Throw This Rench in the Mix: The Old City

I realized I write about the Old City of Jerusalem a lot, but saying “The Old City” doesn’t mean the same thing to you as it does to me.

See, there are three parts of Jerusalem and they’re all within walking distance. You have East Jerusalem which is the Palestinian Arab side where everything is in Arabic and it's kind of how you might imagine the Middle East. Then there’s West Jerusalem. That’s where most of the Israeli Jews live. It’s very modern, very clean, and everything is in Hebrew. It’s how you might imagine a nice European city.

And then there’s the old city. This is the part of the city enclosed in the walls built by Suleiman the Magnificent back in the 16^th century. It’s a maze of narrow walkways and tunnels lined with shops displaying anything from shiny belly-dancing clothes to leather sandals. It’s where the shopkeepers learn our names and offer “special price for Mormons.” It's a collision of cultures.

Walking around in there can make a person feel like Aladdin. You turn down one way, duck through a little doorway, and suddenly you’re on a rooftop. The city is really quite small and it’s made of four quarters. There’s the Muslim quarter, the Jewish quarter, the Christian quarter, and a small Armenian quarter, and distinguishing between the four is absurdly easy.

The Old City is where the history is, and it’s almost tangible. Turning into a doorway may lead a person down a tunnel and into a cave under the city that just so happens to be the Virgin Mary’s birthplace, or at least one of them (I know, right?). The Old City is where Jesus roamed and Herod reigned. It’s where Abraham came to sacrifice his son Isaac 2000 years before the birth of Christ.

This Old City is full of mystery and unpredictability. It’s where little kids race by us on the stone streets on rollerblades (how they don’t kill themselves is beyond me), and where congregations of people saunter by, chanting behind a monk as they trace the path of Jesus when he carried his cross.

Yesterday, we smashed ourselves against the wall as a guy passed us pushing a wheelbarrow full of these: