Chocolate covered craziness

Months ago we found a plastic bag dangling on our door knob.

Already used to finding junk everywhere, we first thought our front door had turned in to the new waste deposit of the neighborhood.

In a way and to the standards of my former life, it was waste.  Although the contents of the bag appeared to be a present.

A huge box of chocolate cake bars. And a smaller package of muesli bars. No note, no card. We called around, asked colleagues and friends. Nobody seemed to have been the generous giver.

The Muesli bars were a far stretch from healthy. Not to mention palatable. The cake bars were so full of hydrogenated fats, they would not melt in the warmest summer sun. Someone meant well. Someone knew us very poorly but had meant well.

In the Netherlands we used to eat whole foods and very little sugar. We tried to avoid all processed foods. Here, things changed not just a little.

To fit in, I learned to adjust to the local kid friendly diet. In the country of disposables, portion sized snacks are a perfectly fine way to feed your kids. Candy is everywhere. Chips come in toddler sized bags. Sweet or savory, it appears to be breakfast to many of my Haredi friends’ children.

I learned not to cringe when people offered my kids a bag of salty snacks at nine in the morning. I am now able to not even raise an eyebrow when my two year old is offered two lollipops simultaneously.

One of the first times I met Sara in the playground she pulled out a big plastic shopping bag. When she emptied the contents of the bag, some thirty children eagerly awaited her signature snack. Flocking around her like pigeons on Dam Square in Amsterdam. At first my children thought Sara was handing out crafts supplies. Eager to start playing with what they perceived as colored sand. They soon learned to appreciate Israel’s way to express love for children. The local kids bit a corner off the bag and start sucking on the sugar Sara had dyed with food coloring.

My new friend, the playground crazy lady, offers the kids as many chocolate bars as they can hold. She smiles motherly when they flush it down with bright pink soda. Because of Hanukkah she had made Sufganiyot today: deep fried donuts covered in sugar. Offering the kids her shirt to wipe their hands off after eating.

Yesterday evening I was busy cooking when someone knocked the door. Mary Ann, a neighbor who I hadn’t seen in ages, stumbled in. In her hand, a fifty shekel bill. In her eyes, the haunted look that made me happy I hadn’t seen her so long.

The last time we did see her, she couldn’t stop whispering to us. We had hardly exchanged names when she started crying. In a somewhat louder whisper she told us she was so happy believers had come to live next to her. Because the Jews that lived around us didn’t understand Jesus as their savior. But now…

We avoided Mary Ann a little after that. And she had seemed to avoid us. Until yesterday evening.

Thieves and killers will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven! She exclaimed. I have stolen, or maybe taken, a bucket of paint that was outside your door. I thought that you had discarded it, that I could take it. But since tonight’s Service, I know I have to pay you! It was not right, I should not have taken it without asking!

I rushed to the kitchen. I did not want to be too close to this woman: Really, Mary Ann, don’t worry about it, we didn’t need that paint, I hadn’t even missed it, you must have been able to use it better than we would have.

I know now that I should’ve said: Fine, great, thank you, give me the money. But in stead I tried to make her feel better. Pretending the pan on the stove needed my full attention and trying hard to comfort her. Most of all trying hard to make her leave.

Mary Ann shut the front door behind her, tried to hug me, put the bill in my hand. The last thing I wanted was her money.

Half heartedly shaking her off, I thought I had a brilliant suggestion: Give it to charity! That way everyone wins!

Mary Ann looked around her and spotted the kids. She was obviously better at this than I: Buy a present for your beautiful children! Buy them candy!

The kids, who until now had pretended not to have noticed someone new in the house, all looked up with big round eyes. Then started cornering me, whispering: Mommy, yes, candy, gifts!

Mary Ann folded the bill and put it on our dining table, smiling contentedly. I did not want to interrupt her leaving, uttered a thank you and just smiled back.

The door knob in her hand, she turned around: Did you ever find the chocolate I hung on your door? I felt so bad I had taken that paint, I wanted to do something back.

She shut the door behind her. Leaving me behind with the faint smell of craziness, a solved mystery, fifty shekel, and kids begging for toys.

And candy.

Of stray cats and other human beings

We call her Caroline. She is more like us than we would like to admit.

She’s the red stray cat that we have half heartedly adopted. Even though people tell us red cats are mostly male, we are convinced Caroline is a she. And even though we know we are not the only one for her, we love her as if she’s faithful to only us.

We feed her daily, but will not allow her in our house. We have made a warm bed for her in the back yard that she never uses. We scare away other cats that have started spraying our back yard with breath taking enthusiasm. We worry when we haven’t seen her in two days. We are contemplating on bringing her to the vet because she recently started limping.

We can not take her home. My husband is allergic, getting her a pet passport would take months if not a year. And who says she will be happy with us, far away from her relatives, in our cold and rainy little country?

Caroline belongs to our family more than she will know though. When we arrived in Jerusalem, we still felt closest to the Christian heritage of our European background. I believe Jesus Christ has lived here. Regardless of whether he was the Messiah or just a very charismatic Jewish man. I believe the man that continues to inspire millions has travelled through the same hills as I travel through now.

But not long in to our journey, it started to feel as if Christianity was wrong here. It seems to be the religion that resembles the little boy in the back of the classroom. The one with the glasses and slur, the one that tried not to be too obviously present, or else the big boys will beat him up.

Of course, secretly, this little fella is taking good care of himself and getting stronger every day.

If you look closely enough, you see it happening. There is a large Franciscan Monastery just inside the Old City walls. It just so happens to be right next to the Notre Dame Center, a huge and beautiful Hotel with several restaurants and auditoria. Then guess who are the neighbors? Opus Dei has a stunning house that is being renovated right next door. While just a little step away, the Salesian sisters have their pre-school for Arabic children. On and on it goes, albeit in a modest, delicate, quiet manner. Behind walls and closed fences. Sometimes under the yellow white Vatican flag that vanishes against the Jerusalem stone.

Out in the open both Judaism and Islam are very present everywhere.

In the streets. In the never ending tension between people passing eachother. Both with head scarves. God fearing, but both fearing the other religion more.

In our ears when Muslims are called for prayer with loud and ever present Adhan, or when the siren indicates the beginning and end of Shabbat.

In our hearts when we meet up with Sara and her family, or when we think about the people we met on the West Bank that invited us to their house and in to their families.

Today was the perfect example of how all three religions brush against us like Caroline when she wants to be fed. The children and I walked to the Garden Tomb in East Jerusalem. It is a wonderful place where it’s easy to see Biblical stories come alive. My oldest son needed a present for a friend, I needed some hard to find Christmas decorations. The little gift shop seemed like the perfect place to spend some money.

A trip to any shop with five children in tow is a reason to become religious and pray for sanity. With our return to the Netherlands in mind I decided to cut us all some slack and allow the kids to pick a souvenir.

Heavy with Bibles, build-your-own-Arc’s and cute little nativities made in Bethlehem, we left the shop and headed back home. Even through the rain, our little bunch of blond kids attracted the never ending kind attraction of the locals. Older Arab men, young families and elegantly veiled women would smile or stroke our daughters hairs.

The border between East and West Jerusalem, between the Arab side and the Jewish side, is where we cross the street to go home. Waiting for the traffic lights to turn green we were standing behind a tall man. He looked old fashionedly British, with his folded umbrella by his side, his bowler hat and his long black coat. Were it not for his side curls, neatly folded behind his ears, we would have mistaken him for a tourist.

He turned around and looked at us: “you live here?”, he asked.

I nodded, careful not to look him in the eye too long. He pointed behind me, to the neighborhood we just came from. And continued: “because then you know, it’s dangerous there”.

The lights turned green and he walked away from us, obviously happy he had done his mitzvah to help a stranger. The children didn’t notice, but I felt a little bedazzled.

When we arrived back home Caroline was waiting for us. And the similarity was obvious. Like her, we are astray. She might be apparently genderless, we are nationless. Without a firm faith we feel friendship with everyone, regardless of religion. But like her, we can never let our guard down. For, like the man in the street told us today, enemies are suspected everywhere by the same people we befriend.

Like Caroline, we know where to get what, and how to behave where. We tell our children to say Shalom on this side of the street, and Salam on the other side. We love when people love us, and hide when the going gets tough. With our Christian heritage Israel seems like a perfectly legitimate place to grow a stronger faith. Yet we have lost more than we found. And like Caroline, we then find treasures in unexpected places.

We never really belong, nor fit in completely.

Like Caroline, we enjoy it while it lasts.

The key to success is to stay low key

One of our first weeks here, someone told us: the key to success in peace negotiations is to stay low key.

We translated it to something we tend to do well. We like making friends. Temporary friends. And with a large family, making friends is easy. Arabs will embrace you for having an Arab sized family, Haredim will not distrust you and Traditional Catholics will love you.

The large family catapulted us straight to the middle of this society.

I have this little game that I play with our middle child. I will ask her: what’s the best part of a sandwich? And she will shout out: The middle part! What’s the best part of a party? The middle part! And on and on it goes.

When it comes to living here, we are in the middle of things. And it is the best. We are neither Jewish nor Arab, neither Christian nor secular, neither left wing nor right wing. Or so I tell myself.

But then again.

We make friends on both sides. Or better said, on all sides. We have friends that belong to the Catholic somewhat sectarian Opus Dei, but also friends in a Protestant Christian community. Palestinian friends on the West Bank and Arab Israeli friends in green line Israel. We have Jewish friends among left wing critical side, secular side and conservative side. Our babysitter is Christian Arab and of course, there’s Sara my ultra orthodox friend. We have friends in the expat community but also among Lifers who come from abroad but are here for the rest of their lives.

All from different places and although in Israel, all further apart than this country stretches.

I sometimes think this year is actually about people, more than anything else. In a place so drenched in disputes, it is the people that make the country glow, flourish, or slowly die.

And it makes me want to tell you about all those people. It makes me want to get under their skin and understand them, to blurt it all out soon after.

Betrayal.

It feels as if I am betraying my friends.

I want to write about the young guy who recently joined Opus Dei, about his pledge of celibacy and the way he first offered to babysit our kids and then suddenly withdrew his offer.

I want to write about the two Rami’s in our life: one an Arab “fresh juice guy” who is the biggest fan of our youngest daughter and the other Rami, Sara’s husband. Two men that will pass each other in the streets on a daily basis, but never without an undertone of hatred and fear.

Now, I will tell you about our next door neighbors who made us chocolate cake yesterday, because they mistakenly thought it was our special day when we celebrate Sinterklaas. It’s a young family and they are lovely. Their oldest son plays with our youngest son and their baby makes me want to have another one.

When I wanted to go to their place yesterday evening, I first had to change my shirt. My newly bought sweater from Jericho has a proud print I can not read. In green Arabic it says: “Palestine”.

It would have been rude to enter their house with that shirt. And it is actually considered dangerous to walk through the streets of Jewish West Jerusalem with a print like that.

I feel absurd for changing my shirt when I walk through my own neighborhood. I tell myself I do it for the kids. When Jewish friends would see my shirt they might treat my kids differently, because their mom wears a shirt with the name of a neighboring country on it.

Anyway. I changed my shirt and we knocked their door. The oldest three kids and I sang traditional Sinterklaas songs for the neighbors and we all chatted away happily.

The subject changed to our departure. They were shocked to hear we will most probably go back to the Netherlands half January. And the next step is always to become each other’s friends on Facebook.

The key to success is to stay low key.

I had not been so low key on Facebook lately. And if I add up all the things I posted, I might not have been in the middle of the political spectrum, either.

How could I have been so naive to befriend our neighbor on Facebook? Aren’t real life friends close enough?

That night, I leafed through my new Facebook friend’s statuses a little. I had to translate some of his texts, although the photos made his opinions pretty clear. He was all but low key.

That night, I learned a whole new side to the story. A side I can not stomach yet, nor agree on. But a side I did have to see.

That night, the middle was not the best part at all.

 

From here to the moon and back

We’ve been from here to the moon and back.

Last weekend we visited Taybeh. One of the last Christian towns in Palestine. It is a lovely, quiet place. The most noticeable difference from all the other towns on the West Bank is not so much the religion. It is the absence of rubbish and trash on the streets that has now become almost iconical to our Middle Eastern experience. Taybeh is as clean as the inside of it’s churches.

It being a Christian town, alcohol is not on the black list. Even better: the town is well known for producing it’s own beer. We wanted to visit the brewery. Take the tour, show the kids how beer is made and give the local economy a boost in a pleasant way.

Our small car barely fits all of us, but we managed to squeeze in four boxes of, let’s say, support for both the occupied territories and us parents.

Our youngest daughter fell asleep in the car on the way back and we decided to keep on driving not to wake her up. And driving…

Until we arrived in Nablus.

The history of the ancient city of Nablus goes back at least 9000 years. It is called Schechem in the Bible. It nestled itself at the slopes of, and mainly in the valley beneath, Mount Gerizim.

To go where no European child has gone before. That is how the children must have felt. Our very blond middle daughter had gotten used to her movie star status in Jerusalem, but the people of Nablus took it to the next level. Ten minutes after we parked the car, she asked us to buy her a head scarf. Almost everyone who passed her in the overcrowded streets would touch her hair. People stared. Children would stand still right in front of us and gaze at us, mouths open wide.

Our youngest daughter quite enjoyed the show. Safely on her father’s arm she would happily wave at the crowds, throw hand kisses at whoever requested it and would kiss cheeks of complete strangers.

Some people would nod at us and say “welcome”. Some would ignore us and most people just looked at us. Not angrily, not afraid, not amused. The look in their eyes was more of an interested, almost fascinated nature.

We might have just mirrored their fascination.This was a town in another country. This was so far away from the Israel we have seen so far, we felt as if we had landed on the moon. Everything was different. The people, the buildings, the atmosphere.

We decided to go with the flow. We bought Kanafeh, which Nablusians pride themselves in being the best at preparing. We ate in a local restaurant. Bought the girls shoes with glitters and diamonds. The family was clearly warming up to the place.

Mount Gerizim was still on our list. Half of the remaining Samaritans  still alive had built their village there, on their Holy Mountain.

We paid a cab driver to lead the way. Which he did to the best of his knowledge. Bringing us past more proud green Hamas flags than I had ever seen before. Straight to the immense new mosque on the slopes of the mountain.

When we got out of the car to congratulate him on the mosque and ask him again for our intended destination, he had to make a few calls. Mister cab man drove us a little further and then waved out of his window: on, onwards, that way.

The way lead us to a closed fence. Probably the only side of the fence our Palestinian cab driver would ever be able to see. In our fortunate position as aliens, Westerners, tourists, we could go back and try to get to the other side of the fence through the checkpoint at the entrance of Nablus.

So back on our tracks we went. Past the magnificent palace of the Palestinian billionaire Munib al-Masri. We couldn’t help but ring the bell at his gate. Unfortunately we weren’t welcomed in to the house of the man who reportedly has as much money as a third of Palestine’s economy. Not this time.

By no means discouraged we did eventually end up in the Samaritan village on top of Mount Gerizim. Situated just behind the Jewish Settlement Har Brakha, meaning “mountain of blessing”.

Which is a funny name, when you realize that it is exactly the dispute about the holiness of the mountain that drove Samaritans and Jews apart. Jews believe history took place and shall be made on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Samaritans, true to the Torah and worshipping in a synagogue, believe Mount Gerizim is the place to be. Always has been.

Not only did God create the world, starting at Mount Gerizim. It was also the place Abraham was told to kill his son Isaac. The only dry part during the flood when Noah built his arc. And according to recent Dead Sea scroll work, Samaritans might be a little better in topography than Jews are.

Samaritans are on their way to become extinct. They tend not to marry with non-Samaritans and their gene-pool necessary for healthy offspring is quickly diminishing. If there ever was a blessing for us on that mountain, it was being able to be amidst these men and women in their distinct Shabbath attire. To see history being alive. To embrace the frailty and temporality of it all. Admire the stubbornness and dignity.

It was time to head home. Through the Tapuah junction where deadly or near deadly incidents between Jews and Arabs happen on an almost weekly basis. Past numerous settlements and Arab towns. Back to Jerusalem.

When all the kids had finally drifted off to sleep and we were about to call it a night ourselves, someone knocked on our door. Gently, kindly.

When we opened the door, there was Veigy, one of Sarah’s younger sisters.

From Sarah! She said, stretching out her hands, holding two plastic plates. Each plate held two beautifully crafted, homemade birds’ nest pastries, filled with ice cream.

With our hearts and minds still filled with moon dust. Veigy helped us land back here again.

 

 

People are… human: Dinner in the Sukkah

Here is it was. The moment we all had been waiting for. Dinner in the Sukkah.

Frankly, I had been dreading it. We were invited to have dinner in the Sukkah of our neighbors, built on our balcony.

The kids loved the whole ceremony. Building it, looking at it, playing in it. They Could Not Wait to have dinner there.

But I didn’t like the idea one little bit. Maybe I am too shy at heart for a gathering like this. Maybe I felt bad that I couldn’t help cooking because my kitchen isn’t kosher. Maybe the perfectionist in me didn’t like not knowing what would happen and how I would fit in.

My 4 year old son had embraced the neighbor’s teenage girls as his best friends, being the few people in the area that speak sufficient English to play with. But my most intense encounter with our neighbor hadn’t been my finest moment in Israel so far.

I prepared the best way I could. I took two tylenols to kill my upcoming headache that tells me I stress out too much over little things. We bought flowers and kosher fruit juice in factory closed bottles. Like observant Jews on Shabbat, we bathed and put on our nicest clothes to prepare for dinner.

And then we waited. Waited for the knock on the door that would invite us to our own balcony. To have dinner with the couple and their daughters that were so obviously very observant. The man with his side curls and his beard. The woman with the head scarf and the daughters with their pretty smiles and long skirts.

The knock came, we settled on the plastic chairs and the beautifully set table. We watched, observed and learned. Our neighbors told us to ask them anything we wanted to know and so we did.

Time passed and a miracle happened. It was not just that it started raining and we had to move inside. The rain in itself was a miracle, it hadn’t rained for months. Their house was a blessing because it was just as messy as ours. But the real miracle was something else.

Our neighbors, that I had thought older than myself, are much younger than I thought. The way they observed their religion, much less stringent than I had expected because of their attire. The way the kids played, much nicer than I could have ever hoped for.

The neighbor guy explained the secret of Sukkot to us: that it was more than anything else a matter of faith. That by living in a hut for a week, one proves that one believes one’s life is in God’s hands. That he will take care of you, no matter what. But that it is up to you to believe that.

That sounded like the very observant Christian friends we once had. This sounded all too familiar. Nicely familiar.

But it was our common background. Our being human, that proved our common ancestry.

Their faces appeared behind his beard, her scarf. Their fears and hopes, their dreams their experiences, it was all so similar to ours. I could feel the pain of her, see his worries and I knew their emotions as if they were my own.

And it was then that I knew: no matter who your enemy is, no matter what your faith is, we are all the same.

We are all so…

human.

Adam and Eve spoke Dutch

We spent a wonderful therapeutical fortnight in our own holy land: Holland. Also known as The Netherlands. It was lush, it was green, it was a tiny bit rainy for the time of year. In fact, I don’t think we had one dry day. But who cares. We were in heaven.

According to a 16th century Humanist that went by the name Goropius, Adam and Eve actually spoke Dutch. The garden of Eden is not to be found in Israel but rather in the South of Holland. And after these two weeks, I think the man was right.

It’s not just the wonderful scenery. Of course, there’s the hypnotic effect of staring at the flat land, broad horizons, endless lakes and canals. The peacefully grazing cattle on the green grass makes one lower one’s pace and rebreathe. 

All those things help to clear the mind and relax the senses. But with a heavy conscious and a sad heart, all of the above would not help that much. What really makes the Netherlands the garden of Eden is the mystery of, let’s call it, innocence.

Before I left for Israel I had tried many times to understand what was really going on here. But one way or another, I never really got what happened. Who did what to who? What war was started when by who? And who won, anyway? What parts of the country belonged to which party and who colonized, excuse me, occupied, excuse me, disputed about what part where?

I asked people who knew about it, but without failing, I always drifted off halfway their story. What shall I make for dinner or oh my word I still have to send that birthday card…

I am not that poorly educated, either. I tend to get things quite swiftly. But this, it just never stuck. And it didn’t bother me at all that I didn’t know that much about it. Actually, I even thought I understood. Ah, innocence…

Then we got here. I do not want to claim I understand now. But I do see what is happening. And it makes no sense at all. Let me try something on you:

So there’s two people living on the same stretch of land. Or actually, one people lives on one side and the other on the other side. Sort of. Let’s call one people the Olives and the other the Figs. So the Olives live on one side. But they get to decide if they want to take a piece of the Fig side. The Olives are the only ones who can have a police force on most pieces of the Fig side. Figs can not show their flag on most of their side, but Olives can. Figs can not build permanent houses on most of their side, but Olives can. Hello, people? Are you still with me?

The more I tried to wrap my head around what was happening here, the more it upset me. A country that didn’t just have one snake trying to get me to bite in that apple, but a deep pit full of them. And then, all uptight and fed up, we went on our summer break to Eden. 

I looked at the green. I watched the cows. I had wonderful long nights with the awesomest people of the world, flushing all my anger and my fear out of my system. Each time I spoke about it, stress and anxiety left my system with every word I said.

And Whoosh, the Dutch Miracle happened. By the end of these two and a half weeks I was clean. Back to innocence. I had no idea why I had been so upset lately. It all felt like a faint, distant memory. I still tried to explain to people how things had been for us, failing miserably. By the end of our break, everyone I met and I were on the same page: smiling idiots that knew there were things going on in the world that were unfair. But hey. Isn’t it weird it’s so cold and rainy in August? 

And it was good. It was incredibly comfortable. The mystery of innocence is a gift. It unwinds, settles down, protects. It was just so darned temporary.

We’ve been back for a little over 24 hours. Back in Israel. The kids have been sad, angry and obnoxiously misbehaving all day. I don’t blame them. It’s not so much fun. Yet, for them, the gun shots in the neighborhood are still fireworks. They don’t even know Israel has decided last week to build a new settlement the size of 800 soccer fields. Claimed another 1000 acres of land that used to be Fig territory. Something that in innocence wouldn’t even have reached me. And now, it makes me sick. Makes me want to pick everything but the cockroaches up and leave. 

In innocence I might not win the parent of the year award. And luckily the competition is less strong here, but I am not even a runner up when I have lost my innocence. That, above all makes me even sadder. I want the kids to remember this odd year as awesome, different, leisurely.

Different, it is. But we also feel like exiles and outcasts from our heavenly home in Eden. And slowly I am starting to contemplate on returning before the year is over. Sure enough, moving back with just the little ones while my husband is still here is far from perfect. In the Netherlands we will have to move soon, too. Moving house twice in two months with five small children and my husband far away does not equal Paradise. 

I can’t help but wonder, what happened to the snake in the end, anyway?

Jerusalem Syndrome

I love cults. There, I said it. I love to learn about lifestyles that tend to adhere to a certain kind of absolutism. Groups of people following strict rules or beliefs, living a rigid or more seemingly free flowing lifestyle, fascinate me. Not only do I want to understand what drives them. I also tend to think that life like that must bring a wonderful sense of simplicity. As long as  you live it according to a strict set of rules.

Maybe “cult” is not the correct way to describe the object of my fascination. Because I would also love to visit a country under dictatorship before it turns to democracy.

For someone who is hoping to wake up one day knowing what her calling is, this sounds like pure bliss. Inner peace and true serenity must come to those that do not have to figure out how to live life to the fullest or what direction their bliss went that “they should follow”.

Of course I realize I would find the opposite of inner peace. I would fight my way out. And that paradox might be the core of the fascination to begin with.

One of the wonderful aspects of living here. Hardly a day goes by without some kind of Religious Extremism. First of all our ultra orthodox Haredi neighbors. It took me a couple of months of learning to get to understand them . A couple of months of diving as deep as I could into their rites and traditions. Buying artifacts, reading books.

Judaism is quite an obvious part of every day life in Israel. So it was not just easy to learn more about it. It also felt as an necessity to understand more about the country I live in now. But here’s the fun part: Jerusalem tends to attract a wealth of religious fanatics.

Coming from a country where Free Will seems to be the religion, It almost feels like heavenly intervention to be here for a while.

I took my Hebrew classes in a place that is -very- closely related to Opus Dei .

During the walk over the old city walls we met “watchmen”. Dutch people who have dedicated their pro-Israel lives to reading the Bible on the old City Walls. Because they believe that that is what God calls them to do.

Or how about “God’s General” on Jaffa Street, who is saluted by several “soldiers of God”. The General knows for a fact that the war Israel is currently fighting is actually brought on by the sinful lifestyle of the Tel Avivians.

I want to believe every single one of them is right. Mostly because by nature I want to do everything as I should. I want to do everything right. But it’s hard. Having a book in my house that will protect our family from rockets sounds like superstition to me. Superstition that is forbidden by the same religion our Book Seller Aaron is faithful to.

Living life in celibacy with some other people from Opus Dei seems unnatural and unnecessary to me. Not to mention spending long and unpaid days on the City Wall to read the Bible out loud to whoever wants to hear it.

But then again, wearing a wig because you believe you should cover your hair, is that cheating or is it wise? And another favorite of mine: the mitzvah of wearing of Tzitzit. The sole purpose of that Mitzvah is to not forget to fulfill all the other 612 mitzvahs.

The beauty of it all? Jerusalem Syndrome, the mental illness that hits some people visiting this city, has no preference for Jews, Christians or Muslims. Anyone can get it.

I wonder if the affected knows he is affected. Or she…