Jerusalem: Where the Past Is Present

The three days we spent in Jerusalem was barely enough time to scratch the surface of the things to see and do in this fabulous city. It is such a city of contrasts – very ancient and very modern. And very tourist-oriented. If you overlook the blatant competition for tourist dollars and seek out quiet corners, you can still find the peace this city is supposed to represent.

The highlights? The Garden of Gethsemane and its ancient olive trees. The Shrine of the Book. Don't miss it. Seeing the skyline of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. Walking through the suq where the pulse of everyday life crushes around you amid the presence of the past.

Quick Tips:

Unless you are passionate about crowds, I would avoid Christmas and Easter in the Holy Land. We went in February and except for a couple of days of intermittent rain and cool temperatures, the weather was perfect.

Best Way To Get Around:

The only way you can really see the Old City is by walking the narrow, ancient roads that twist and turn like a rabbit warren. This is especially true in the Suq where there is only pededtrians, and you need the mobility of foot travel to poke in the shops.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza, and, like their ads say, there are no surprises. It's a modern high-rise on the highest point in Jerusalem. It's elegant, big; the rooms were very comfortable and the food was good, but the place has absolutely no personality. The only good point is that it's within walking distance of the Israel Museum and the Shrine of the Book, the Knesset and its adjacent rose garden.

This is a must see. We went in mid-morning and must have just missed all the tour buses because we had the place almost to ourselves. The Dead Sea Scrolls are housed here. You walk down a sloping tunnel into the underground building that could double as a movie set for a SciFi flick. (I was told this place is bomb proof, but no one would confirm it.) The long halls are lined with glass-fronted recesses, like little shadow boxes. Inside are various documents found in the caves around Ein Gedi and range from dispatches from Bar Kochba to his troops during his revolt against Rome in 132 C.E. to even earlier documents, including legal papers relating to lawsuits, property deeds, loans and other bits of everyday life.

Not until you are well underground do you see the Scrolls themselves. The room is round and bi-level with walls of stone slabs like so many of the ancient buildings in the city. Some are fragments; some seem to be quite complete. They are absolutely magnificent, even if I can't read a word of them. My fingers just itched to be able to touch them. I think what was most amazing was that these bits and pieces are so beautifully written. I read a lot of old documents, and handwriting is not always readable. Not so with these scrolls. Each perfectly formed letter sits on faint lines drawn for the scribe to follow.

In the deepest part of the Shrine is the circular window holding the Isaiah scroll, wrapped around an oversized version of the rod a Torah is wrapped around. Set off by itself, you can slowly walk around it. What a miracle it is that these fragile pieces of papyrus and parchment have survived so many thousands of years.

The Via Dolorosa ends here, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Like most of the Old City, it is contained in tight quarters with a small courtyard in front and the neighboring buildings, all built of stone, crowd around. Above us, the dome of the church next to the spire of a minaret, the call to prayer (recorded, of course) echoing through the ancient alley ways. Inside the church, though the lines of division are not visible, the place has been divvied up among several Christian sects who jealously guard their bit of space.

This spot, the highest in the Old City, has been a sacred site since the Romans built their temple to Venus, and there have been several churches here, beginning with the one Constantine put up, followed by another built by the Crusaders. Its been added onto since then, but it remains a square Gothic creation with cavernous ceilings and massive columns holding it up.

The crush of humanity inside is as bad as in the suq. There seems to be a steady stream of pilgrims being herded up the first flight of stairs to the final Stations of the Cross. Here, Christ was nailed to the cross; here the cross was set in the stone (there are three indentations in a large stone). Herded down another set of stairs, past the slab of rock where His body was washed and, finally, a few feet away, the Holy Sepulchre itself. Everything is crusted in gold and tapestries.

The commercialism and the pat spiel given by rote got to us. That, and the crush of people, so we wandered off toward the back of the church. Here, we found ourselves in cool, quiet, dimly lit corridors, opening onto tiny chapels, our feet treading stones laid during the Crusades. You could smell the centuries and the dampness in the stones and there was blessed silence. We were alone except for a young nun slowly stopping to kiss each of the small shrines along the wall. There were no tourists, just the peace to sit and contemplate where you were, and, perhaps, who you were.

I was brought up a Christian yet the most profound sense of divinity did not come from any of the Christian monuments in Jerusalem, but from the Dome of the Rock. It sits above the Wailing Wall on the old Temple Mount (Haram esh-Sharif, in Arabic).

There is no commercialism here. In fact, you leave all your worldly possessions outside: shoes, purses, cameras, money, and passports. We'd already been warned to put what we didn't need for the day in the safe deposit boxes at the hotel, and what was left, we put in a pile and had a couple of our companions stand guard while the rest of us went inside. Under that incredible gold dome, is the quiet and peace of a place that exudes spiritualism. Men (and women, separately) quietly went about their devotions while we wandered stocking footed across the most magnificent display of oriental carpets I have ever seen. No one speaks above a whisper, no one is selling postcards or candles, and no one is setting off camera flashes. What light there is shines down from stained glass windows in the dome, onto a chunk of bare rock surrounded by an ornately carved wooden screen I could barely see over. It was here that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son, and here Mohammed is said to have ascended to heaven on his horse. The horse's hoof prints are supposed to be visible in the stone, but even after they were pointed out to me, I couldn't see them.

No matter what your beliefs, this is a special place and you should not miss an opportunity to visit it.