Trip for Eid al Fatir

Laurent, Me, Jean Louis, and Mario in a Jerusalem resturant
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Day 1

Jean Louis, Mario, Laurent, and Gail picked me up from the job site at 5pm and we headed toward the King Hussein border crossing. Upon arrival the border guards told us that the bridge closes at 3pm and there is another border crossing to the north about an hour and a half away. After some debating we decided to continue the adventure and head north. We reached the border around 7pm. As we were leaving the Jordan side of the border I asked the guard not to stamp my passport and he kindly stamped it for me. This insures me that I can now only travel in Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. After taking a 2-minute bus ride to the Israel border control we arrived at a very modern complex with all of the technology and security of a nuclear power plant. In contrast to the old, smoke clouded, ironically happy go lucky Jordanian border guards, the Israeli border guards were 20 year old, blue-eyed, blond haired Barbies. They were sassy and authoritative, surely iconic figures to the fully covered housewives of the lower class Jordanian families. Continuing with the contrasts, the Israeli border’s authoritative presence was enough to make even the most hard lined Arab conform the organized and clean mannerisms of a western country. I cannot, for the life of me, explain why Arabs feel the need to smoke in areas clearly marked as non-smoking, or why at a traffic light they would rather squeeze into a tight space between two cars (clearly not a lane) only to slow the start because of the need to re-merge into the lane.

While all of the biblical history was fascinating to see, for me, the current issues of the crisis in Palestine were much more relevant and important.

Me and some random Rabbi that was collecting money at the Western Wall
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*Note I am not making any racist statement towards the Arab culture. These are simply facts that are sharply contrasted when juxtaposed to the Israeli way of life.

To get back on track, after a rather pleasant experience at the border we grabbed a cab and headed for Jerusalem. A trip that our driver must have thought we were on some type of time schedule where we needed to make the 2.5 hour trip in 1.5 hours. I’ll let you guess where he was from. The driver suggested that we stay in the Notre Dame hotel. This turned out to be a great location for walking into the old city and the new city. After a nice meal, we called it a day.

Dome of the rock and the Western Wall
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Day2

After a good nights rest we headed out to the old city with our maps (only useful for finding the major sights). We started by going straight to the western wall of the Mount Temple (Wailing Wall). We put on our Jewish hats and headed up for a closer look at the wall. The one thing that I found particularly interesting was the Jewish ceremonies and rituals. I really realized that I knew almost nothing about the Judaism. Everyone had prayer boxes wrapped around their heads and arms with black leather. Apparently there is a verse in the Old Testament that says keep the word of god written on you always. Perhaps someone forgot to tell them that it didn’t need to be interpreted so literally. After the Western Wall we followed the way of the cross or “via dolorosa” the street of the sad rose. It was so amazing to know that so much history had taken place in the very place that I was standing. Other notable sites worth mentioning are Jesus’ prison and Jesus’ tomb. The rest of the day was spent wondering through the new city and shopping.

The Israeli wall at Bethlehem
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Side note:

It is evidently clear from just spending a few days in Israel that the new citizens of this country are not from this area, they have nothing in common with the culture of this area other than the fact that they are converts to Judaism. I know that this problem is very deep seeded and has many avenues to explore, but the allied forces could have made much better decisions about how to split up countries and who was allowed to immigrate back in.

Day3

Today we visited Bethlehem, Hebron, and Sheppard’s Field. While all of the biblical history was fascinating to see, for me, the current issues of the crisis in Palestine were much more relevant and important. We hopped on the bus just outside of the old city in Jerusalem and for a few shekels were off to Bethlehem. We immediately were stopped my the Jewish army to check passports, they were obviously looking for Palestinians that were illegally traveling. We arrived to see a beautiful ancient city right? Wrong, what we saw was a 10-foot high wall with barbed wire fencing at the top and frequent military towers. It had all of the resemblance of a state penitentiary. And who were the prisoners? Palestinians. Since the election of Hammas the Israelis are building a wall to separate the two states. The Israelis control everything (water, electricity, food, supplies) that goes in or out of these areas. There is no money left since our (western) governments and Israel have stopped the aid money that paid salaries of government workers. Everything is shut down, no schools, no government workers, very limited tourism and a very difficult life. However, there is a strong bond between the Muslims and Christians in this area since they are in the same situation. It’s amazing to see this in person and talk to the people living there. I really didn’t get exposure and can only talk about what I saw and heard from our taxi driver. I don’t want to get into my personal opinion about the situation but to give westerners a view into what you may not see on the nightly news.

After a little more shopping in Jerusalem we started the drive back to the northern border crossing. On the drive home we all reflected on the trip and discussed how great it was. This is a must do if you are in the Middle East. Also, if you need any mass consumerism products that are impossible to find in Arab countries (excluding the Emirates), Israel is the place to go.