Special Notice: Tomorrow, Tuesday April 7, your humble servant will be in transit from Israel to the United States. israelstreet will return on Wednesday, 9 am PST.
UPDATES
9 am Israel time, Monday, April 6 2015
**The joke of the day comes from an interview published yesterday that President Obama gave to Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. In it, Obama declared:
“What we will be doing even as we enter this deal, is sending a clear message to the Iranians and to the entire region that if anyone messes with Israel, America will be there.”
Hahahahahahahahahaha! Sure thing Barack. Just like you were “there” for us last summer during the war with Hamas when you cut off armament shipments to Israel.
Your humble servant is simply amazed that Obama might think that someone in Israel believes him. Well there probably are three people: Shimon Peres, Isaac Herzog, and Tzipi Livni. Certainly no one else.
TODAY’S BLOG:
It was a glorious day in Jerusalem yesterday.
The second day of the Passover holiday mixed with the celebration of Easter brought more than 100,000 people into the city from Israel and abroad. The Old City was particularly packed as Jews and Christians streamed down through the Muslim and Jewish Quarters to the Kotel (Western Wall).
Your humble servant, wife, and two of our friends started our journey walking down from the City light rail train stop to the Jaffa Gate. Along the way, we talked with a charming Christian couple from the United States (Colorado and California) who are in the process of moving to Tel Aviv. I told them a little about the history of the Old City wall and how the two architects of the wall are supposedly buried just inside the Jaffa Gate. Once inside the Old City, we parted ways as they headed toward the Zion Gate and the building that houses both King David’s tomb and the room of the Last Supper (on the first and second floors, respectively).
Then we started to weave our way downwards through the labyrinthine maze of the Muslim Quarter along with thousands of other people packed into its narrow corridors. Coming up from the Kotel were hundreds of Egyptian Coptic Christians, the men wearing long gray robes and the women dressed in white with white scarves and turbans on their heads.
A group of Egyptian Coptic Christian women yesterday at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
The air was full of the languages of the world; we heard Spanish, Swahili, German, Norwegian, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic and many others.
Along the way we stopped and shopped at some of our favorite jewelry and t-shirt stores/stalls for gifts to take back to California with us. We’ve been to some of these places so many times that we are on a first name basis with their Muslim owners. Of course, there was the usual and wonderful marketplace atmosphere with tourists paying tourist prices, and locals getting reduced prices after haggling over a couple of shekels here and there. After an hour of this, my favorite freshly squeezed lemonade and nana (mint) tasted marvelous.
Finally, we made it to the Kotel which is always a magical experience. On the men’s side, groups of orthodox Jews were melodically chanting passages from the Torah. People crowded toward the Wall, eager to touch its worn stones, say a prayer, and insert a note into its centuries old crevices. From the other side of the divider, you could hear the women immersed in prayer.
Once back in the plaza, we encountered numerous tour groups: florally dressed Nigerians, discreetly veiled Russians, and many Israelis.
A group of Nigerians at the Kotel.
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We slowly made our way out of the Dung Gate and walked down the road a short distance to Ir David (the City of David), a sprawling archaeological site at the site of the original Jerusalem where King David built his palace. Underneath the complex, winding stone stairways take you deep underground to Hezekiah’s Tunnel. However, we didn’t take the long walk down yesterday, but instead, skirted the edge of the entire “City” toward the Pool of Shiloach, with Silwan to the left across Wadi Kidron. Along the way we followed a Portuguese tour guide leading a group of boisterous Brazilians.
It was particularly heartening to see that Jews are moving back into Silwan–particularly in the area of the old Yemenite Jewish village from which all Jews were thrown out during the Arab pogroms of the 1930s. How does one know which houses on the hillside are Jewish homes? Israeli flags fly proudly above them.
After an hour in Ir David, we headed back up the hill to the Dung Gate outside of which I was intrigued to meet a large contingent of Chinese women who were singing and dancing in a distinctly spiritual way. They told me that they were from Dahlian, and when I asked them why they were in Jerusalem, two of them immediately and joyously responded: “Because it is Passover!”
We then climbed the steps into the Jewish Quarter, and stopped at my favorite place for shwarma “The Courtyard”. The Courtyard is kosher mehadrine (glatt kosher), so the baguette holding the shwarma was made with potatoes (no leavened bread during the Passover), and there was no humus or tehina (Ashkenazi Jews do not eat legumes on the holiday). What was amazing as we sat eating, was the sea of orthodox Jewish families that enveloped us–with as many as 16 children per family. Even extremely young couples that looked no older than 18 or 19 years old already had two or three children.
From The Courtyard, we proceeded up toward Tiferet Street and then turned toward the Cardo walking through history every step of the way. Of particular interest was the remains of the wall constructed by Nehemiah when he returned from exile in Babylon. Then it was back up to the Jaffa Gate, and we were on our way home to Ashdod.
There is no city like Jerusalem in the world. Yesterday was particularly exhilarating as Israel’s eternal capital shone with its unique radiance.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.