Jerusalem Part One

Where to start? I’ve spent 30 years in Berkeley, CA so I don’t make this comment lightly, but Jerusalem is CRAZY! And it didn’t just get crazy in the 60’s as part of the free speech movement, it has been crazy for thousands and thousands of years. It was crazy for the Romans, the Christians, the Moslems, and now the Jews. Thank the “goddess” that I have the good fortune of staying with a wonderfully sane and secular woman who lives within walking distance of the huge Jerusalem Mall, which is built next to a 4000 year old cemetery, as well as Israel’s largest, 20,000 seat Teddy Kollek Soccer Stadium.

These towering apartment complexes dominate the view out of my bedroom window, admittedly they are very gaudy and completely out of context of the
neighborhood, but they do look impressive.

Chagall Windows: I took the bus up to the Hadassah Medical Center which is billed as the largest medical facility in the Middle East. I have no way of knowing if that is true, but it is certainly enormous. If I can be permitted a prideful comment, (and as I have said often in this blog) I get an especially proud feeling whenever I see the money of so many world-wide Jews of the diaspora being used to build a hospital of this magnitude instead of an artificial golf course in the middle of the Arabian Sea. But I digress. Chagall completed his 12 stained glass windows in 1962 and each tells the story of one of the 12 tribes of Israel. During the 1967 war, Jordanian shells struck near the windows breaking 4 of them and when Chagall was told, he responded, “you take care of the war; I’ll take care of the windows”, which he subsequently repaired. As with almost every monument in Jerusalem there are spectacular views of the City and hills.

The Chagall Windows are brightly colorful, especially when the sun hits them, as a reminder of the dangers facing Israel, the goat's head in the bottom window retains the broken frame from the Jordanian rocket attack.

Har Hamenuhot Cemetery: I took another bus off in a different direction to this sprawling cemetery on the western outskirts of the city. Being buried in Jerusalem is a big business and it is even the specialty of a local kibbutz. For as far as the eye can see, there are grave stones, some plain, some with impressive marble coverings, many with candles burning in a little compartment and of course the traditional stones placed on top of the caskets. I was struck by how small the plots were and according to my measurement they were all a standard length of about 5’ 10” long. I wonder what they do with the Jews over 6 feet tall.

Rows and rows of grave stones are siloutted by the Jerusalem hills in the
background.

The Wall: It took me a couple of days before I got to see the full effect of the new “security” wall. Normally, I took the bus to Tel Aviv which does not have to go through any occupied territories, but yesterday we took a short cut to a new town called Modi-in and to get there we had to basically bisect Palestinian territory. For a distance of about 5 miles the road goes through a kind of “tunnel” with the Wall on either side of the highway. It was a weird feeling and of course there are all the issues of the various properties that got cut in half and the difficulty of getting from one side of the road to the other. I was told that before the fence, traveling on this road was usually dangerous and cars were regularly stoned.

Different images of the Wall, in the first video it is only a single continuous
wall, in the second, there are two walls on either side of the highway forming a
tunnel through the occupied territories.

Jerusalem Politics: As I said above, I don’t even know where to start. There is a big mayoral election coming up next month. The current mayor is orthodox, but apparently not terribly nutzy, although he frequently sides with the “ultras” in their numerous, on-going disputes. One of the candidates is a sensible secular guy who might not win. Another candidate who is extremely orthodox recently got out of prison for bribery and corruption, is very popular, but under current law needs a waiver in order to run because his crime involved moral turpitude. Of course, the current prime minister has also been accused of misusing some kind of travel money related to the Holocaust Museum and may also be on his way to jail. A third candidate is a billionaire Russian businessman who has sided with the ultras, but is quickly falling out of favor and there is a fourth candidate who is old, with a long white beard and represents the most right-wing religious sects. I recently heard of a sign that said: “Wake Up Seculars; Jerusalem is the Next Iran.” Clearly there is a feeling among the seculars that the battle for Jerusalem has been lost and it will soon be completely under the control of the ultra-conservative wing of the religious right. “Sarah Palin, we’re not in Tel Aviv any more!”