And did those feet, in ancient times...

I am probably going to be a little susceptible to hyperbole during this trip, considering that this is the first time I've gone properly travelling and I have a carefully hand-picked round-the-world itinerary taking in a number of the world's great cities. But on this I am certain I am 100% justified: Jerusalem is extraordinary.

Getting to Jerusalem by crossing the border from Jordan was in itself quite a time-consuming and arduous experience. There is only one heavily guarded border crossing in the area, and to get there you have to get a service taxi to the Jordanian side of the border from Amman; have your luggage scanned and passport checked by Jordanian security; wait in an airport-style lounge for some time for the next bus across the border (there is no other means of making the crossing); sit while the bus crawls painfully slowly down the crossing road; get off on the Israeli (actually West Bank) side and join a chaotic, tense queue for some time just to hand in your luggage for the security check and have an initial passport check; put your person through a security scanner; submit yourself to the main passport check, which is by far the longest interrogation I've ever received [What is the purpose of your visit? Where are you going in Israel? How long will you stay? Will you be going to the West Bank? Where are you staying in Jerusalem? Where are you staying in Tel Aviv? What flight are you on out of the country? Can I see your flight details? Can I see your bank cards? What is your profession?]; if you have any interest in visiting Syria or Lebanon (which I now do at some future point), ask for your entry stamp on a separate piece of paper as any Israeli stamp in your passport renders it impossible - I'd understood this isn't usually a problem, but it won me an absolutely filthy stare and several more questions (Why? Which other Middle Eastern countries do you want to visit? When?) before the guard consented; queue up again to hand in the coupon you were given at passport control; lastly try to retrieve your luggage, probably a good 20-30 minutes after you last saw it, which gets literally thrown off the carousel and put into an enormous, chaotic pile of everyone's luggage.

I am not actually complaining too much since the need for the world's toughest security is obvious (and I did get a smile and a "welcome to Israel" at the end of my interrogation), but it's a little tiring. It was also the place here where Arab-Israeli tensions are most obvious, since the mood of the many Palestinian travellers around during this arduous and somewhat undignified process was clearly frayed to say the least - and whatever your politics it's less than surprising, given that this crossing was just an internal crossing between Jordan's East Bank and its West Bank until Israeli annexation of the West Bank in 1967.

Where do I even start about Jerusalem itself? Maybe with the Old City, where I was staying. Much of it is anything between 500 and 900 years old (my hostel was a 500-year-old building); it's constructed entirely (like much of the rest of the city) out of very light limestone which reflects the bright Middle Eastern sunlight dazzlingly; it's a completely pedestrianised warren of extremely narrow and asymmetric streets, a number of them largely covered and many only accessible via staircases; it contains something like 20 venerable places of worship, including the world's most holy Christian and Jewish sites and the third holiest Muslim site; the businesses and 30,000 residents are largely Arab rather than Jewish (as it was on the Jordanian side of the border until the 1967 Six Day War); oh, and it's actually only about a third of a mile square. You have to be prepared to get lost repeatedly, although you're bound to find something identifiable within a few minutes, and you have to be prepared to slow down and push past the throngs of tourists (a lot of them American, unsurprisingly) and politely brush off the many small stallholders who will try to attract your attention.

If the incredible and unique religious heritage of the city is your thing, you could probably spend at least a week exploring only that. It isn't entirely mine (for the avoidance of any doubt I am a committed atheist, albeit largely respectful of religion rather than Richard Dawkins-esque); so I largely limited myself to walking around, taking it all in, getting lost and observing the different quarters (there's a Jewish Quarter, Muslim Quarter, Christian Quarter, and specifically an Armenian Quarter of all things; the Armenian presence has been uninterrupted since the 4th Century). I also enjoyed a walk around the top of the incredible, imposing but beautiful city walls, giving some spectacular views and giving some insight into the diversity of life inside the Old City. 

One of the gates into the Old City, in the characteristically light limestone

However the least I could do for site visits were the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Western Wall. I didn't manage to get into the Temple Mount, aka Haram ash-Sharif, to which access by non-Muslims is a little more restricted. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the likely site of Jesus's crucifixion and burial, on which a church was first built in 326 AD and the current church largely dates from the 11th Century. It's a remarkably modest construction with similarly modest courtyard, jammed between side streets largely otherwise filled with small touristy (and Arab-owned) shops... and it's literally overshadowed by a rather taller mosque all of 20 metres away. Just to add to the peculiarness, the Muslim call to prayer was sounding loudly from said mosque when I visited. It was definitely one of those "I don't know what I was expecting but it definitely wasn't that" tourism moments. However, the Church has certainly made the most of what it has. It is possible to line up to touch the rock underneath the floor of the beautiful chapel on the spot where Jesus is believed to have been crucified, and the powerfulness of emotion felt by the many people present who appeared to be on a pilgrimage was very obvious to see and even to feel. Helpfully however the site of Jesus's tomb was closed for cleaning when I visited.

 The most likely site of Jesus's crucifixion and burial, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

No less peculiar in my mind is the Western Wall, a non-descript outer wall of the Temple Mount, but Judaism's most holy site. It marks the spot of the Second Temple, which was destroyed when the Jews were sent into exile in 70 AD. When the Jews returned, the precise location of the site had been lost but they deliberately avoided the Temple Mount, as the inner sanctum of the Second Temple was barred to all except high priests. They started praying at the Western Wall instead, which rabbinical texts held that the divine presence had never left. The Temple Mount itself contains the rock believed to be the foundation stone of biblical creation, but it has been a Muslim site (Haram ash-Sharif) since the 7th Century - just to add to the mix, believed to be the location of 'farthest mosque' to which Mohammed had travelled. For reasons I'm not too clear about (peacekeeping?!), Israel allowed the Muslims to retain the site after the Six Day War - so Jews still limit themselves to the Western Wall, where they pray literally against it. Visiting is an interesting and slightly strange experience; unlike at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre I couldn't exactly feel the spiritual vibes but doubtless faithful Jews can and do.

 The Western Wall

Away from the Old City, I ventured into East Jerusalem to visit the Museum on the Seam, a pacifist modern art museum deliberately located (as the name suggests) in a former military checkpoint right on the border between West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem until 1968. It didn't entirely live up to its considerable reputation in my eyes, but it did nonetheless certainly hit me with a few of its punches about the horrific human toll of conflict in the region and beyond.

Also rather incongruous in East Jerusalem, wedged next to an ugly bus station, is the beautiful Garden Tomb, which has been claimed as a possible alternative location for Jesus's crucifixion and burial. Unlike at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the tomb is fully preserved a number of features described in the Bible "match" this site; unfortunately however the archaeological dating is largely against it and even the site's owners (an English Protestant charity) only claim it "could" be the correct site and that it's symbolically representative. However it's a lovely peaceful spot to come and relax for a bit, and as a Catholic priest once said, if it isn't the true site where Jesus was crucified and buried, it should have been!

The highlight of my time in Jerusalem was definitely an afternoon at Yad Veshem, Israel's main Holocaust memorial. As you might expect it's extensive and well appointed. The focal point is a huge museum chronicling the Holocaust from its early origins through to its ghastly conclusion. It was designed to resemble half a star of David, reflecting the fact that half of the Jewish race worldwide was wiped out by the Nazis. While the broad story of what happened is all too familiar, and still literally beyond comprehension, like with any big disaster it's some of the inhumane details which really 'get' you and make you most emotional: footage of skeletal bodies being piled up or dumped in open graves in the Warsaw Ghetto - by fellow Jewish inmates - like meat carcasses; the text of the desperate "Give Me Your Children" speech by Mordechai Rumkowski, the Jewish elder in the Lodz Ghetto, explaining the decision the Nazis had forced him to make on which inmates should be selected for extermination and which should be temporarily saved; eye-witness testimony from the 'death marches' of concentration camp inmates in the demented dying days of the Nazi regimes, that Nazi soldiers didn't "waste a bullet" on those who collapsed from exhaustion, but just pushed them with their rifle butts into the deep snow to die of hypothermia instead.

The terrible unwillingness of the rest of the world to accept Jewish refugees also makes you feel thoroughly ashamed - the quote that stuck with me was from the Australian Government that they largely didn't have a racial problem and had no desire to "import" one. The museum understandably focuses significantly on acts of heroism by Jews against all the odds. There were large numbers of Israeli soldiers being taken round - I assume this is part of their military service training, in the name of understanding what the Israeli military could ultimately be there for. Certainly, after I'd previously been seeing/hearing/reading a few things which hadn't entirely been improving the level of warmth I feel for the state of Israel, it reminds you in the most sobering way possible why it needed to be created in the first place.

I also took a stroll through the ultra-Orthodox area of Mea She'arim, where you can observe men wearing heavy black coats in full deference to the Eastern European Jewish tradition of the 1880s (apparently they do not take them off even in the height of the Middle Eastern summer). The high population density is obvious (ultra-Orthodox Jews believe it is their duty to God to have large numbers of children), and there are aggressive signs warning women and girls to wear "modest" clothing (i.e. exposing no skin). If that last point bothers you it's probably just best to steer clear of the area, since the locals are apparently not completely averse to throwing rocks at anyone who severely offends their customs. 

 

A very warm welcome to an ultra-Orthdox area of Jerusalem...

One other thing I enjoy doing abroad is checking out the main local market to get a slice of authentic local life, and Jerusalem's, Mahane Yehuda Market, is one of the more interesting I've seen. They seem to particularly like their soft white cheeses and their cakes here.

Overall I didn't actually find Jerusalem the most comfortable or relaxing place I've been to - the Old City is pretty stressful at the same time as it is unique and incredible, the hostel scene appears to be pretty poor, the lack of liberalism is obvious (e.g. the gay scene is virtually non-existent), I got aggressively and rudely shouted at to move a couple of times by apparently random locals when standing nowhere in particular minding my own business... and I got scammed a couple of times. One was very petty but one was severe, a cleverly crafted and patient confidence trick after I'd accepted what appeared to be genuine local hospitality. I don't want to go into the details; however there's nothing lost or damaged other than a one-off bank balance hit, and I've learnt a lot from the experience about how to avoid getting the balance wrong again in future between being open and applying the "never say no" principle but keeping oneself safe and secure at the same time.

Broadly, I would say Jerusalem fits broadly into the category of places that everyone should see - but maybe only once. If anything I've written whets your appetite, don't be put off giving it a go... and then make absolutely sure you go to Tel Aviv too. But more on that next time.