Jerusalem: getting unorthodox with the orthodox

We left Jerusalem 2 days ago, just as we were actually getting used to it, or perhaps I should say, I was getting used to it. Elle had lived here, so she knew her way around, and where everything was. I was happy to be toured around as drove through the city, Elle noting important sites such as where she went to high school, her various apartments and where her grandmother bought fruits and vegetables from Yom Tov the ganif (1). I had the inside track on Jerusalem and it made me feel less like the obvious tourist that I was. Yet despite all of this familiarity, Elle was useless when it came to dealing with our kosher kitchen in the apartment we had rented. Everything was marked with either blue tape for dairy, or red tape for meat. I felt perfectly entitled to holding up a tomato and asking what plate I should be using, but my Jewish wife? She was as hopeless as I was! I tried not to show my disappointment in her, but after the second time we had to bury the dishes, we started to be more careful. All I can say is that we really improved, and by the end of our stay, even our little Palestinian kitten knew out of which bowl he could drink milk or eat kibble.

Since we had done so much touring with Dad, we decided to dial down the tourist stuff. We did go to the Israel Museum but most of it was closed because they were renovating. I had heard so much about it from Elle so I was kind of bummed, but the Sculpture Garden was mostly open so we decided to go anyway. The garden was fantastic and worth the trip alone, and I was especially happy to see the James Turrell piece. They also have a great 1:50 model of the old city of Jerusalem, which is also pretty fun and then of course the Dead Sea Scrolls. The building that houses the scrolls is great, you’ve all see the photos, but I have to tell you, there is a lot of build-up to getting to those scrolls (the cave-like passageway, the dim lighting, the little bits of pottery) and then to find out they are not actually the scrolls, but replicas, I felt a bit ripped-off. It’s not as if I can read them anyway, but I thought the whole point is so see the actual, real scrolls, not a scan of it. To be fair, they had a few bits and pieces of the real scrolls here and there, but not in the large cylindrical display case on the pedestal. Oh well, for whatever reason, perhaps her interest in archeology, Elle found these photocopies fascinating and was in there for hours.(2)

We also decided to take advantage of still having a rental car and continue our work photographing villages for the What Isn’t There project (3). On our maps, we found two that were essentially within Jerusalem so we set out to find them. The first one, Al Malicha, was basically in Jerusalem and once we spotted the minaret, we knew we were there. The residents were none to pleased to have us taking photos in their hood and told us that were ‘weren’t allowed’ to take pictures which we pretty much ignored. The next village, Al Jura, was in a valley, mostly evidenced by the plantings (almond trees and sabras) with just one building left. The next day however, was much more exciting. We set out for Al Walaja, a village close to Al Jura, which we found fairly easily. It was alongside two hills facing each other and as we surveyed the landscape, a young orthodox man hurried by us. “Are you looking for the spring?” he said. We didn’t actually know there was a spring, but before we could answer, he said that if we didn’t mind, he would like to bathe first. He was very friendly, told us how to get there and then sped off to have his dip. We saw him make his way over to what looked like a pool across the valley and strip down. We decided to hang back on our side of the valley until he had finished his bath, but before he had come back we saw another guy make his way over to the pool. After the third bather, Elle decided that we weren’t going to wait to get to the other side any longer, naked Hasid or not. So we walked over to take our photos from the other side, snapping our photos while a seemingly endless stream of bathers carried on behind us. It was only after one invited us to join, that we decided that perhaps we had taken enough photos. I didn’t think orthodox men were exactly so free and easy with nudity, considering our experience in Mea’Sharim (4), where the man who instructed us to leave wouldn’t even look us in the eye. Yet these guys were either more focused on their ritual, or just not that shy.

We had hoped to shoot four villages that day but were a little behind now and hoped to make it next village which on the map didn’t seem far away but it was across a valley and through a national forest. We decided to take a ‘shortcut’ which turned out to be a very bad idea as we drove in circles, scraping the bottom of our rental car on gravel roads meant more for an ATV than our little Mazda. We finally found our way to the village, after a pit stop at the JFK memorial (5). As we arrived we realized our experience with the Hasidim for the day was not over. As we got out of the car, we saw a man standing in the forest, seeming be in conversation with the trees. Fools that we were, he was actually in conversation with God. Our light was fading fast, so we ran around trying to photograph quickly, not noticing there was another man standing in an open field, also in conversation with God, or the tree stump, we weren’t quite sure. They started bellowing, almost as if they were in competition with each other as to who could speak to God the loudest. Elle later asked Mike, our new friend who adopted little kitty (now called Ishmael) who is studying to be a rabbi, what this all meant. Mike said it could have been a ritual of atonement for sins which could have happened during Sukkot, that it might have something to do with rain (that seems to be a Monday, Wednesday prayer post-sukkot), or, they were just plain crazy.

Footnotes

1. meaning ‘thief’ in Yiddish ( I know most of you know that…..)
2. She also completely disagrees with my take on this.
3. What Isn’t There: Elle has been photographing the 418 Palestinian Villages within 1948 borders of Israel and I have now joined her on the project. We only have about 400 left to do.
4. Mea’Sharim: ultra-orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem
5. JFK memorial: once a tourist hot-spot, now closed, no-more eternal flame.