June 28, 2009 –

where do i begin to talk about Jerusalem? I’m in such a dither. Here we are doing the tourist thing and i’m walking along the path through the old city to the wailing wall kvetching that the mood of the shopowners has changed since 1967 and we get to the tiny ‘women’s section’ of the wall , and i’m kvetching some more that there shouldn’t be a women’s section at all, and I sit down and pick up the book of psalms and begin to read and i’m overwhelmed by the place i’m in. What should i pray for, I think, thinking my light shockling is nothing like the enormous rocking of the women surrounding me. I just want things to stay the way they are – for me. Okay, maybe my knee – okay, some people around me need some help – but in my life i’m okay so far. The prayer overwhelming me was for the peoples in this place to find peace, to make peace. Then, as the women with me backed away from the wall, I kvetched again that the necessity to make more and more rules and customs every year is madness. Our next station was a tour of the wall from underneath, in the diggings, and there we finished a very bracing and inspiring lecture and walk along the wall by exiting through the Arab quarter. We were on the via Dolorosa and I myself felt like I too was wearing a crown of thorns, preceeded and followed by careful security men. Some shopkeepers threw out some hopeless welcomes to us, but most knew in advance we had been warned not to stop. As we passed through i pointed out to Ezi a shop where I had bought own of my favorite dresses in 1980. I didn’t have time to look into it to see if the same shopowner was there. I would have recognized him immediately because we had coffee and talked for almost an hour. Then.