pasha is 100% awesome and i was excited to go to jerusalem with him today, mainly because of his background (he is a pakistani humanist and this seems relevant somehow) and because he is well read in the history of antiquities. i wanted to ask him how he can go and sell software everyday and not want to kill himself, but forgot. i guess that will have to wait till we go to turkey together -- sometime soon, i hope. anyway, on this bus we were grouped with a nice indian family from south africa. the mother worked for el al so any time these people would leave south africa they would have to overnight in tel aviv. the other people on the bus were these two quiet greek folks who wouldnt stop sneezing and coughing. i was right behind them and wanted to decapitate them because of their stupid greek germs. decapitation, though somewhat of an overreaction, would have been effective, and as we will see later on, my instincts were entirely correct.
as we drove from tel aviv to jerusalem i was quiet, watching the terrain turn from fertile valley to slow foothills to legitimate rises in the road that were reminiscent of california. i always have said that israel's geography condenses the geography of california onto a smaller scale. in the north the see of galilee could easy remind you of lake tahoe, while the dead sea and death valley both share a penchant for subterranean elevations. meanwhile haifa hugs the coast and is tech central for israel -- the middle east's version of san francisco.
but i digress... we are rolling towards jerusalem , and i cant help but think back seven years to the time i was in jerusalem last, in a bus full of college kids. between the raging hormones and our familiarity in language, we had a pretty singular experience, and i spent a few minutes looking back on that trip with some nostalgia. making new friends in my age group, talking shit with the bus driver, getting loaded in a neo-socialist setting. not that i'm complaining about today's lineup, but hey, how can you beat kibbutz BJs?
another digression! we rolled into jerusalem, first looking at the city below us from mt scopus. i stopped listening to the ancient history lessons surrounding each point we hit because it was too much to internalize. i just decided i'd read about it later. nonetheless, the city was laid out before us, the dome of the rock shining brightly atop of the temple mount:
I love camels. look at that expression!
then we made our way into the old city, where we wandered around, with the aim of eventually hitting the church of the sepulcher, apparently the site where JC got nailed to the cross. i say apparently, because no one knows, and we are all guessing as to where these events took place, assuming they took place in the first place.
so i'm not totally buying it . also, there are stations every time JC fell, which was like 3 times. i mean, i know times is tough, but thats a lot of falling! i'm sure abraham fell all the time but we don't include that in our tradition. it's a little embarrassing, all this falling. JC is like the gerald ford of millennial prophets -- and that really says little about his foreign policy.
as we made our way through all the stations, we eventually came to the muslim quarter, which is always my favorite. the other quarters are kinda clean, with the occasional sighting of a bumbling cleric from some strange tradition. not in the muslim quarter. you turn the corner and hit the bazaar and hit it hard. people are selling you everything from all sides, including jewelry, posters of palistine, jewish stars, kodak film, and IDF t-shirts. the arab quarter is not interested in irony, or politics for that matter. the arab quarter is full of people who want to make money, preferably off of you. high above the stone walls the muzzin cries from an amplified minaret. no one kneels, no one prays... they just sell , sell , sell.
this video is a bit bloated (and will be fixed), but it does the trick:
we twist and turn our way through the old city, hitting the wailing wall, the western wall of the original temple and the epicenter of jewish orthodoxy. chaos at the wall -- black hatter lubivatchers attacking me from all sides, threating me with tefillin. dozens of boys being bar-mitzvahed (it's bar-mitzvah thursday!) chanting in their broken voices, culminating with a simon tov and a mazel tov. demented false prophets screaming into mid air , arms raised, tzitzit ruffling in all directions. its the jewish rapture, and through this i sneak to the wall, find a deep fissure and insert my little prayer for those i love. i rest my head and hands on the wall, introvert deeply, awaken and step back. i make my way back to our tour group slowly , in a bit of a daze.
this whole scene is followed by a pleasant luncheon. the stock market was discussed.
after lunch we head off to the yad vashem, the massive holocaust museum. i dont know about you, but i am holocausted out. all of my grandparents are survivors and i grew up from a young age hearing about my grandmother's troubles, a 14 year old girl who saw her mother and sister shot before her eyes. and then some of you wonder why i'm so fucking neurotic. a seven year old boy should rather stay away from such stories but they drew me in more deeply. my world view, just forming, was settling on a giant crack which was pulled apart by the forces of good and evil. so i know about the holocaust. when we entered the museum and the old greek looked at me and offered the profound ' you know what they did with many of the jews, they made soap!', i couldnt tell if there was glee at the end of that sentence. i decided to let it go, because this guy was old and english was probably his ninth language. meandering through the museum (i had tried to ditch the greeks but couldnt) we came upon an exhibit on hitler. this greek looks at me and , with suprising aplomb, lets me know 'it wasn't his fault. it was the jews, they had all the money and they wouldnt give it to hitler so he had to kill them all and take it.'
now. fifteen different things ran through my head. i dont want to enumerate them all but the list starts like this.
1. What is this guy doing at yad vashem if this is what he thinks
2. what happens to someone who puts a 75 year old greek dude in a chokehold at the holocaust memorial.
3. is it inappropriate for me to respond with 'hmm, thats interesting coming from someone whos culture is mainly known for taking it in the ass.'
4. can i really engage this guy in a conversation about what he just said, perhaps drawing on some realties from the ground.
5. i cant believe this guy just made me even MORE depressed here.
in the end i gave him a dirty look, did not answer him and simply walked off. i can tell they were a bit dependent on us, not wanting to lose themselves from teh group. the dude kept following me, so i retaliated in the only way i knew how -- violent gas. thats right, i think i've eaten 5lbs of chick peas each day i've been here, so you can imagine what my lower GI was doing. i paced ahead of this fuck, gassing him, WWI style. finally i was relieved, so i ducked away in a small exhibit where they showed emaciated jews playing violins. none of this was helping but eventually the greeks were off my six and i re-paced myself through the museum. eventually i came upon a photo of a nazi, gun cocked and aimed at a woman holding her child and i decided that was enough. i zigzagged through the museum and emerged to the sight of the jerusalem hills -- a rolling, lush respite for the brutality behind me:
so basically, i'm over the holocaust, but im not sure it's over me. i chain smoked my way back to the bus, avoided eye contact with anyone, and made my way back to the hotel.
tomorrow i go to tel-aviv, which is where israelis go to eat, drink, and try to live normal lives. 4 nights there should help me some. and so help me god, if i see those greeks again, i may find other ways of relieving myself ...
till then!!
