Two Jerusalems

(Undated, likely fall of 2004)

…but from which part of Jerusalem?  Every day I witness the different Jerusalems that exist here in this one place, cozied together, pressed onto and into this hilly bit of rock and desert which itself is pressed into a New Jersey-sized hunk of rock and desert along the Mediterranean.  I’m sitting here now in what I fondly call Hebrew Land, a complete and thoroughly Israeli Jewish middle to upper middle class neighborhood about 10 to 15 minutes west of the Old City.  I’ll tell you more about it later.  For now I want to recount a shopping trip I made a couple of hours ago to (dramatic, slightly ominous fanfare: Dah, Dah, Dah, Daaah!), East Jerusalem.  This part of town, the Palestinian (actually called Arab) side is the portion of Jerusalem that was in the nation of Jordan (along with the West Bank) until the war in 1967 which ended with Israel occupying both the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Living in an Ancient Place

I wasn’t looking for an interesting cultural experience but they’re hard to avoid here.  I needed to pick up cough medicine for Katie and since today was a holiday (Succot) the West side was almost entirely closed except for a few gas stations and convenience stores.  Knowing I could get some on the Muslim East side where they were not celebrating the Jewish holiday, I drove to my office, also in East Jerusalem, where I knew I’d find a place to park.

How convenient these two halves of a city where I, a foreigner and Christian, can get almost whatever I need every day of the week.  On Jewish holidays and the Sabbath (Saturday) when the West is closed I can go East.  And on Sunday when in the U.S. many things are closed (banks, doctors, etc.) everything in West and East is open since Sunday is the first day of the Israeli work week.  I mentioned that East Jerusalem is the Palestinian side of town.  I’m not sure what images come to your mind when I say Palestinian; maybe some of the same ones I had before I arrived: an angry, sunglasses wearing Yasser Arafat, hooded terrorists, stone throwing youth and suicide bombers. Those are all here, I suppose, but it’s like foreigners thinking Americans are hard drinking, sexually loose gangsters or cowboys.  Stereotypes all!  Palestinians are like most Americans and Israelis (and Koreans, and Portuguese, and Indians, and, and…).  Like folks the world over, Palestinians  marry, have children, work to provide food, clothing, shelter, education, and maybe a little entertainment for their families.  They have dreams and aspirations, religious faith and, well, fairly typical lives like anybody really.

A Common Humanity

We’re all part of a common humanity whose similarities far outweigh our differences, something that impresses itself in my mind more and more these days and which was illustrated for me yet again this afternoon.  For example, as I was making my way back to the car I was faced by a tidal wave of Palestinian middle school girls on their way home from school.  They all wore dress-like jumpers over pants and a t-shirt, very neat, very nice, and their heads, but for their faces, were wrapped in scarves.  They were modestly and uniformly dressed, yes, but still school children.  They carried back-packs, chattered and laughed among themselves and moved along the sidewalk, a torrent of sweet, young humanity full of promise and beauty.  As I walked on I continued to see up and down both sides of the street, sidewalks full and spilling over with men and women, young and old, people going about their business.  Some were shopping in small shops of all sorts: hardware, clothing, shoes, fresh produce, and more.  Others were pausing to drink coffee, have a smoke, chat with a friend.  School girls, shoppers, sellers, chatters: a dozen scenes repeated here with relatively small cultural variations time and time again in east sides and west sides around the world.

The sights, the sounds, the smells

Like I mentioned earlier, I had intended only to go to the pharmacy and then pick up some kike (an oblong loop of sesame seed studded bread, ubiquitous in the Old City) and falafel for Katie, and a schwarma for me.  I did those things and then thought, hey, why hurry home?  Katie is o.k.  I have the medicine and the food.  Feet, keep on walking.  And they did and I went with them.  I love letting myself go, switching off my analytic side for a minute so I can simply take in the sights and the sounds and the smells.  Arab pop music (which sounds to me a lot like Hindi pop) blares from music stores.  The smell of fresh bread: a bakery!  I go in and pick up a fresh and perfect baguette and a loaf of whole wheat bread.  The cashier and an older man (the owner?) exchange a hurried conversation, take the loaf back to the shelf, feel each package of whole wheat bread, and come back with another identical loaf yet not quite the same because I feel this one and unlike the first it is still warm from the oven!  “We wanted to find the freshest one for you.”  I thank them, give them money and a smile, and leave the store a loyal customer.

Towers of meaty schwarma deliciousness

I continue on past stall after stall of fresh fruit and vegetables: fresh dates that are small yellow egg-shaped spheres, shriveled, brown dried dates by the pound, mounds of ripe, red tomatoes, green cucumbers not long and fat like back home but each about 5 inches long and and smaller around like a young zucchini.  I marvel at the rainbow around me: mottled purple eggplants heaped in piles, buckets of fresh grapes, green, red, deep blue, apples of green, yellow and red, and plums, both large and small of deep purple, red and blue.  And each stall is tended by diligent, earnest sellers anxious to make a living.  Just like markets and stores and sellers on the West side.

Noisy, Colorful, Exciting East Jerusalem Marketplace

As I get back to my car I say to myself, “Do your shopping here more often.”  Give these merchants your business from time to time.  Remember the warm bread, fresh produce, and aromatic ground coffee you can get here.  Patronize the pharmacy and have a word with Hassam, the pharmacist you met today, whose hand you shook, whose eyes you looked into as you introduced yourself.  Mingle here with people, these people with whom you have so much in common.