Sunday saw us visit the Anglican Cathedral of St George in
Jerusalem to share in their Sunday morning Eucharist followed by coffee in their
lovely garden, and then we listened to Jeff Halper from ICAHD (the
Israeli Committee Against House Demolition).
He put the final nail in the coffin of any remaining hope for a two
state solution, given the numbers of new settlements already established in the
occupied territory.
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| The view from Yad Vashem |
That afternoon we visited the Yad Vashem
Holocaust Museum, which documented the rise of the Nazis and their increasing
scapegoating, dehumanisation, segregation, ghettoising, ethnic cleansing and eventual
extermination of the Jews. So much of
what I saw seemed to echo with what we were seeing in the Israeli treatment of the
Palestinians, but it seems it too big a leap of imagination for Israelis to
see themselves in anything other than the role of the victim. The further I walked around this shocking
spectacle of human misery, the more I felt the sickening irony that similar policies
were still being justified in the name of “security”. The “Never Again” message was clear, but seems
to be understood as “Never Again To Us”.
Towards the end of the experience, there was an emphasis on the pockets of
resistance that established themselves in the remote forest areas to carry the
fight back against the Nazis, and a certain amount of glorification and heroism
of their achievements that seems to shape the mindset of all the young Israelis
that visit there as part of the National Service.
I came away with the impression that, at some point during the
war, Jewish people gave up on God and instead turned to alternative power of military
strength that had oppressed them. The
question in the concentration camps of “where is God in this?” is of course a
difficult one explored in Elie
Wiesel’s book “Night” and also the film “God on Trial” (2008). As Christians living in the years after Jürgen Moltmann’s
“The Crucified God” was published, it is easier - well, less challenging anyway
- for us to relate to Isaiah’s ‘suffering
servant’ image of the Messiah, and the parallels between Jesus on the cross
and the child hanging from the gallows in Auschwitz. For anyone having a belief which requires God
to be all-powerful and unchangeable ...well, they will prefer to look elsewhere. I guess it was only at theological college
that my own concept of God was expanded to allow Him to be God rather than to
fit the box that I had created for him, based upon all the “omni-“ words of
Greek philosophy.
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| Mary meets Elizabeth |
The mood on the coach was subdued and reflective as we left
there and I was relieved to get out again into the hot sunshine at Ein Karem for the walk up
the hill to the church commemorating the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth,
before going on to our final hotel, the “Knights’
Palace” in Jerusalem.
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| View from the city wall |
That evening, I thought it was a waste to spend the time in the
hotel bar with so much history on the doorstep, so went for a stroll and started
exploring, armed with a basic map. Moving
from the Christian quarter, south through the Armenian quarter and onto the old
city wall to take in the night-time scene of the (Kidron?) valley below.
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| The Western Wall with the Dome of the Rock |
And so on into the Jewish quarter and my
first glimpse of the “Wailing Wall” with the Dome of the Rock on the Temple
Mount. Well, it all seemed quite safe,
so I continued walking through checkpoints, nodding at guards who seemed a bit
bemused but didn’t object to me going through, so I continued and entered the
Muslim quarter and had no problems going into the Temple Mount and walking to
the far side to see the view from the wall to the east and to see the inside view
of the Golden Gate. Eventually, as I
approached a security post it was clear that I was past the point where normal rules
for tourist health and safety had applied, so I retreated from the narrow ledge
along the top, having satisfied my adrenaline rush for the day to complete my
anti-clockwise circuit back via the Damascus Gate and following the inside of
the wall back “home” to the Christian quarter.
Trying to convince a few Palestinian kids that I didn’t need a guide was
the main obstacle of the evening!
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| Inside the Temple complex (almost deserted at night) |
