promises a quick driving tour. I am staying in East Jerusalem, the Arab section of town, and she immediately apologizes that it is not easy staying in the Arab section. But she promises I will get a good sense of the multi-faceted-ness of daily life.

My hotel reminds me of the pensiones I frequented in my youth traveling through Italy. The building has seen better days. The room is, and I am being kind, shabby. But I learn that this hotel holds a special place in the hearts of the Arabs in town—after 1948 and the creation of Israel, it was the only hotel where Arabs could stay and congregate in Jerusalem. I quickly get a sense of what my education will be this weekend.

As an overview of the weekend, I attend the concert on Thursday night, followed by a drive around town (a quick dinner of a sub sandwich from a place called the “Che Guevara Deli”—go figure…). On Friday I take a public bus to Bethlehem, and then spend the evening wandering around within the Old City. On Saturday I find a tour of the Old City, and then Lamees takes me to Ramallah and we spend a few hours there in the afternoon. That evening I roam again in the Old City. On Sunday, I decide to go back a day early—I had grades and comments to finish, but also felt I had gotten enough for this first visit to Jerusalem.

I think this will have to be a two-entry postcard about this trip. While the tension, and my lack of preparation provide the contours of the visit, there is more to explore and analyze about any trip to Jerusalem. It is a bi-polar trip, with one pole reverberating around the tension of checkpoints, the walls of the settlements, the frustrations, and the border crossings (again, the trip to Bethlehem should be like a trip from my dad’s house to my sister’s house—15 minutes-ish—but it becomes an hour journey with guards and guns and inconvenience).

But the other pole is very interesting and necessary to study as well. While the Old City is spectacular to see, and tense to behold, the Old City of Jerusalem is above all, a holy place, containing some of the holiest sites in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It’s also a living city, where families live and work and worship—which takes us back to why it is tense. And spectacular. I will send the next postcard very soon.