2014 Postcard from Jerusalem

 

 

About six weeks ago, my dear colleague Irene suggested to me, “Why don’t we go to Jerusalem for Palm Sunday?!” I had been to Jerusalem once before—March of 2009, and one can look back to the blog entries of that month and find four separate blog entries about that trip—but given that the time at the border is so long and often frustrating, I had not made the effort to return yet to Jerusalem. But given the idea of joining a procession on Palm Sunday with one of my favorite colleagues ever, I jumped at the chance.

 

So 10 days ago, Irene and her husband Tom and I left early in the morning for the border crossing. Now, as the crow flies, Jerusalem is probably about 50 miles away, but given the Israeli-Palestinian tensions, it takes a long time to get there. Just so you know: from my doorstep to the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, that Friday morning trip took six hours! And it is not a cheap trip, although given that one doesn’t fly there, it feels as if it should cost just a little bit. Given the taxis to and from the borders, the busses across, the exit fees to both countries, it mounts to almost $200 round-trip to make this little trip just 50 miles away beyond the hills where Abraham and David roamed.

 

But the trip was glorious—although there were setbacks at every stop it seemed. One should avoid Fridays and Saturdays in traveling to Jerusalem since there are closings or delays due to the Sabbath. Some things close early, some restaurants not available for 48 hours, sometimes a line going in all-of-a-sudden closes…that’s just the nature of touring Jerusalem. As stated, the trip was glorious—in part because of the beautiful spring weather, in part because of the company of good friends that ensure long, leisurely meals with laughter and good food, in part because of the tremendous historical burden of Jerusalem itself, and in part because of visiting religious sites at the time of Holy Week. Irene and Tom like to travel exactly as I do—up early, good breakfast, running around town enjoying the physical delights of the hills, savoring the moments, peeking around old, old, old spots, wondering about the various eras of Jerusalem history…

 

Oh, the history of Jerusalem! Walking through the four quarters of Jerusalem (Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Armenian) one cannot help but get swept up in the religious fervor and dynamism of this city. To millions of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, this city is an omphalos (a cool Greek word I teach my students that means the navel, the very center of it all!) where Solomon reigned in all his glory, where Jesus taught and performed miracles, and where Muhammad visited during a miraculous night journey. While this is a tourist haven, it is just so much deeper than any place I think I have been. Roaming around the ramparts of Jerusalem on a beautiful Saturday afternoon with Irene and Tom, one cannot help but wax philosophical about this omphalos.

 

On Saturday morning we visited the magnificent Tower of David Museum, built right into Saladin’s 15^th century citadel. This is one of those museums that helps put everything in perspective, and shake up everything you think you know about a place! We spent a couple hours as the audioguide took us from exhibit to exhibit, noting the changes and upheavals over the centuries to Jerusalem. The creators of the audioguide often included several of the curators arguing in the audioguide over what Jerusalem has meant over time, and the discussions and tensions over how to convey and display the history of Jerusalem. The structure of the citadel itself allows for breath-taking 360-degree views of the city and environs and the audioguide carefully allowed you to take in the sweep of the majesty of this city. Right below the entrance is the Jaffa Gate. Just a little bit of history allows a deeper understanding of the city: a breach in the city walls beside Jaffa Gate was made for the visit of Kaiser Wilhelm II and his entourage in 1898. It was in that same space that General Allenby, leader of the British forces, entered Jerusalem in 1917, liberating Palestine from Ottoman rule. Every degree of the 360-view held such historical forces as you slowly spun around the history of the ages. Again, the historian in me just cries out!

Jerusalem is the house of one God, the capital of two peoples, the temple of three religions, and she is the only city to exist twice—in heaven and on earth: the terrestrial and the celestial. Wow. Prophets and patriarchs, Abraham, David, Jesus and Muhammad are said to have trod these stones (although you and I both know that modern-day Jerusalem is probably 40-50 feet above the city’s roads of 2000 years ago). Over the centuries—wow, millennia, Jews and Christians and Muslims have conquered and altered her history. When the Bible was translated into Greek and then Latin and then English, it became the universal book, and it made Jerusalem the universal city. Every great king became a David, every special people were the new Israelites and every noble civilization a new Jerusalem, a city that belongs to no one and exists for everyone in their imagination. I guess this is the city’s tragedy as well as her magic: every dreamer of Jerusalem, every visitor in all ages from Jesus’ Apostles to Saladin’s soldiers, from Victorian pilgrims to 21^st century tourists and journalists, arrives with a vision of the authentic Jerusalem and then seems bitterly disappointed by what they find, an ever-changing city that has thrived and shrunk, been re-built and destroyed many times. But since this is Jerusalem, property of all, only their image is the right one—everyone wants the right to impose their ‘Jerusalem’ on Jerusalem—and with sword and fire, they often have.

 

Jerusalem is a spine of world history—it has been for millennia, and continues to be. But much more than the newsworthy political force, I witnessed again that it is far more about the nature of holiness. The phrase ‘Holy City’ is constantly used to describe the reverence for her shrines, but beyond the remnants of these physical places, it is really the essential place on earth for communication between God and man. I teach my students the root of ‘religion,’ early in the year in AP Art History, and the root is, ‘religio,’ which means, to bind together, and oh my—and that concept of groups bound together  is never more evident anywhere else on earth than in this city. You see it in every quarter of the Old City. A colleague of mine, claiming to be atheistic, said she is rather “repelled” by this holiness, seeing it as superstition in a city rife with “righteous bigotry.” But our profound human need for religion, at least by many, many global citizens, makes it possible to begin to understand Jerusalem. It is not Tel Aviv, a cosmopolitan beach town on the Mediterranean—it is the meeting place of God and Humanity, and where, according to many, the questions of the Apocalypse will be settled: the End of Days, where there will be a war between Christ and anti-Christ, when the Kaaba will come from Mecca to Jerusalem, when there will be judgment, resurrection of the dead, and the reign of the Messiah, and the Kingdom of Heaven, the New Jerusalem. All three Abrahamic religions believe in the Apocalypse, but the details vary by faith and sect. Secularists dismiss all this as quaint and old-fashioned, but on the contrary, go to Jerusalem and it is obvious the Apocalypse is a dynamic force in that world’s politics.

 

The sanctity of the city grew out of the “Chosen People” exceptionalism of the Jews. Jerusalem became the Chosen City, Palestine the Chosen Land, and subsequently, Christian and Muslims inherited and embraced this exceptionalism. And of course the “obsession” of Jews and Muslims to control Jerusalem means that in very real 21^st century terms—Jerusalem is also the essence of, and the obstacle to a peace deal.

 

In the last 20 years or so, the glib manifestation of the media as “Jerusalem: Holy City sacred to three religions and 24-hour news show” is never as simple as we try and make it out to be. Canaan, Judah, Judaea, Israel, Palaestina, Bilad al-Shams, Palestine, Greater Syria, the Holy Land, are just some of the names, used to describe this country, with varying borders. One volunteer in a museum told me there are said to be 70 names for Jerusalem. There are multiple names for each temple or house of worship. Every street has at least three names. But that also shows the continuity and co-existence of peoples in the four quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem. It is a hybrid town with layers of overlapping, interlinked cultures. I have seen no other place that evokes such a desire for exclusive possession, but it is rather ironic, since most of Jerusalem’s shrines have been borrowed or stolen. Virtually every stone once stood in the long-forgotten temple of another faith, the victory arch of another empire. In Jerusalem, the truth is often much less important than the myth. “In Jerusalem, don’t ask me for the history of facts,” says the eminent Palestinian historian Dr. Nazmi al-Jubeh. “Take away the fiction and there’s nothing left.”

Uh-oh…the historian in me took over the blog entry! I had planned to tell you about our weekend…instead, as it always does, Jerusalem cannot be contained in a single blog entry or perspective. While I do not think it will be four entries like in 2009, I will have to send another postcard of the actual Palm Sunday Procession—the reason I started the blog entry to begin with…

 

To be continued…