Reality breaks through

Day 2: a slightly different experience.  After a day of sorting through my new classroom, doing admin and trying to get myself set up for teaching on Monday, I had arranged to meet up with a family from my old school in the UK who were in Jerusalem for a few days on holiday.  We met by the Jaffa Gate of the Old City and after a pause for some drinks we decided to jump into their rented car and drive over to the Mount of Olives to see the sun set over the city.  Except that we got lost.

Jerusalem's streets aren't particularly well signed and are very windy and narrow.  We found ourselves driving into a valley (possibly the Kidron valley, we weren't really sure), round a sharp bend and down a very narrow street that ended up in a dead-end in a run-down Arab district.  When we turned around we heard the bang of something hitting the car - had we reversed into something?  As we got further down the street it became apparent firstly that a stone had been thrown at the car and secondly that a group of boys had gathered to run after the car and throw more stones.  As we drove away rocks hit various parts of the car, including the windows, making a large and (I'll confess) quite scary noise.  We managed to get out of the valley without any broken windows but when we finally made it to the Mount of Olives there were some fairly large dents on the sides, the roof, the boot and the bonnet of the car.

It was, I have to say, a very unpleasant experience and we were all a bit shaken, as well as dumbfounded.  Was it because we were clearly Westerners and probably tourists?  Had they seen the Magen David necklaces my friends (who are Jewish) were wearing?  Was it because there were unveiled women in the car?  What creates such anger and galvanises such violence in such young children?  We'll never know.  We walked up through the Hebrew cemetery to the viewing platform at the top of the Mount of Olives and watched a beautiful sunset over the city, with the golden Dome of the Rock gleaming in the fading light.  A degree of peace returned.

I was pretty upset by this experience, but then as I reflected and talked about it with my housemate Allison and her boyfriend Anis they reminded me that Jerusalem is a city of tensions, of unresolved conflict, of (in some cases) massive injustice, of extreme views and high passions.  Anis was recently attacked by a large group of orthodox Haredi Jews as he was driving his car on a Saturday (the Sabbath) down Hanevi'im, the street our school is on and which is at the bottom of the highly orthodox area called Mea Shearim, though it is considered a secular street.  The violence is coming from both sides and happening to both sides, as well as sometimes happening to bystanders like me and my friends.  

It is often unwise to gloss over deep issues and this incident has forced me to rethink my previous perspectives, made me more aware of the importance of staying safe (and staying in the right neighbourhoods) and reminded me to have a exit strategy and a back-up plan, which I may never need but is worth considering.  Whilst I sincerely hope and pray this sort of thing does not happen to me again I think it's probably a good thing that reality broke through.