The Western Wall and Temple Mount

Thursday, May 21, 2015

This morning, we went up on the Temple Mount. At one time, there was a Jewish temple there. Then it was destroyed by the Romans. When the Byzantine Christians were in control of the city, they had no interest in that area so it just became a trash dump. The Byzantines focused on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built on what's is believed to. E the site of the crucifixion. When the Umayyids (Muslims) took over, they build the Al Aqsa mosque on the site. The Western Wall, where Jews worship, is the retaining wall for the mount. The head rabbi in Jerusalem has forbidden Jews to go on the Temple Mount because they believe it's sacred ground where the temple stood, but they don't know where that is exactly. So, there is no way to purify yourself before going there and no way to know where the exact sacred ground is. However, other rabbis want to have Jews go up there and the Knesset has discussed dividing the space. More and more Jews are going up there. We had to wait on line for a long time to go through security. It turned out the scanning machine wasn't working, so they had to check each bag by hand. When we got up there, a man stopped me and said to take my scarf and cover my shoulders and chest. No problem.  It's pretty calm and peaceful on the mount and not crowded. However, because more and more Jews keep coming up there, groups of Muslim women stay at the top and chant prayers in order to hold onto the space. 

After that, we had to go through security again to go to the Western Wall. There are two sides - a men's and a women's. We brought our little papers that the church had given us with prayers to put in the wall. Apparently, the government takes the papers out when they get too full and burns them on the mount of olives. On Mondays and Thursday's, there are many bar mitzvahs. Women stand on chairs from the women's side and throw candy on the newly bar mitzvahed boy. Also there are many celebrations along the streets for bar mitzvahs. 

Then we went to a museum that shows some archeological things and a film about the Jewish history of the Temple Mount. 

We then walked over to the Armenian quarter and had lunch at a Lutheran guest house. The guest house is in the middle of the old city, so we shopped for a while and then went to the Cathedral of Saint James (Armenian) for vespers. We waited about 15 minutes until someone came out and told us it was this Ascension Day and there would be no vespers. So we shopped in an Armenian ceramic shop across the street. Rodney took us over to the shop and introduced us to the owner. He lets us go in the back to see how everything is made. We also bought quite a bit of stuff. He gave us a discount because we were from Saint George's. 

We got back to the college by 5;00 because we were supposed to have a lecture by Dean Hussam Naoum on Indigenous Christianity in the Holy Land, but he had an emergency and it was cancelled. We went up on the roof for a few glasses of wine dinner instead.