Shalom everybody!

I am writing from Jerusalem – and there is so much I could tell you about this fascinating, complex city! Every day we have taken a journey and experienced another set of contrasts – and divisions. Here is just one part of one day’s journey in early January:

From our temporary home in a beautiful area called Yemin Moshe, which lies on a hillside in Jewish West Jerusalem opposite the old city, we walked down the hill and across the valley, northwards, to the old city’s Jaffa Gate. There we turned left and walked through the Christian Quarter, skirting the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate. Like everywhere in the old city, the streets are made of stone and narrow, twisting left and right. Fortunately, we knew here we were going! Our destination actually lay outside the old city, so rather then get caught up in the maze, we came out again through the New Gate on the north-west corner, and turned right. As we walked alongside the city walls, going northwards, and approached the Muslim area, which centres on the Damascus gate, the street became more run-down and neglected: The city municipality focuses more attention on the explicitly ‘tourist’ locations. It wasn’t a market day, and the streets were fairly empty, but because Muslims were celebrating Eid, people were out and about in family groups.

Opposite the Damascus gate, marked with tall palm trees, we crossed the road, and walked north-westwards, towards the road, which formed the border between Israel and Jordan from 1948 to 1967: Kheil Ha-Handasa. We were looking for a building called the ‘Tourjeman Post’, named after its Arab owner. Between 1948 and 1967, the building was an outpost, overseeing the border. When we got there, the signs of its past military function were clear to see: a once beautiful house, the large windows were filled with concrete, but for narrow slits, and the ruined porch and walls pock-marked with shell and bullet holes testified to earlier hostilities.

All this would have been interesting in itself – but ‘Tourjeman Post’ is now home to the ‘Museum on the Seam’, the ‘Socio-Political Museum in Israel’. The current exhibition, ‘Equal and Less Equal’ explores the reality of ‘Work-Slavery’ throughout the world – including Israel – but the broader remit of the Museum is even more challenging: Dedicated to fostering co-existence and dialogue through contemporary art, and situated precisely on the border that once divided Israel and Jordan, the Museum is located on the ‘seam’ between different worlds: between the Jewish ultra-orthodox area of ‘Mea Shearim’ and a secular neighbourhood, between the old city and the new, between east and west – on a fault-line that is rarely crossed.

Jerusalem is a patchwork of communities, and only the adventurous inhabit or cross the seams. People do venture out – to shop, to eat, and to work – but most of the time, most Jerusalemites live in their own self-contained enclaves. This is disturbing and challenging for a boundary-breaker and border-crosser like me! But as a visitor and observer, I have the luxury to journey anywhere – almost: the ultra-orthodox Jewish groups, keen to protect their children from ‘alien’ influences, are the least hospitable…

Of course, there are also signs of another less divisive reality here – deeper and more profound. By the time you read this, Tu Bishvat, the New Year for Trees, will have arrived (Erev: 2^nd February). Trees of all kinds inhabit this land – including a glorious variety of fruit trees – and when they are not being cultivated, unlike the people, they live side by side: the date-palm and the fig, the fir and the pine, the orange, lemon and grape-fruit trees, the apple and the peach, the banana and the avocado, the pomegranate, the vine and the olive – and many more besides.

The olive trees are the oldest – and the most political. For the Palestinians, their olive trees, gnarled with age, which they tend with such care, represent their rootedness in this land; their very particular roots in very particular places that pre-date the arrival of Jewish immigrants from the late nineteenth century onwards. Meanwhile, it has been precisely the Jewish pioneers and refugees, and their descendants, who have brought new life to this land, and continue to do so, planting new trees of every variety – especially on Tu Bishvat. Both Israelis and Palestinians have contributed and continue to contribute to the same piece of earth that knows no boundaries except those imposed upon it. Ultimately, for both peoples to flourish and live side by side in peace there will need to be mutual acknowledgement, compromise and 
a sharing, both of this land, and of the fruits of their collective labours.

Greetings from Jess.

L’hitra’ot!

P.S. For more musings from Jerusalem, see the February issue of SJN.