We entered old Jerusalem through the Mt. Zion gate this morning. In the time of Jesus, this part of town with where Jesus, a Nazarene sect of Judaism who believed that a rabbi from Galilee was the son of God, and his followers lived in a commune or kibbutz. In 1948 during the Israeli war of independence, Jerusalem was taken by the Jordanians and remained so until the 6 Day War in 1967 when Israeli forces took the old city. There are bullet holes all over the facade.
Of note is that Temple Mount is completely missing from the Masade map--this is a form of early anti-semitism. Now, remember, all of this information is coming from our guide. I dont' know enough to even have an opinion! The hatred of Jews by early Christians caused them to used the area of the destroyed temple as a garbage dump. It remained so until the Arab conquest in the 7th century when it was cleaned up by the Arab who had a great respect for the Jews. Almost all ruins that one sees in Jerusalem date to the Second Temple period, but there is a wall called the Broad Wall that dates from the First Temple period of 1000-586 BC. Looks like rubble now, but is the ancient city wall.
When Israel retained control of Jerusalem in 1967, it was in rubble and extensive archaeological work was carried out prior to rebuilding the Jewish section of Jerusalem. Under the new condos and shops are ruins of the Jewish and Roman city that are now open to the public and we toured several of these. The streets of 2000 years ago are several meters below the current street level.
Inside the city walls is the Jewish quarter which is populated by Orthodox Jews. Israel is a Zionist state whose whole purpose is to bring the Jew back to live in Jerusalem and create a living city, not a museum. The map of Jerusalem that we saw in Madaba, ,Jordan,has been used by archaeologist to understand Jerusalem. That our tour guide, David.
There are 3 Jewish ethnicity's--85 % are Askenazi Jews of European descent, Sephardic Jews who were exiled from Spain in 1492, and the Mizrahi-Jews who never left the Middle East.
The traditional room of the last supper--also had been a Muslim mosque and this part was added during that time. It's also Gothic architecture so must have had some other remodeling.
Most Jews in the Israeli state consider Jewishness a nationality, not a religion. In fact, most of the early Israelis and their leaders were either non-secular Jews or atheists. David Ben Gurion, the first Israeli Prime Minister was not only an atheist, but thought the Jewish religion would die out within 10 years--obviously that didn't happen. Jerusalem is very orthodox today and you see many ultra orthodox as well as modern orthodox people on the streets. We are staying in an orthodox neighborhood. Most of the restaurants are kosher and there are meat restaurants or there are dairy restaurants--they are never served together. Inside a food court yesterday, the chairs outside a bagel place (dairy) and a shish kabob take out (meat) are color coded so that you only sit at the appropriate tables. If one person is having a bagel with cream cheese and the other a shish kabob, they cannot sit together.
David, our guide, was born in Brooklyn, raised in Dallas Texas, and made aliyah to Israel as a young man. It is not called immigration--only non-Jews immigrate. For Jews, this is a return to their rightful homeland and is granted to every Jew. Also there is a foundation that will send any young, American Jew, all expenses paid, to Israel to experience their culture. That was another thing that the founding fathers thought--all Jews, including American Jews would come to Israel to live.
We walked through many ancient cities, temples and ruins today, but one of the most fascinating is the City of David in East Jerusalem which came under Israeli control during the 1967 war. It is the Arab town of Siwal. The Oslo Accord in 1993 gave Palestine Liberation Authority some control over East Jerusalem as well as the other West Bank lands that are considered autonomous area under Palestinian National Authority control. They would be self governing. This area of East Jerusalem is where the original City of David is located and a right wing Jewish group back by right wing American Jews and American Fundamentalist Christmas pump a lot of money into this area in a rush to excavate the ancient Jebbite city that David conquered and set up a Jewish city. There are 5 archaeological digs going on concurrently. The above people are anxious to prove such a connection to the Jews that the land cannot be taken away from them--but sounds like as part of the Oslo Accord, it already has been given to the Palestinians. There are also people with families who live in houses built on the City of David. This is part of what is considered the illegal settlements and has created a lot of animosity with the Arabs in this area. Bullet proof truck sit on the street in front of the entrance.
There are three types of Arabs in the land of Israel
1. The Israeli Arabs who live in places like Arco, Gallilee, Tel Aviv who are full Israeli citizens. They have full voting rights and can come and go from Ben Gurion Airport as they please.
2. West Bank which is autonomous Palestinian Territories, like Bethlehem or Hebron. They cannot leave. They have no passports, just travel documents. If they want to leave the West Bank, they must go through the Allenby Bridge Border crossing that we used and go into Amman and are not allow to leave via Ben Gurion Airport. They have never signed a peace agreement with Israel and won't be granted any kind of statehood until they do.
3. The Arabs in E. Jerusalem--where city of David is-- have a special status. Since 1967, they have a choice to have an Israeli passports or travel papers from the Palestinian authorities. Whichever they choose, the above conditions apply.
Very complicated stuff!!!!!
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