It’s impossible to choose a favorite thing in Jerusalem so far, but right now I believe it may be the Bulgarian feta with hyssop and sun-dried tomatoes that’s laid out every morning with the rest of our hotel’s immense breakfast spread.
The skies at dusk are also spectacular — eerily Biblical, which, I keep remembering, makes sense. The night before last, Max and I stood looking out at the Wailing Wall as the sun set. Above us roiling tufts of gray clouds swept over a pale but insistently glowing blue. The wall was goldish in the waning light. The men had about three times as much room as the women did to pray.
We had just come from the chaos of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where priests of various sects tried to pray more loudly than priests of other sects. Pilgrims and holy persons kissed Christ’s grave and pressed foreheads, scarves, and water bottles against it. Groups of tourists, including a lot of American Methodists from Alabama, waited to climb a little staircase to the area said to be Calvary. So did we. The only part of that place that particularly touched me was the dark little room said to be where Jesus was held before being sentenced to death.
I’m here for the Jerusalem International Book Fair, where Mark Sarvas, Boaz Cohen, Naomi Alderman and I spoke yesterday about books, the Internet, and writing and creating art from a place of passion and authenticity.
Mark and I don’t see each other nearly often enough these days, and it’s been great to roam the city and catch up. Boaz is smart and charming; it’s easy to see why his radio show and his blog are beloved here. And I adored Naomi, whose first novel, Disobedience, I praised on this site years ago and whose game-writing I’ve always wanted to know more about. She and I nerdily compared iPad apps and promised to meet up in New York to talk about being refugees from fundamentalism.
Max and I spent Monday in the Old City, and had drinks and dinner that night at Mona (yum) with the writer Menachem Kaiser, Israel Museum Director James Snyder, and some other fine people. Yesterday was all about the book fair, but after drinks at the National Library, Max, Mark, and I slipped off to dinner at Eucalyptus.
This morning Max and I head to Bethlehem for a few hours, and then we’ll meet up with Mark at Yad Vashem. Tonight we dine at Canele. Tomorrow morning we go to the Israel Museum for the new Herod exhibition, and in the afternoon to the Mount of Olives and Garden of Gethsemane. Early Friday morning — a little after midnight — we head home. So far, thanks to my body’s time zone confusion, I’m averaging three-and-a-half hours’ sleep a night. I’d really like to get a nap in; for now I have jetlag limericks from Facebook friends.
Max took this photo, looking east from the Tower of David Museum, on Monday afternoon.
