Jerusalem, Day 1

Jerusalem, Monday, January 6, 2020

Everything ended well, as we caught up with Leah in the Tel Aviv airport at 11:30 PM.  By the time we got to our Jerusalem Air B&B apartment, it was 1:30 AM this morning.  Joyce and Leah settled in and I ran out to a nearby all-night convenience store and got some essentials—bread, milk, coffee, sugar, cheese, etc.  We got to bed before 3:00 AM.

I awoke before the others, and looked out at the view.  Our apartment has a great room, and the dining room part of it is all glass walls.  This is what I saw when I got up:

Yes, that’s the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in the Old City.  Remarkable.  Joyce and Leah were still sleeping, so I ran out to a local bakery and got some fresh pastries for breakfast.  Just before noon, Leah awoke, and we were on the balcony of the apartment when the call to prayer from the Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount rang out.  You can barely hear it in this video, but it was much louder in person:

The weather is glorious; sunny and dry, with a high of 62 today. It was after 1:00 PM by the time we were all cleaned up from our ordeal and ready to go out.  We walked to the Damascus Gate of the Old City, about 10 or 12 minutes, and entered the Old City there.

Nothing changes.  This is the eastern, or Arab part of the Old City, and there are innumerable stalls and shops, with powerful sounds, smells and sights along the winding streets, some of which are fairly wide and some very narrow:

In the past, Rabbi Alan Katz has raved about the hummus at a relatively small restaurant in the Arab Section, and Joyce and I had been there.  I remembered the falafel more than the hummus as being excellent.  Well, we went again to Abu Shukri, and it all was excellent.  It functions in sort of an odd way.  It’s astonishingly busy, with people everywhere and almost enough room to sit.  The big gruff guy who sat us (at a table not yet cleaned from the prior diners) yells at a boy to clean the table, which he sort of does.  At least he got all of the plates and implements off of the table; 80% of the surface was wiped with a damp rag which had seen lots of tables.  The big guy looked us over and said, 1 Falafel, 2 hummus, salads, bread.  Yes?  We said yes.  A bowl of eight large falafel balls, two plates of hummus, 5 pitas, a bowl of salad, and yet another bowl which was sort of like baba ghanoush, but wasn’t, were sort of dropped on the table, and it was truly fabulous.  The hummus was incredibly creamy and a bit lemony.  The falafel was crispy on the outside and very flavorful on the inside.  The warm pita was delicious.  All in all, a great lunch.

We wandered the old city for the next couple of hours, taking it all in.  We wound up at the Cardo, the main street of the ancient Roman Jerusalem.  Today it’s lined with shops, many of them art galleries where original Israeli art is sold as well as prints from such as Chagall.  After a couple of hours the energy abated, and we walked back to the apartment, exiting the city through the Jaffa Gate:

Joyce and Leah are napping; we have an 8 PM reservation at a Moroccan restaurant tonight.  As the sun set, I took one more photo of the Dome of the Rock from our balcony:

Tomorrow should be special.  Leah is very much into rock climbing, and we’ve arranged a climbing expedition for her with an expert guide.  Joyce and I will watch.