Adventures with Arabs in Jerusalem and a day trip to Beit Sha’an

By Dnoll

Recently, while in the Old City of Jerusalem for Rosh Hashanah, I entered the twilight zone of the Arab Quarter. I hadn’t been that deep into the bowels of the shopping streets since I was there 3 years ago and tried to navigate to some crazy destination into a current of Arabs that were heading in the opposite direction. We hung to the side of the streets to avoid the onslaught of people galloping to the Temple Mount for some kind of demonstration and at one point, a middle aged woman came up to me and grabbed my arm. She put her face inches from mine as she yelled at me in Arabic for what seemed like a long time, until some other Arab guy grabbed her and they both melded back into the river of kafia and bourkah covered heads.

This latest excursion started with a mad dash down the twisting stairs from the clean and festive alleyways of the Jewish Quarter and into the melee of vendors, tourists, and Arab revelers. You see it was a celebration for the end of Ramadan, their High Holy Days, and the Arabs were out in mass. We headed down the familiar street of King David and stopped to ask a soldier if we could head into the Arab Quarter to get to Shar Shchem (Damascus Gate). We needed to get to the other side of the Shuk to pick up my Nephew for the meal that was about to start and didn’t really have time to wander all the way around and through the Jaffa Gate as we usually did. The soldier was kind enough to tell us the way and we left the hubbub of the shopping district and into a very quiet and spookily empty road in the desired direction.

I guess to be consistent with regards to chronology; I should back up to the first day of Rosh Hashanah when we walked down through the village of Silwan in the Kidron valley to get to the Gihon Spring to do Tashlich. This is where Hezekiah dug a tunnel to secure a safe water source in the 7th Century B.C. We didn’t go through the tunnel, though it felt a lot like a gauntlet the way we were all directed down this really steep street. Both sides of the street had Arab houses and little businesses with lots of onlookers poking out through the windows. It felt like Egypt or Jordan accept that we were a parade of Jews trudging down the street. I guess it could have been from the Purim Megillah if we imagined hard enough.

We made it to the Siloan Pool at the bottom and witnessed a truly amazing site. There were Jews of every type praying at the tiniest of openings to living water coming from the spring under Mount Mariah (where the Temple was built). There was a Mikveh (ritual bath) under the mountain as well. There is a tour that can be taken through the tunnel dug by Hezekiah and one of these days I need to get over my claustrophobia so I can do it. Actually this year it turned out that this is to be one of my New Years resolutions (to both get over claustrophobia and tour Hezekiah’s tunnel). Check this site for a really cool virtual tour of the whole area: http://www.cityofdavid.org.il/hp_eng.asp

So the way back was not as interesting; however we did almost get creamed by a few really scary looking Arabs. They looked like they were in a convoy for some Hamas terrorist leader and came speeding down this really steep hill so fast that I wouldn’t have had time to get out of the way if I had been in the street like a few moments before. They whizzed by me and I was able to see into the windows of two of the cars. I was glad that I didn’t have to interact any more then watching them go by at about 30 miles an hour an inch or two from my face.

So, back to my current jaunt down through the Arab Quarter in Jerusalem. As we progressed, the crowd became thicker and more threatening. We walked as fast as we could and had to thrust our way through a few crowded spots. As we got closer to the unseen gate, the energy became more frenetic and the air became steadily darker. A few times I wondered about getting stabbed in the side or something and was glad to see the light stream in from the gate as we rounded the last turn. We muscled our way through the throngs of revelers and as we exited into the light and air, I saw a young Arab man on a chair yelling to his friends. He was waving his hands and I just caught his eye as I passed and then I looked down at the cobbled street and made for the stairs leading up and out of the mass of Arabs outside the gate. Then I noticed something strange as it bounced and rolled ahead of me a couple of feet. I had no time to think of what it was or could be when the Arab on the chair jumped down and chased it through the crowd right ahead of me. He grabbed it and looked at me with a faltering smile as he held what he had collected up for his friends to see, held it out close enough for me to see that it was a tooth, and then shoved it back into the opening that it fell out of inside his mouth.

That was some of my Rosh Hashanah experience this year in Jerusalem and I am working on another blog now about my Yom Kippur experience in Zichron Yaacov so I will just move right on to Sukkot. Because of the spirit of this blog I am going to skip all the details of the services and move right into my trip today. We went to Beit Sha’an which is built on the ruin of the ancient Hellenistic city of the same name.

This is the place where the Mishnah was written. The Mishnah was written down because 2,000 years ago, Yehudah Ha’Nasi saw that the Oral Torah was being lost and would cease to exist if the Romans had their way. This would cause Judaism to eventually become so marginalized that it would also eventually cease to exist. The Oral Torah was never meant to be written down and he took a big chance in doing so and this being the case, he kept everything in cryptic text that was only meant to stimulate the memory of future Jews as far as the 613 Mitzvote (Commandments). What, you thought there were only 10? That is because many of our great or great, great grandparents forgot to teach their children… or so goes the theory.

Now we have the Gomorrah and a lot more as well to indulge our Torah thirst. So, I had a lot of fun today with Adele wondering around the ruins and it was just a lot of fun to do something different. I included a picture above of Beit Sha’an. Hope all your holidays have been great and don’t forget to spend as much time as you can in your Sukka’s this year!

Shana Tova le kulam!

Popular posts from this blog

Raining Frogs, Mini Earth, and the Downhill Sesh

By Dnoll
Image
And the storm raged on… here in the Holy Land recently, lasting for about 3 days and flattening anything that was mildly at rust or untended, trees, buildings, signs, and cliff faces collapsed or just plain disappeared. Flash flood warnings in the Negev desert were in high effect and we all buttoned up our houses with whatever we had on tap. The fires that had just swept through the north were still smoldering and the ash of the ruin of many people’s entire lives hadn’t even begun to settle; all of this, and yet... we were happy —  the rain was finally coming. The crispy ground covering the Holy Land has been parched for years from a severe draught. The Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), where much of our water comes from, has been going down, down, down, and is in its 7th year of decent; it is now 85 cm. above the ‘black line,’ the line that we dread. The black line is below the lowest ‘red line,’ which we passed a while ago. Sinking below the black line means that we will not only n...
Read more

From Pickles to Bubble Gum

By
Image
  I fell for it again today, the inevitable trap set for unwary teachers at the high school where I’m ever so slowly becoming an educator, and along the way developing some great relationships with the next generation of young Israeli leaders. This year had been a tough one, having met with my students for only a short period of time before we left for the holidays, and subsequently unable to return. By the end of Sukkot, we had all wrapped up a wonderful holiday season with family and friends, eaten and drunken far too much, and were ready for one more day of rest before the start of the real teaching season began, Sunday morning, October 8. Then, school was cancelled. It was far too dangerous, you see, to send kids out into our world. It was far too horrible to even comprehend what had happened. Each of us went into reaction mode, protecting our families, our neighborhoods, ourselves and each other, listening for the latest news, preparing for the worst, both mentally and physica...
Read more

Gan Eden

By
Image
We don’t exist in one time, we exist in all the times. Branching occurs naturally and we ride them all, encompassing each moment. We must only become aware of the path to arrive at perfection.  
Read more

Am Israel Khai / עם ישראל חי

By
Image
  My Dad - He was the tallest man I knew of, not only physically, but mentally and spiritually. It wasn’t always very easy to talk with him, but when we did, and when I needed him, he was there for me completely, without any hesitation. He loved the garden, loved his wife, loved his children, and he loved his work. He was an urban planner that conceptualized a perfect society and implemented his and other’s ideas to build environments to sustain a perfect population of residents. And it worked, right up until the time when his job ended, 10 years before his forced retirement … due to corporate takeover. The American dream, of building from scratch a perfect world, a society that worked together for the needs of all its members, became sullied. Fear of not having enough and greed began to shake my father’s foundation of hard work and faith. My father grew up in a working class family, his birth father having left him and his mother when my father was only five years old. His stepf...
Read more

Praying towards the West

By
Image
Living on the edge between land and sea, in the State of California in the USA, was all I had ever known when I met my Basherit, the love of my life. We met for the first time in the doorway to our future home, the sun directly behind me as the portal opened to reveal the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. My head began to bobble, I noticed, unconsciously as if I were from far away, in the east, in India. The shadow I had cast allowed her to see me without squinting in the low-lying sun, as it made its way across our bright blue sky. She bobbled her head in return, saying later that the peculiar action was to maintain the effect of a halo around my head. But, we both understand only now that it was actually to preserve the vision of another world. Unknown to either of us at the time, we stood at the entrance to a portal, one which offered us a vision into the world to come. Living in the West, both of the continental United States and in the greater world, we had been raised stric...
Read more

Choosing Your Lot

By
Image
  Purim, Oct. 7, and Our Next Generation  -   I grew up in a world where I could be anything I wanted, back in Southern California, in the 70s and 80s. I had the freedom to explore what life might offer, and my parents encouraged me to play and to learn. I needed a foundation and chores, mind you, but a musical instrument was essential to grow up in the human world. I was encouraged to dress for success, too. My parents tried anything they could to give me the tools they thought I would need in life. I liked art, they noticed, so my parents introduced me to a commercial artist to learn the ropes. After a year of piano lessons with Mr. Stytska playing “On Top of Spaghetti,” I quit. From a lack of social graces, I was forced to dance with a broom at cotillion (etiquette classes for middle-school aged children), so I quit. I had my own plans, you see, which needed forming ASAP if I was to prove my worthiness to my own ego first, then others around me, and only then to...
Read more

The Voice from In-between

By Dnoll
Image
The Collector Crazy… I am really feeling the time warp these days… I can’t believe it took me 6 years to get back to me, to my roots, to the ‘reason’ I now find myself in the Middle East. Yes, it is all connected. You see, when I was young, I realized that I was meant to explore the inner-space that rides the waves caused by physical space. It’s a kind of spiritual plain of existence that most just shrug-off as metaphysics or some such nonsense.  Haw… even I do it sometimes; you know, when reality just cakes up around the edges of your vision to the point that you just give in to the momentum of it all…? Crazy… Wow… I am in an art exhibition. I have never pushed the whole art front too much, always finding other ways to make a living; hence my endeavors with woodworking, writing, marcom & web design, and other assorted handyman-type sidetracks... To be honest with myself, I always wanted to move to New York, live in a loft, and paint while high on whatever drug sui...
Read more

Seed

By
Image
There’s a knowing left under the world that reminds me of me. I think it sometimes, this knowing, but it leaves soon thereafter, spitting nonsense into my memory of it being. The life it left always tilts my reservoir of love but never touches my lips up, never begs to begin. I sing, I dance, slamming it out unseen, but always tasting the wishing in which it began ~ image:  Etrog in Space, 10-2016  
Read more

Paper Plane

By
Image
The glee in her eyes told the story from the beginning to its end. Well, except the part where we all jumped into the air screaming… My young student stood at the back corner of the room, eyebrows pursed in concentration. She inched her way forward, begging my attention, with a paper plane she had folded; also begging… So, I agreed. She could throw it in one direction only, towards the garbage can in the opposite corner. She grinned before our lesson, and I knew she would try it. I breathed in as it flew, around one student, then another. It arced to and fro, ascending then dropping down, but (no way) just enough. Then it swooped up, stalled, and came down … exactly into the corner alcove… It landed perfectly into the trashcan that I had asked for, a hole in one. We all screamed as we jumped from our seats, TWO POINTS! And then our lesson began.
Read more

Conical Time

By
Image
The dirt at my feet swirled as I drove my favorite matchbox-car through it. My lap was open with my legs encompassing the hole I’d dug. I was living, and couldn’t stop. I had to do a number two, but shifted my heel to plug the eruption from ever occurring… ever. My lap and the hole I’d dug begged my attention with every moment occurring, and I drove and dug and drove again as my life unfolded. I was living, and the world around me sped forward, but never even registered into the realm I inhabited. I had stopped, and I was living. My friends went to accost pedophiles in the park, and I went along. We were in high school, young and tender beings. We wanted to live, we wanted something to happen. My Italian friend’s little brother did the deed, plunging into deep cover, sitting wantonly on a bench. We were all developed, being California surfers, so it was easy to see how perverts could bridge between ‘adult’ and a mere child. I watched as the mark put his arm around the kid, whispering s...
Read more