Jerusalem, Israel

Jerusalem is a complicated city. We knew this before coming here, but it's still more complicated than we expected. It didn't help that within a week before our visit, tensions started flaring. A raid on an ultra-sared Mosque, Al-Aqsa, caused rocket attacks on Israel for the first time in 10 years. Also four deaths from terror attacks in fairly close proximity (one in Tel Aviv and a family of 3 killed near northern Jordan in the West Bank).

Jerusalem's old town, is divided into 4 quarters. Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Armenian Christians (mentioned in a previous post). We did not venture into the Muslim quarter much because of high tensions during the week we were there. Our visit coincided with Muslim Ramadan, Jewish Passover, and Christian Easter. This was part of the reason for elevated tensions. We are really good at timing things.

The most complicated site in the city has to be Temple Mount as it is important to all of the 3 religions that dominate the city. First, Temple Mount is where Abraham, was asked to sacrifice his son to God. Jews, Christians, and Muslims all believe in this event, and believe it happened on Temple Mount. Second, King Solomon built a temple around this site. It is considered to be the Holiest site of Judaism. The famous Western Wall or Wailing Wall is the only thing that remains of this temple. Thirdly, Temple Mount, is the site where the Muslim prophet Muhammad ascended into heaven in 621 AD. This makes it the 3rd holiest site in Islam. Today, Muslims control the top of Temple Mount. Built on top of it are the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the shrine of the Dome of the Rock. Israeli forces handle security checkpoints before entering the area, but Jordanian religious authority Waqf controls the site itself. The Jewish population has been able to create a small sanctuary up there. Some of the conservative Jewish population has done up to start praying for God to command them to create a 3rd Temple on this hill. This would probably cause serious disruption to, if not involving destroying the Muslims sites already there. This is often a source of conflict between Israelis and Muslims primarily from Palestine and Jordan, but from other neighboring states as well.

Besides all that, in certain parts you'd never know there was a conflict at all. Our AirBnB was in a Jewish neighborhood and it was often a party with shops and traditional Jewish music playing at night.Read more