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Jerusalem
That Only Israelis Know

Recently my husband and I went to Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) for four days. Foreign tourists don't come much to Yerushalayim nowadays and the hotels are offering discount rates to the daring Israeli souls who still travel from their safer home towns to the capital. Hotels which were once exorbitantly and notoriously expensive are now within reach of the average consumer. So, we went to our capital city for a four-day research and prayer marathon and stayed in a hotel which a year ago would be beyond our wildest dreams of being able to afford. Being two of only a handful of guests we were treated with great gratitude for being there, despite the fact that we arrived with baggage and not with luggage. The buffet breakfasts served each morning were very lavish and generous, especially since we didn't have to share them with more than one or two other parties.

The Central Bus Station in Yerushalayim has been completely refurbished. It is now a bustling weather-controlled, three-story mall filled with clothing stores, music stores, novelty shops and restaurants of every kind. Fast-moving escalators transported us rapidly from the information desks to the level where most of the eateries are located. Swift, modern, sleek, sophisticated - nothing like the old Central Bus Station I remembered. The baggage claim service has been discontinued, but this is the only sign that anything might be 'amiss' in the area. Lovely young people, most of them native Israelis, sit at the tables of the eateries chattering and laughing. Business is fast, tables hard to come by.

On the way to our hotel room we passed the pizza restaurant where the horrendous blast occurred just a few short weeks ago. The restaurant has been reconstructed and looks just as it did before the blast and is open for business. Most of the tables were taken. Now that's guts. 

Asking people for directions in Yerushalayim, as in many other places in Israel, is an open invitation for any and all passersby who hear the questions to stop and begin giving (often conflicting) directions. In any event, a simple question often serves as the basis for numerous new acquaintances. As the old joke has it: "Why don't Israelis make love in the street?" "Because everyone passing by would stop to give advice." 

Yerushalayim is the natural place in Israel to go to do research. Though there most certainly are universities and research centers in other cities and towns in Israel, and fine ones at that, no city in Israel is so blessed with a plethora of distinguished learning centers of all kinds as our capital. I spent most of my time at Heikhal HaSefer (The Shrine of the Book) at the Israel Museum and at the Jewish National Library on the Hebrew University campus (researching the Dead Sea Scrolls). The Jewish National Library is the central repository of Jewish scholarship. Here Jews of every age and every persuasion sit together - quietly. If outside the hallowed walls of the university our various religious interpretations and political factionalism divides us, here we are united by our eternal common denominator, the Jewish obsession with scholarship. It is a must-visit for any scholar of any Jewish topic. 

My husband opted to spend most of his time at prayer in the Holy City. He went to the Great Synagogue three times a day as prescribed by Jewish Law and was in his glory. The Great Synagogue, the largest and arguably most beautiful synagogue in Yerushalayim, is a short walk from the hotel where we stayed. There he personally met one of Israel's most beloved Jews. There is a couple who live in Jerusalem who are originally from Japan. They chose to link their destinies with that of the Jewish people, came to Israel and converted to Orthodox Judaism. Here they learned Hebrew and here they make their new lives. They are both blind. My husband also went to the Western Wall of the Second Temple. The Western (or 'Wailing' Wall) is still the central place of Jewish pilgrimage. For me the Western Wall is not a place where I go for solace or to lament, I can do that anywhere at any time. I love the Western Wall because for me it symbolizes every annoying Jewish trait that has characterized my People for thousands of years. The beggars are still there (one of them is an unusually tall Nordic-looking guy who dresses up like what he imagines the High Priest looked like and sings while playing an lyre), the money changers and still there, the sellers of cheap souvenirs are still there, and of course the kooks who think they are the Messiah are still there - the Temple service is no longer performed there, but the Jewish People are, for better or worse, as we have always been. That is why I loved that damned blessed wall.

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