Jerusalem Journal # 208
When warnings of an imminent Iranian air attack on Israel began flooding Israeli media during the evening hours of Saturday, April 13, we braced for impact. The early hours of April 14 were memory-makers here. Israeli military intelligence had put the country on the highest alert status, and they were right on target in more ways than just the information. A friend had written to ask if I was safe earlier in the evening. I responded, “I feel completely safe being tucked up close to the Dome of the Rock and living in the Muslim Quarter. Iran is not going to fire on the Old City or Muslim holy sites.” Thankfully, these were not my famous last words.
Just before 2 a.m., the limestone bedrock under all of the Old City and its environs rumbled with explosions. Piercing sirens blared. Awake but reading news updates on my phone in bed, I ran to my bedroom window to see flare-like neon-orange objects coming from the west and passing over the top of my building. Remember, I am on the top floor, so going out on the balcony to watch seemed foolish. In hindsight, I wish I had done it! I ran to the living room window, opened it, and oriented my phone camera toward the Temple Mount/ Haram Al-Sharif and a view across the Jewish Quarter with a front-row seat on history. Never before had Israel been fired upon directly from Iranian soil. Miraculously, Israeli aerial defense systems and allies disintegrated every volley in the surreal Star Wars battle of Titans.
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Explosions of missiles taken out over the Old City flashed like an apocalyptic nightmare.
The “morning after” the onslaught was beautiful and breezy, eerily quiet on the streets below. On my Jerusalem rooftop terrace, the sun had already heated the black wrought iron Woodard patio chairs given to me by my parents as an anniversary gift fifty years ago. I stepped out into the morning sunlight to pull out my favorite southern-facing chair lined up to look squarely at last night’s war theater, the world’s most contested sacred space. Once seated, I realized the cool breezes would drive me inside unless I moved to a seat where I would receive a warm embrace from the sun. Shifting out of my old favorite, I settled into one with my back to the Temple Mount area, delighting in the intense sun rays streaming under the pergola, and rolled up my sleeves.
Do you have a chair that captures your favorite view from the dinner table or living room? Are you a host who offers to share your “favorite view” seat with a guest, or do you find yourself getting into a bit of a huff when a guest unknowingly chooses YOUR seat with the view? Observing the world from different perspectives brings balance, understanding, and sometimes surprise.
Orienting ourselves can reveal a depth of meaning that transcends just the panorama in front of us. It stirs curiosity about our environment, stimulates dreams, facilitates goal-setting, and may even redirect our destiny while involving sounds, smells, and a panoply of images that factor into our chosen line of sight.
For three millennia, Jews worldwide have prayed in the direction of Jerusalem. I think of the prophet Daniel as a hostage in what became part of the Persian Empire, three times daily opening his window to pray toward Jerusalem. He focused on the land of his dreams. Since the Islamic Conquest of the 600s A.D., Muslims worldwide have not prayed toward Jerusalem but Mecca and the Kaaba shrine. However, if you were to walk around my neighborhood today, you would see prominently displayed posters, wall hangings, and photographs at the entrances to and interiors of Muslim-owned shops that depict the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque, not Mecca.
The refocusing efforts of business owners are growing in the markets of East Jerusalem
The 1948 rebirth of the nation of Israel and the 1967 capture of East Jerusalem to unite the city by Israeli forces instigated increased zealotry among both Jews and Muslims, triggering covert Jewish purchases of Muslim-owned Old City properties for huge sums (precipitating an Islamic death sentence/fatwa upon any Muslim seller who sells his property to a Jew). It has recently spawned an Arabic/Hebrew-language TV series called EAST SIDE. According to my Muslim shopkeeper Khalid, there is a growing encouragement within fringe Islamic groups to make pilgrimage/hajj to Jerusalem’s Haram Al-Sharif before their travel to Mecca. There is an incentive, he says, that if you make ten pilgrimage visits to Al Aqsa, it counts as one visit to Mecca. That trend of a Jerusalem hajj is something I am witnessing with my own eyes, as white-robed men and many times with families in procession, swell Muslim-run hotels and spill over into Christian guesthouses like mine, scattered around my area of the Old City. This year’s Ramadan brought a significant uptick. Something here is changing.
There is an intrinsically and uniquely significant essence about this “center of the center” now at my back. Here, amid an extended Israel-Hamas War and an unprecedented confrontation with Iran, the world’s eyes view from differing perspectives, perhaps refusing to move their chair even forty-five degrees from their favorite angle to observe and reassess. Couldn’t our refusal to try sitting in another chair cut relevant aspects out of the actual panorama? What does it take to dislodge us from our favorite seat? What surprises await us when we reset the focus?
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Enjoy with me the view from another perspective.
From my northern-facing chair, the patchwork jumble of limestone buildings stacked one above the other like a massive ascending stairway on the hillside catches my eye. There is the Austrian Hospice with its posh new terraced addition for guests, and multiple Arab houses passed down over generations as I scan up the Via Dolorosa toward the gray dome topped with a cross that belongs to Sisters of Zion. The landscape’s high point was previously a Muslim-owned house that became a Jewish-owned security stronghold equipped with cameras in all directions. The Muslim owner who sold out was stabbed to death at Damascus Gate by another Muslim maybe twenty years ago. There is always something in view to remind me that not all is serene here, but looking and listening for the beautiful brings a peaceful respite.
A Muslim woman, stepping around a stone-walled corner on one of the terraces in the distance, emerges in a sapphire blue hijab to rescue her laundry flapping furiously in the wind. A white dove descends onto a tin-roofed shanty shack as an explosion of flapping feathers erupts from the large date palm ahead of me, launching a squadron of squawking parrots, beady black eyes gleaming in the sunlight, flying directly toward me in a green flash. Tipping their wings as they banked around the pergola, narrowly clearing the corner, they headed toward the Dome of the Rock to ruffle some feathers there. I could have missed that glorious close encounter if I hadn’t moved out of my favorite southern-facing chair! I think I might just start taking a different seat every few days. Who knows what will come into view and how it will enrich my perspective?
Enjoying the walk home,
Cindy
Facebook: Cindy Bayer
Instagram: cindybayerstories
Friends in the USA…I return to the U.S. on May 7 for a three-week whirlwind visit to share stories from Israel around the country. I hope to see some of you along the way! Send me a heads-up if you can join these drop-by gatherings. I am still trying to arrange some locations.
Dallas/Ft. Worth area—May 9-12
I will be at Panera Park Lane in Dallas on May 9 between 2-4 pm
Houston, TX—-May 13
I will be at La Madeleine on May 13, located at 5885 San Felipe St. #100, between 2-4 pm
Lafayette, Louisiana—May 14
Contact me if you are interested in connecting here
Longview, TX—May 15
Panera Bread on May 15 between 12:30-2 pm located at 481 E. Loop 281
Atlanta, GA—May 16-19
Hoping to do a Panera gathering just north of Atlanta on May 17
TBA—I will be sharing stories at a church in Newnan, GA, on Sunday morning, May 19
Kokomo, IN—May 20-21
Panera Bread in Kokomo on May 21, between 9-11 am. Located at 1941 S, Reed Rd
New Harmony, IN—May 22-24 for The New Harmony Project
Contact me if you are interested in connecting here
