07/13/18 -- Bethlehem

A young Orthodox girl yelling at
a Women at the Wall protester

Some of my friends from Jordan (living in Tel Aviv on Yale program) were coming out to Jerusalem for the weekend, so spent the previous night with one of them (Marcelina) in the shuk (market) with my roommate Mady. She slept over in our apartment, and we were up bright and early the next morning to make it to Women at the Wall. Women at the Wall is a reformed Jewish movement to advocate for the right of women to prayer at the Western Wall, one of the holiest places to Jews across the world. Although this is not technically forbidden in Judaism, and there is a law in place that says women can do this, it is a huge and very contentious issue between the orthodox and reformed communities. In order to protest, the organization performs bat mitzvahs at the wall and holds services for Rosh Chodesh.

Although Marcelina is Catholic and I am not particularly Jewish, we both wanted to go in order to get a better sense of the issue. We got there during the middle of the bat mitzvah, and both of us were quite shocked -- Orthodox men, women, and children were all counter-protesting very strongly, shouting and blowing whistles to drown out the prayers, stomping on chairs, and crowding around the group in large numbers. The last time I had been at the kotel it had felt very peaceful and sacred, now felt completely opposite.

Men protesting from their side of the wall

Us with the men protesting

Afterwards, we met up with the rest of the group from Yale, and went to get breakfast. Yale sponsors their outings and one of their fellows in Israel met up with us to begin their tour. Although I don't go to Yale and was not joining on the rest of their day, I did get treated to a wonderful buffet, filled with traditional Israeli food! Thanks Yale!

I would have loved to join in on the rest of their day, but had a trip planned for tomorrow and had already seen most of their itinerary, so broke off from them to go to Bethlehem. I first went on a walk to see some of the graffiti along the Separation Wall, including several beautiful Banksy pieces. After learning so much about the West Bank and the Separation Wall, it was crazy to actually be there and seeing it first hand. The wall is covered with artwork and stories from Palestinians trapped behind the wall, speaking to the Palestinian perspective of all of the major events in the Israel-Palestine conflict. The stories are truly shocking and heart-breaking, and a very needed reminder of many of the realities that are invisible while inside Israel. I visited the Walled Off Hotel, a project started by Banksy and other activists. In addition to very interesting decorations and artwork, it has an incredible museum documenting the past seventy or so years of history -- one of the most informative and well-put together museums I've been to. And, much like the stories on the Wall, it captured a very different narrative than has ever even been mentioned in my experience in Israel. 

The Walled Off Hotel -- used to
be an actual hotel, now combination
Banksy exhibit and museum!

Alter of the Church of Nativity

Old City in Bethlehem

I next went to see some of the holy cites of Bethlehem -- given it is the city of Jesus' birth, there are many! They were all very interesting but I think cites of pilgrimage more than anything else. I was glad to see them, but I was happy I spent so the majority of my time exploring the wall and the museum.

I wanted to make sure that I got back to Jerusalem before the buses stopped running for Shabbat, but also really wanted to see the Banksy artwork of the soldier throwing flowers. The article that I had been reading mentioned that it was about a 4km round-trip walk away from the main religious cites. In my head, I think I used the shekel to dollar conversion to estimate this as about a mile -- which it is not. Combined with the fact that the main religious cites were already a trek away from the bus stop, I ended up walking much farther than I had thought and was much more stressed towards the end about making it back. But, I did, and am so happy I made it out there! The piece is one of my favorites, and I was really happy to see it in person.

Once I got back to Jerusalem, I headed to a neighborhood in the west for Shabbat dinner with friends of our family friends, the Kahans. It was so wonderful to have dinner in such a warm home, and I was so thankful for their hospitality! It was also really interesting to see what a Shabbat dinner of a conservative/modern orthodox (somewhere in between) family looked like. It was a lovely dinner, and interesting to talk to their family -- although the immediate family is religious, both parents were raised secular, and their still secular parents joined for dinner. Truly a day filled with different perspectives -- first reformed Jewish feminists, then Palestinians in the West Banks, and now both Modern Orthodox Jews and secular Jews. I learned a ton, and was left with lots and lots to think about.