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| DATE | 2022-04-18 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Jeruslem Violence - NYT
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JERUSALEM DISPATCH
Rare Overlap of Holy Days Shows Jerusalem’s Promise and Problems
In its Old City, a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim marked Easter, Passover
and Ramadan. To some, it’s a “symphony.” To others, a reminder of division.
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A view of the Old City of Jerusalem on Thursday, the eve of the first
convergence of the three holidays since 1991.
A view of the Old City of Jerusalem on Thursday, the eve of the first
convergence of the three holidays since 1991.Credit...Amit Elkayam for
The New York Times
Patrick Kingsley
By Patrick Kingsley
April 17, 2022
JERUSALEM — On Friday morning, as clashes flared at the Aqsa Mosque in
the Old City of Jerusalem, Muslims inside and outside the mosque were
fasting for the 14th day of Ramadan.
A few hundred yards away, Jews were burning leavened bread, a
traditional ceremony that occurs just before Passover, which formally
started on Friday evening.
A few minutes to the north, Christians were beginning a procession
through the Old City, holding aloft wooden crosses, retracing the route
that they believe Jesus Christ took before his crucifixion.
For the first time since 1991, Passover, Easter and Ramadan were about
to occur all at once — intensifying the religious synergies and tensions
that have defined Jerusalem for millenniums.
To some, the overlap embodied the wonder of Jerusalem and the semblance
of coexistence among its peoples.
Image
Jewish children collecting cardboard on Friday on their way to a
traditional ceremony during which leavened bread is burned.
Jewish children collecting cardboard on Friday on their way to a
traditional ceremony during which leavened bread is burned.Credit...Amit
Elkayam for The New York Times
Image
Muslims gathering next to Damascus Gate in the Old City to break their
Ramadan fasts on Thursday night.
Muslims gathering next to Damascus Gate in the Old City to break their
Ramadan fasts on Thursday night.Credit...Amit Elkayam for The New York Times
Image
Christians preparing to march across Jerusalem from the Church of All
Nations.
Christians preparing to march across Jerusalem from the Church of All
Nations.Credit...Amit Elkayam for The New York Times
“Jerusalem right now is a symphony of people reaching out to God,” said
Barnea Selavan, a rabbi and teacher who had just finished burning his
family’s remaining leavened bread.
To others, the convergence highlighted the incompatibilities and the
inequities of a city where many Palestinian residents consider
themselves living under occupation. Clashes broke out again on Sunday
after Israeli police officers stopped Muslims from entering the Aqsa
Mosque compound for several hours to allow Jews to enter for prayer.
“Jerusalem is like a salad bowl,” said Mustafa Abu Sway, a professor of
Islamic thought who had just left the mosque. “You have intact tomatoes
and intact cucumbers and intact lettuce leaves. You don’t have a salad.”
And to some Christians whose Easter Friday procession started earlier
than usual to avoid inconveniencing Muslims heading to the mosque, the
convergence of holidays underscored the sense of being a minority within
a minority.
“We are like a potato mashed between everyone,” said Serene Bathish, a
leader of an Arab Christian scout club, who helped organize the Easter
procession. “We are between two fires.”
Far from seas and major rivers, and high up in the mountains, Jerusalem,
for much of its history, held little strategic significance, militarily
or commercially. Its power and relevance most often lay in the spiritual
hold it had over millions of people, many of whom had never visited it
and to whom it had often meant drastically different things.
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Image
Christian worshipers attending a service on Thursday evening at the
Church of All Nations, on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
Christian worshipers attending a service on Thursday evening at the
Church of All Nations, on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.Credit...Amit
Elkayam for The New York Times
Image
“We are like a potato mashed between everyone,” said Serene Bathish, a
leader of an Arab Christian scout troop. “We are between two fires.”
“We are like a potato mashed between everyone,” said Serene Bathish, a
leader of an Arab Christian scout troop. “We are between two
fires.”Credit...Amit Elkayam for The New York Times
For Jews, Jerusalem is their ancient capital, the seat of King David and
the site of two ancient Jewish temples where they believe God’s presence
dwelled. For Muslims, it was from that same site that the Prophet
Muhammad rose to heaven and on which they built the compound of the Aqsa
Mosque, the third-most-sacred site in Islam. For Christians, it is the
city where Jesus was crucified and ascended into heaven — where
Christianity was born.
The Old City was ruled by the Ottomans until 1917, the British until
1948, and Jordan until 1967, when Israel captured and later annexed it.
Much of the world still considers it occupied, and Palestinians hope it
will be within the capital of a future Palestinian state.
“Everybody has a Jerusalem in their head,” said Matthew Teller, the
author of “Nine Quarters of Jerusalem: A New Biography of the Old City.”
“When you get there and you do actually see it for real,” he said, “it
can never match up.”
As a case in point, on Thursday night, the eve of the first convergence
of the three holidays since 1991 began with an intense traffic jam.
Image
A street market in the Old City, where an estimated 30,000 Muslims,
5,000 Christians and 5,000 Jews live.
A street market in the Old City, where an estimated 30,000 Muslims,
5,000 Christians and 5,000 Jews live.Credit...Amit Elkayam for The New
York Times
Image
Israeli police patrolling near Temple Mount, a site sacred to Jews and
Muslims, on Friday shortly after clashes erupted at the Aqsa Mosque.
Israeli police patrolling near Temple Mount, a site sacred to Jews and
Muslims, on Friday shortly after clashes erupted at the Aqsa
Mosque.Credit...Amit Elkayam for The New York Times
On the narrow road that circles the Old City, Christians like Ms.
Bathish were heading to a service beside the Garden of Gethsemane, an
olive grove full of wizened trees where tradition holds that Jesus was
arrested on the night before his crucifixion. And Muslims like Professor
Abu Sway were heading to the Aqsa Mosque, where tens of thousands had
just broken their Ramadan fast at a communal iftar, or meal.
Around the Old City walls, built by the Ottomans who ruled Jerusalem in
the 1500s, Muslim families picnicked here and there on the grass verges.
They broke their fasts to a soundtrack of car horns, distant chants from
the mosque and, later, faint choral melodies wafting from the basilica
at Gethsemane.
In front of everyone was gridlocked traffic, surrounding this ancient
city with a ring of cars and buses, the mystical encircled by the profane.
Image
Ramadan street lights hanging last week in the Old City.
Ramadan street lights hanging last week in the Old City.Credit...Amit
Elkayam for The New York Times
Image
“When you enter the Aqsa Mosque, you feel that you are blessed, that
it’s something special that not many people have access to,” said
Mustafa Abu Sway, a professor of Islamic thought.
“When you enter the Aqsa Mosque, you feel that you are blessed, that
it’s something special that not many people have access to,” said
Mustafa Abu Sway, a professor of Islamic thought.Credit...Amit Elkayam
for The New York Times
At Rabbi Selavan’s apartment in the Old City’s Jewish Quarter, the scene
was a little quieter on Thursday night.
He and his wife, Shoshana, symbolically hid pieces of their last
remaining leavened bread — bought from a rare Arab-run kosher bakery in
the Old City — around their home, behind chairs and a garbage can and
under tables. Then they set about searching for the pieces that the
other had hidden.
According to Jewish teaching, Jews must not eat leavened bread during
the week of Passover, which celebrates the ancient Israelites’ escape
from slavery in Egypt. The Old Testament says that they escaped so
quickly, they did not have time for their bread to rise.
To Rabbi Selavan, it was extraordinary to be celebrating the holiday in
the city that the Israelites’ descendants eventually made their capital.
In his sitting room, he keeps a small oil lamp that he found during an
excavation under his home, and that he believes was used in Jerusalem
during the time of King Solomon, about 3,000 years ago. It is filled
with charcoal that he believes is from the charred remains of the
ancient city, after it was razed by the Romans around the year 70.
The Recent Rise in Violence in Israel
Card 1 of 4
Confrontation at a holy site. On the first day of a rare convergence of
Ramadan, Passover and Easter on April 15, clashes between the Israeli
riot police and Palestinians erupted at the Aqsa Mosque compound, known
to Jews as the Temple Mount — a complex in the Old City of Jerusalem
that is sacred to both religions.
Escalating tensions. The clashes capped weeks of rising violence and
deadly attacks in Israel and the occupied West Bank. More than 30 people
have died in what is now the biggest wave of violence, outside of a
full-scale war, in several years.
A deadly sequence. Before violence erupted in Jerusalem, a shooting on
April 7 was the fourth lethal episode in recent weeks. The series began
on March 22, when an assailant killed four people in southern Israel.
Other fatal attacks occurred near Tel Aviv and in Hadera, a city in
northern Israel.
Israel steps up raids. In response to the attacks, Israeli forces have
carried out a widespread campaign of raids into towns and cities across
the West Bank. As a result, at least 14 Palestinians have been killed
since the beginning of Ramadan on April 2, including a 16-year-old boy.
“I’m in a rebuilt — partially, at least — Jerusalem,” Rabbi Selavan
said. “I’m doing it where it was done.”
Image
Burning leavened bread in the Hatkuma Garden on Friday in the Old City.
Burning leavened bread in the Hatkuma Garden on Friday in the Old
City.Credit...Amit Elkayam for The New York Times
Image
Rabbi Selavan, left, buying bread on Thursday from an Arab-run kosher
bakery in the Old City.
Rabbi Selavan, left, buying bread on Thursday from an Arab-run kosher
bakery in the Old City.Credit...Amit Elkayam for The New York Times
A half-mile away, hundreds of Christians at Gethsemane, including Ms.
Bathish, began a procession from the basilica. They chanted and carried
candles through the traffic jam, the quotidian again mingling with the
ethereal.
“Stay on the sidewalk!” an organizer shouted in Arabic. “Not in the road!”
The procession passed a tract of church land that the Israeli
authorities had recently planned to repurpose as a national park before
backing down amid Christian claims of discrimination. Then it skirted
the Jewish cemetery at the bottom of the Mount of Olives, before winding
through a valley filled with eccentric ancient monuments — the
pyramid-shaped Tomb of Zechariah, the conical-roofed Tomb of Absalom —
and then up toward the Old City walls.
To Ms. Bathish, it is a privilege to celebrate Easter where it started,
and to live a few yards from where Christians believe Christ died.
“But actually, we don’t get to enjoy it that much,” she said. There are
an estimated 5,000 Christians left in the Old City, alongside roughly
30,000 Muslims and 5,000 Jews — and they feel squeezed between both.
Having staved off government efforts to repurpose church land near
Gethsemane, church leaders are locked in an ownership dispute with a
Jewish settler group over buildings on the other side of the Old City.
Fighting these legal challenges and living in a tightly policed area,
all while struggling for cultural recognition, is “very tiring,
time-consuming, difficult, chaotic, insecure,” Ms. Bathish said. “We’re
not enjoying the whole feeling of uniqueness.”
Image
The Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives.
The Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives.Credit...Amit Elkayam
for The New York Times
Image
Christian worshipers attending the foot-washing ceremony on Thursday at
Saint Saviour Church.
Christian worshipers attending the foot-washing ceremony on Thursday at
Saint Saviour Church.Credit...Amit Elkayam for The New York Times
A few hundred yards away, on the promontory where Jews and Christians
hold that Abraham tried to sacrifice his son Isaac, Professor Abu Sway,
the Islamic theologian, was in his element. With his wife, daughter,
son-in-law and two grandchildren, he listened to a reading of the Quran.
To Jews, he was at Temple Mount, the site of a Jewish temple destroyed
by the Romans. But to Muslims, this is the Aqsa Mosque compound, a
36-acre esplanade that includes the golden Dome of the Rock, a shrine
marking the Prophet Muhammad’s ascent.
An imam had just read part of the Quran about the Prophet Musa, known as
Moshe to Jews and Moses to Christians, and would shortly begin a chapter
on Muhammad’s journey to Jerusalem.
Soaking in the moment, “it seems that I am in love,” Professor Abu Sway
said. “When you enter the Aqsa Mosque,” he said, “you feel that you are
blessed, that it’s something special that not many people have access to.”
But to the professor, that realization was bittersweet.
To Rabbi Selavan, the convergence of the holidays embodied the shared
life of the city and proved the Israeli state’s efforts to preserve the
freedom of worship. “The thinking person realizes the freedom that they
have under the Israeli government to serve God in their way,” the rabbi
said.
But to Professor Abu Sway, the convergence was a reminder that many
Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza are not allowed
to enter Jerusalem to worship. And the violence on Friday at the mosque,
between Israeli police and Palestinian stone-throwers, highlighted not
coexistence, but coercion.
“There can be no coexistence,” Professor Abu Sway said, “when you have
occupation.”
Image
The Dome of the Rock at the Aqsa Mosque compound at dawn on Friday.
The Dome of the Rock at the Aqsa Mosque compound at dawn on
Friday.Credit...Amit Elkayam for The New York Times
Myra Noveck contributed reporting.
Religion in Jerusalem
In Shift, Israel Quietly Allows Jewish Prayer on Temple Mount
Aug. 24, 2021
Jerusalem, the Holy City of Separation
Nov. 26, 2014
Why Jerusalem’s Aqsa Mosque Is an Arab-Israeli Fuse
May 10, 2021
Jerusalem Tattoo Artist Inks Pilgrims, Priests and Those Scarred by Conflict
April 15, 2022
Correction: April 16, 2022
An earlier version of this article misstated who believes that Abraham
tried to sacrifice his son Isaac in Jerusalem. It is Jews and
Christians, not also Muslims.
Patrick Kingsley is the Jerusalem bureau chief, covering Israel and the
occupied territories. He has reported from more than 40 countries,
written two books and previously covered migration and the Middle East
for The Guardian. -at-PatrickKingsley
A version of this article appears in print on April 18, 2022, Section A,
Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: Holy Days Converge in
a City Where Interests Often Collide. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper |
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