Galilee & Jerusalem

Yesterday Oz drove us North to visit a natural reserve for migratory birds, between the Sea of Galilee and the Golan Heights. We walked an 8km track, watching pelicans, storks and several other species feeding on an island in the middle. The reserve was created as a partnership between conservationists and farmers, providing food for the birds so that they don't eat crops.




Every now and then along the track there was a little hut on a stand, which Oz explained is to encourage predators like eagles to roost in the area, so that they eat rodents which would otherwise destroy crops, a novel, organic form of pesticide. The idea is now being implemented in Jordan as a collaborative project with Israeli conservationists. Surreally, as we wandered around the tranquil natural reserve, a civil war was raging just over the hills in Syria.



Ludmi and Joni

On Tuesday Joni and I took the bus to Jerusalem. We got off a couple of minutes walk from the Western Wall (aka the Wailing Wall), Judaism's holiest site. The wall is believed to be the only remaining part of King David's temple, and Jews come here to pray, and traditionally write their desire on a piece of paper and insert it into a crack in the wall. I've already got used to being scanned and having my bag x-rayed when entering shopping malls and bus stations. I was surprised that the checkpoint outside the wall was no more thorough. The soldiers seemed relaxed, and in the square in front of the wall there were a lot of kids messing about and people smiling for photos




I followed Joni through the gate to the men's section of the wall, putting on a yarmulke (skull cap) which is obligatory for visits, regardless of your beliefs. A rabbi immediately walked up to me and for a moment I thought he was going to kick me out. Are you Jewish? he asked. No, I replied, bracing, but he smiled, welcomed me and gave me a pamphlet explaining the wall's significance to Jews. I looked up at the twenty metres or so of huge stone bricks. In the corner, a group of men chanted, nodding and holding the hebrew bible close to their face. Along the wall others sat in white plastic chairs, stood behind lecterns, or simply leaned their heads close to the stone and rocked back and forth gently, murmuring. The wall has a dark mark about the height of a person from being touched by so many hands and foreheads, and little pieces of paper are wedged into every crack in its surface. I stood for several minutes, soaking in the deep, rich spirituality of the place, watching the faithful with eyes closed and faces wrought with sadness and desire, contemplating the ability of a surface so unforgivingly impervious to receive so much raw emotion.



Western Wall and Dome of the Rock

We climbed up through the Old City, winding our way through the market, getting lost several times, and eventually following a trail of Russian tourists to the place where several branches of Christianity believe that Jesus was buried, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.



Western Wall

All the main factions claim primacy, and the monks from each branch of Christianity who preside over the church have periodically murdered each other over such issues as the right to clean a particular part of the monument. In 1767, the ruling empire split responsibilities between the sects, but the violence continued for another century, and in 1853 the frustrated sultan decreed that however things were on that particular day would remain the status quo forever. The competing monks took his decree so literally and seriously that to this day a ladder that happened to be leaning against the wall on the balcony out the front has not been moved for one and a half centuries.
The fighting continues in modern times. "On a hot summer day in 2002, a Coptic monk moved his chair from its agreed spot into the shade. This was interpreted as a hostile move by the Ethiopians, and eleven were hospitalized after the resulting fracas." (wikipedia) Fights also broke out in 2004 and 2008.



Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Every year the Orthodox church celebrates the miracle of the holy fire, in which a flame spontaneously appears on candles inside the tomb of Jesus, which are then brought out by the patriarch and spread through the assembled multitude. The combination of religious fervor and fire has caused several stampedes and mass burnings though the ages. At one stage rumour got around that a child conceived during the miracle of the holy fire would have special powers, and for several years the festival turned into a stampeding, burning, religious orgy.



Rotunda

Watching chubby Russians in bright pink track pants take photos of themselves kissing various bits of rock is not very conducive to divine inspiration, nor is the gold and silver knickknackery that is splashed about every crevice, nor the teams of monks in distinctive styles of robes wandering round with bored expressions swinging smoking cans. I couldn't help comparing it to the simplicity and sanctity of the Western Wall, and wondering how this group of buffoons ever came to be the caretakers of one of the holiest sites in Christendom.



Joni and Dirk at the Western Wall

See all my photos of the natural reserve and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on flickr.