To the Holy Land

October 2nd 2023

We're in Jerusalem.

But what is Jerusalem, you might ask. To me, Jerusalem is a city of lines drawn in the sand long ago, and defended at any cost. It is also a city that bursts at the seams with religion, to a degree that it will make you dizzy if you stay too long.
Let me take you along for the ride...
We start our day in the old town, specifically the Christian quarter, because of course this place is neatly divided into Jewish, Muslim, and Christian quarters. We follow the path Jesus carried the cross (which, apparently, some Christians have taken to LARP here?) to the Austrian Pilgrim Hospice, where some Austrian guy is answering the phone in thick dialect — and presumably has been for the last 160 years. They serve apple strudel and goulash soup, naturally.
We continue to the church of the holy sepulchre, which houses the tomb of christ — this is obviously a big deal for the various Christian confessions, which fought tooth and nail over who gets the best spot in the sprawling church complex. In fact, they fought so much that they had to get a Muslim family to come in and lock the doors every night for the past couple hundred years. And still, they each keep representatives sleeping in the church each night to make sure no one gets up to any funny business.

The church itself is a fascinating mosaic/labyrinth of various architectural styles from all eras and regions. You can also, apparently, bless your iPhone here by putting it on a wet rock.
There's a dissonance to this city, from the air-con unit mounted just above some ancient sacred relic to the hall of the last supper, which is just an empty room with a bored security guard, lit by LED lights that are set to the blink setting for some reason. There's a hut on the roof where some people celebrate a holiday, blasting Jewish pop.
And once you leave the Christian quarters, you get to the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, where things get really complicated. The Western Wall is as close as religious Jews can 'safely' get to the site of the Second Temple without the risk of stepping on a sacred spot of unknown location within what used to be the grounds of the Second Temple on the mount. The mount itself now houses a mosque that is the third most important site in Islam, and access to the area is restricted to Muslims only outside of very narrow visiting hours. As so often in Jerusalem, this is enforced at gunpoint.
And while there are big signs warning Jews that it is forbidden under Torah law to enter the area, some of them decide that they don't care, actually, and take tours of the mount to assert dominance, I guess. We see a bunch of them walking around, just skirting the end of the visiting hours, escorted in a bubble of 16 heavily armed Israeli police. Maybe 20-30 additional police hang out around the entrance of the site.
Dizzy yet? Don't worry. If you blur your vision just a bit, you can wander through the narrow streets of the old town, explore busy busy markets, enjoy fresh pomegranate juice and hummus. Or take a walk through the quarter of the ultra-orthodox Jews — it feels a bit like time travel, with everyone dressed in 1950s formal-wear.

There's also an enormous holocaust museum and memorial complex, and while fun certainly isn't the right word to describe it, it's an experience for sure.

I'm not sure what to make of it, but it's a wild ride, this city.