Jerusaelem of Gold

The bus passes a sleek modern suspension bridge and we are in the ancient city of Jerusalem. Our first stop is the Haas Promenade, a terrace with a photogenic panorama of the Old City. A question to consider is: do we feel as if we are tourists or as if we belong here?

We continue to the synagogue that one of the Israeli participants belongs to for a talk with Levi, an American-born rabbi, who discusses his reform congregation and how non-orthodox Israelis have to go to Cyprus to get married because only orthodox rabbis are authorized to perform marriages in Israel.

And now for the main event: we stand outside the southern gate of the Old City. We hear the history of who held the city when; we touch the bullet holes in the walls; we dodge the cars squeezing through the narrow entrance built in a time when horses were newfangled.

Everything here is built on top of something else built on top of something else. Down a stone stairway, we see Roman columns and a mosaic map of the city tiled onto the wall empires before the discovery of the “you are here” sticker. Up another stairwell, we are on a rooftop across from the Dome of the Rock hearing the story of the, or rather, the Jewish temples ruined and buried beneath.

After stopping for a bagel [bagela] dipped in special spices [zaatar], we make our way to a terrace overlooking the Western Wall, which we learn is actually a retaining wall from the foundation of the Second Temple as opposed to a wall of the temple itself. Silent, with our eyes closed, we are led by our guide Nirit to the railing. When we open them, it is there, glowing under floodlights and guarded as tightly as an airport.

Many of us report weeping at the wall. The sounds of singing, praying, and souvenir sellers echo across the plaza. On the men’s side, there is a covered region and a spot where you can look down and see all the way to the base of the foundation another thirty feet below the visible part of the wall. On the women’s side it is crowded.

We ride out of the city listening to ירושלים של זהב‎, "Jerusalem of Gold", a song about exile from Jerusalem and the desire to return. Our desitination is Kibbutz Tzuba, where we will spend the next three nights, for dinner and a discussion in preparation for visitng Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial museum, in the morning.