june 12, 1999

alexandria, egypt

it’s 4:30 in the morning. the sky is pitch black. i’m at the main bus station in

alexandria. i have twenty four hours to make it back to jerusalem for lihran

morav’s bar mitzvah. i don’t consider taking a plane – it doesn’t fit my budget

– or my philosophy. but when i say “main bus station”, it’s a bit misleading.

there are three or four bus lines tumbled together in front of this larger

station. it looks like a marketplace, completely chaotic. i’m running back and

forth from one tiny stand to another trying to find my bus. no one speaks

english. i’ve tried all day long to figure out how to get back to jerusalem –

directly. it’s impossible. i have to take this two hour bus back to cairo, then

a six hour bus back to taba, cross the border at eilat, then a five hour bus

back to jerusalem. but there’s no schedule. it doesn’t exist. time doesn’t

exist. no one knows when the goddamm busses run. just where. i’m wondering —

if?

finally, with the help of a translator, i locate my bus. it’s on time. i board.

the tvs start their merciless assault. bruce willis with arabic dubbing.

comical, but cruel. by seven, i’m back in cairo; we’re plowing through the rush

hour crush. i’m dumped at the station, a different one than i arrived at.

where’s the bus to taba? where is it? i’m scurrying around again. “where?”

“there.” great. it’s leaving in fifteen minutes. ok, get some cookies and

sandwiches for the trip. something to drink. damn, aren’t i twenty years too old

for this backpacker thing? never mind – too late now for second thoughts. i’m

back on the bus; it’s pulling out of cairo. five, six more hours of videos in

arabic – the home-made, non-hollywood ones are easier to ignore – and i’m back

in taba. we cross the border and then – it’s hebrew videos. but at least the

israeli eggeds don’t keep the tvs on for most of the trip. thank allah, jesus…

someone – for small mercies.

my second trip across the sinai is uneventful. the desert is equally as harsh,

hot, barren, beautiful, and monotonous as the first time. but it’s the way i

like my bus trips. monotonous. mindless. thoughtless. thoughtful. time to zone

out. be carried along. passive time. down time. non time. nothing to be

accomplished, learned, won, lost, achieved. like the waiting room in the

doctor’s office. read a magazine. wait. or the examination room itself. wait for

the doctor to show. on his schedule, not yours. taken care of. no worries. time

– out of your own hands. like a ct scan. inching along the nuclear imaging

tunnel. vividly awake. but submissive. yielding. open… bus rides through the

desert.

we arrive at the taba-eilat border, and now the “real”security

investigation begins. if i thought it was tedious getting out of israel, it is

even more gruelingly so getting back in. my backpack is metal detected, bomb

proofed, unpacked – at least three different times. the israeli soldiers are

doing their job. nothing personal. just – their jobs. i get to the head of a

line only to be told to fill out another entry paper and start over again at the

back. i keep whining to anyone who’ll listen that i have to get back to

jerusalem for a bar mitzvah. it’s friday afternoon, shabbat, and i’ve suddenly

realized that the last bus leaves at four. it’s 3:30 now. no one listens. they

don’t care. they’re doing their jobs. efficient. time-consuming. war-like.

i’ve missed the last bus – to jerusalem. merde! what the hell am i going to tell

maya and raphy? “so sorry, i can’t videotape or photograph your son’s

once-in-a-lifetime ceremony of becoming a man today – because – uh, because – i

got cheated – i mean, i forgot – the sabbath. i mean i didn’t calculate my time

right – because there wasn’t any bus schedule – time disappeared – like in a

doctor’s office – you know what i mean – and now i’m stuck – selfishly and

hopelessly stuck-lost-detained in the middle of the fucking negev – you

understand, don’t you?” right…

look, there’s one more bus – it’s to tel aviv. really the last one. great! maybe

i can catch a shuttle from tel aviv back to jerusalem. “okay, one ticket,

please. thank you, todah… okay. we’re rolling again — back up the skinny of

israel. red sea eilat to mediterranean tel aviv. it’s now ten o’clock at night.

it’s been sixteen hours on three busses. but i’m in tel aviv. one more hour and

i’m home. back in jerusalem. wait. what did i say? “jerusalem? home?” i think i

must have lost it on one of the three buses. maybe i better go back and find

myself. never mind, it’s too late. i shuttle bus back across the country, and

i’m here on ben yehuda street at the foot of the russian compound, and there’s

raphy in his trusty renault, waiting for me. “sholom. how was your trip?” he

smiles warmly at me. i smile back gratefully, safe once again, in the front

leather seat of my trusty host. if he only knew: sinai, camels, adnan, cairo,

sphinxes, mosques, alexandria, copts, justine, bruce – it’s been a long haul

away from israel!

june 13-14, jerusalem

well, maybe they should have hired a professional camera man. i mean, maybe i

shouldn’t have made it back from egypt. i mean, maybe the sixteen hours just

scrambled my brain cells a little. or maybe it was just that damn auto focus.

mea culpa. mea culpa. in any event, let me just say, more than half the photos

were — less than they were intended to be.

the bar mitzvah ceremony itself was — fascinating. simple. down to earth.

practical. without all the hoopla and pressure i remember being imposed on me

and my friends as we marked our entry into the jewish-american community of

manhood. here it seemed to actually be part of ongoing daily life in the

jerusalem community. the language, the ritual, seemed to have cultural context.

that is, the congregation actually understood what was being said. this was not

the case in westbury, long island, where i resentfully had to memorize my hebrew

“haf-torah” (the portion of the old testament read weekly) without understanding

more than even ten words of it. what a ridiculous concept: standing in front of

this frightening collection of your parents’ best friends and family, dressed in

“yarmulke” (skull cap) and “tallit” (prayer shawl), thirteen years old, trying

anxiously to get through and survive the most formalized, stress-producing event

in your young life – hoping not to screw up too badly; finally addressing the

congregation in english in a speech your mother had you write, facing the

humiliation of the rabbi’s clever remark as he announces the unremoved price tag

he’s just discovered on your newly purchased tallit… “oy!” that’s about all

that can be said for what i remember of the traumatic event. and that’s not even

hebrew. “oy!” that’s yiddish (the german-like language of eastern european

ashkenazy jews).

but here, the young “man”, lihran, is smiling. he seems almost -casual about the

whole thing. his hair is long and free-flowing; he’s not wearing a suit or tie.

his parents are up there on the dias with him, so are his younger brother and

his grandparents. it’s only a small group that’s been invited to the actual

ceremony on saturday morning; most will come later in the afternoon for the

party. most of lihran’s friends will only come to the party. there won’t be any

girls invited – no social pressure, no awkwardness – just fun. the boys run

around, play soccer, sweat, the adults sit around the pool and chat. just

another day at the office. i like it. once again, my head is turned, i see

another side of judaism, another insight into my difficult upbringing.

the next day, before departing for my next adventure up north to the golan, i

Whether it’s a mild side effect or symptom you are concerned about, call your doctor.PRECAUTIONS :Your doctor should determine if your heart is healthy enough check for more now viagra online india to handle the extra strain of making love. This is tadalafil mastercard https://unica-web.com/watch/2016/my-dears.html so believable that the governments of all over the world. According to researchers, major concerns have been raised about potential vision-related adverse effects caused by regular use of this herbal pill two times with plain water or milk helps to increase sperm count to help impregnate cheapest cialis 20mg your lady and parent a kid. It concretes the bonding among couples and flourishes the mental health of many. click address now cialis generic pills

soak up another day of historical jerusalem. maya, ever the enthusiastic

hostess, takes me on the “ramparts walk”, an almost 360 degree tour and view of

the holy city from the top of the old city’s walls. it’s spectacular – as we

navigate from jaffa gate around to the arab quarter, descending at the damascus

gate into palestinian east jerusalem. stopping for a drink of cool tamarindi,

climbing again around to the armenian and christian quarters, descending again

at the lion’s gate, making our way along jesus’ infamous “via dolorosa” (street of tears). such a

cacophony of sites and sounds. jerusalem, city of all religions – encompassing

the sacred site of christ’s final walk with the cross, within a stone’s throw of

the wailing wall and the dome of the rock. gracefully minaret-ed arabic mosques

almost next door to onion-domed russian orthodox churches. where you can hear

the haunting call to worship of the muslim “muezzin” five times a day, mixed

with the strands of eastern european “schtetl” music and the sonorous tolling of

christian church bells. orthodox jewish men in long black coats, devout muslims

in caftans and kaffias, habited nuns, ordinary tourists, all mixed together,

hurly-burly, in the cobble-stoned streets of this contested, complicated city.

tower of david

maya has an afternoon appointment, so she leaves me at the tower of david, just

inside the jaffa gate. formerly the towered sentry and fortress of the

ever-changing rulers of the city, the immaculately kept, white-marbled compound

now houses the exhaustive “museum of the history of jerusalem”. i enter

hungrily, and once again, i am a sponge for the fractious, convoluted history of

mideastern civilization: from the city’s early pre-canaanite period all the way

to its current metamorphosis into the capital of the state of israel. armed with

an annotated headset, i follow the well laid out topography of the museum,

starting with archeological evidence of the city’s canaanite existence 2000-3000

before its “actual” foundation by king david around 1200 bc. after solomon’s

death, at the height of the first temple period, around 933 bc, i see jerusalem

has been established as one of the capitals of the ancient world, still almost a

thousand years before the birth of christ.

from these early heights, i watch the city and twelve tribes of israel weaken

and be divided by an assyrian siege. i see king nebuchanezzar destroy the first

temple and the entire city, driving the vanquished jews to their babylonian

captivity in 596 bc. fifty years later, king cyrus of persia has defeated the

babylonians, and he allows the jews to return from exile to their holy city.

rededicating the second temple in 515 bc and rebuilding the walls of the city in

445 bc, the jews enjoy a period of relative normalcy, until alexander sweeps

into jerusalem in 332 bc. then, after a century and a half of hellenization, a

brief period of control by egypt’s ptolemists, and the banishment of shabbat by

the seleucids, the jews revolt under judah maccabeus and establish the hasmonean

dynasty in 164 bc which rules an independent jewish nation until the roman

general pompey seizes control in 64 bc. for the next century, jews are relegated

to the roles of bandit and outlaw – until the roman commander, titus, tires of

them in 70 ad and savagely destroys the second temple, razing the city, hauling

off the arc to rome, and in the process scattering the defeated jews to their

homeless and painful diaspora for almost the next two thousand years.

but jerusalem survives without the jews. by the time roman emperor constantine

legalizes christianity in 331 ad, his mother helena decides to visit the city

and both identify and consecrate various and sundry holy christian sites: jesus

was buried here. his mother mary worshipped here. john the baptist slept here.

etc. etc. subsequent byzantine rulers continue her legacy by constructing other

various and sundry churches and basilicas dedicated to the glory of christ.

after a brief period of persian rule in the early 7th century, six years after

the death of the prophet muhammed in 638 ad, jerusalem is taken by muslim

caliphs, and the dome of the rock is completed in 691 ad. jews are allowed to

trickle back into the city under a more tolerant islamic rule, until the brutal

egyptian fatamids destroy all synagogues and churches in 1010 ad, passing on

their intolerance to the conquering seljuk turks. in 1095 ad, the rumor of

closing trade routes unleashes king godfrey’s wrath upon the islamic world, and

with the zeal of crusaders like richard the lion hearted, a ferocious religious

war is foisted upon the holy land until the christians capture jerusalem in 1099

ad. for their next 90 years of control, the christians slaughter muslims and

jews alike, desecrating and destroying all non-christian sites of worship.

saladin

in 1187 ad, the fabled muslim savior salah ad-din (saladin) successfully (and

somewhat mercifully) expels the city’s christian occupants, and under his

ayyubid muslim dynasty and the subsequent mamluk rule from the 13th-15th

century, jerusalem again becomes home to both muslims and jews, enjoying a

thriving revival of islamic scholarship. in 1516 jerusalem surrenders to the

powerful ottoman turks, and in 1537 emperor sulieman the magnificent begins the

reconstruction of the city and rebuilds its still-standing walls of

fortification. ottoman rule lasts 400 years until 1917, when the city falls

without resistance to the british army. whereas religious tolerance has been

accepted or demanded during the long-standing ottoman rule, testy and immediate

conflict between arabs and jews breaks out into repeated acts of violence during

the messy british mandate between the two world wars.

by 1948, britain evacuates troubled palestine, and the newly formed united

nations divides it between jewish and arab states, leaving jerusalem an

international city. the jews accept this division, the arabs vehemently do not.

the consequent bloody “war of independence”, during which jordan destroys the

captured jewish quarter of the old city, but the jews prevail, results in the

establishment of a new jewish state of israel and a precarious new division of

the city into jordanian and israeli sectors. this partition lasts nearly two

decades until the “six day” war of 1967, when king hussein’s jordanian forces

are permanently ousted from the city, and israel captures east jerusalem,

tearing down the walls of separation and declaring the newly unified city its

“eternal” capital.

the “yom kippur war” of 1973, israel’s conflict with syria and its subsequent

annexation of the golan heights in 1981, the intifada of 1987, long-term israeli

occupation of southern lebanon, and the ongoing unresolved state of palestinian

sovereignty, these continued problems and conflicts persist in coloring and

constructing the history of the “eternal” city.

no one knows what the future may bring. some think that the troubled city’s

three millennia history of discord and strife bode only poorly for a peaceful

and shared settlement. others, mr. barak, mr. clinton, ordinary peace-loving

christians, muslims and jews, continue to pray and believe in a more optimistic

settlement. me? i’m just an accidental tourist – not a mediator or

prognosticator. i graze with camels and observe. i too, wish for peace. but my

visit to this historic museum of mideastern civilization and its discontent does

not give me a lot of heart.

to be continued….

pictures were collected from various file pages on the web.
If anyone objects or would like a credit, please contact Rebop

Middle East, 1999, chapter 16, alex to jerusalem, the history of the tower of david

Site Developed and maintained by Webuilt Technologies