Aelia Capitolina

There’s a big misconception I’ve learned; the pilgrimage that so many religious believers make to Jerusalem, to follow in the footsteps of Christ, to walk around the City of David where King Solomon built the First Temple, or to see the Dome of the Rock, is really more of a mythical rather than a physical one. The city where Jesus walked, where the Israelites claimed the Promised Land, and where Mohammed made his Night Journey, was completely destroyed by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in 137 BC. It was recorded that the city was so thoroughly razed that “nothing was left that could ever persuade visitors that it had once been a place of habitation.” After this, the city was rebuilt as the Roman city of Aelia Capitolina, which now serves as merely the foundation of the city that exists today.

Nevertheless, this site, this geographic location on planet earth, is an enormously important place for the three Abrahamic religions – Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The pedestrian only streets of the Old City are worn slippery from approximately 1,400 years of bustling action; it’s old, there’s history and it’s very palpable. However, when a devout Christian, for example, walks along the Via Dolorosa praying at the Stations of The Cross, they should remember that Emperor Constantine came to this city in the 4^th century AD (when he decided that Christianity should become the religion of the Roman Empire) and declared these Stations (where Jesus was condemned to death, where he fell with the cross, where his mother Mary met him on the way to his crucifixion), to be where we see them today, based solely on texts written 300 years prior, in a city that had been completely destroyed with a new city rebuilt upon it. I’m sounding cynical here, and quite possibly sac-religious. And while historical records indicate where this brutal walk that Jesus made took place, (have you seen the Passion of the Christ?) and can be roughly mapped out using streets that exist today, it just goes to show that “a Holy Place is not actually the place where Jesus walked, but rather where the Church venerates a mystery of Christ’s life and is sanctified by the prayers of the Faithful”. Incidentally, this quote was taken directly from the Guide for Pilgrims that I bought to follow this “Way of Sorrow”.

My weekend trip to Jerusalem is full of so much that I’ll have to write it up in pieces. In spite of my reality check (filled with negativity), as described above, it truly was a worthwhile experience filled with history lessons, harrowing border crossings, rip-offs and scams, unique streetscapes, antiquing, wonder, awe, hysterical laughter, political confrontation, religious stereotypes, disappointment, anger, frustration, borderline offensive references and song, unique friendships, hostile treatment, being forced out of a car at gunpoint, and a meal of Biblical proportions.

My friend and colleague, Seth and I choose the most violently contested border crossing in the world as the starting point for our weekend adventure to Jerusalem.

As we drove up the Kings Highway, through the Jordan Valley, along the banks of the Dead Sea, we realized that this was indeed the one and only time that we could safely say, “We’re on our way to the Promised Land” and actually mean it! After a morning meeting in the southern Jordanian town of Tafilah, another colleague of ours dropped us at the Allenby Bridge border crossing between Jordan and the West Bank, which is Israeli occupied territory. All that stuff you see on the news about the Palestinians and the Jews fighting over who can live where, who owns what, what area God promised to whom; yea, this is it. Rules are strict, the situation uncertain, automatic machine guns and tanks with machine guns are everywhere. This was a great idea.

After paying a departure tax to leave the Hashemite Kingdom we boarded a bus to travel a short distance across the aforementioned Allenby Bridge (or King Hussein Bridge if you’re Islamic), over the River Jordan, and into Israel, or is it the West Bank?, or should we call it Palestine? Once there, we get off the bus one at a time (tourists of all nationalities and ages, Palestinian women with children, some families), and a guard in a little booth looks at each passport. Once everyone has been checked (and thoroughly screened with the multiple video cameras that I notice looking down from overhead) we all board the bus again, move ahead a few yards to a gate, and then sit there idling for around 30 minutes. Israeli guards walk around the bus with mirrors checking for bombs underneath. We finally pass through the gate and pull up to the terminal where nothing short of chaos is taking place. Machine gun toting guards abound, Palestinian guys unload baggage from busses and take bribes to get their people through the lines faster, everyone is sweating, pushing, yelling, trying to cut the lines; it’s a zoo.

I do my best to fend off line cutters, but women with children in their arms are hard to deny. Though I threw my share of elbows at other people who thought that simply being Palestinian meant they didn’t have to wait in line. After a solid 30 minutes in line (NFL sideline fan misters keeping us cool), I reached the window where the Israeli woman asked me questions like, ‘why are you visiting Israel’ (wrong time to point out I was in Palestine), ‘how long will you stay’; things of that nature. Nothing too exciting coming from me so she allows me into the main building where I go through an airport like screening process. Belt, watch, and coins in a bin; bag on the conveyor; walk through the metal detector; easy. Then came the bevy of lines. In the end I stood in four. Sometimes I was asked questions and/or searched, sometimes I was told to go to a different line; completely unorganized. There’s better communication at a school for deaf mutes.

In the end my passport is stamped (I'll never be able to go to Lebanon or Syria now) and I’m free to begin my little jaunt to the Holy Land. We exit the terminal and are greeted by a host of sharks ready to rip us off from every angle. The shared taxi (really it’s a mini bus) is much, much cheaper than a cab but will only leave when it is full. There are two people on it at the moment, “It will be a loooong time." says the con artist. "Private taxi, you’ll be there 35 minutes. Come, I show you. This man will take you, come, come.” $100 later we’re in car passing a sign for Jericho on our way to Jerusalem. Seth thought we were just “splurging this one time” for the cab. Little did we know it was only the beginning…..