The wailing wall is the holiest site for the Jewish people. They come from all over the world to pray at the site. It is the remains of the sacred second temple destroyed by the Romans.
Ironically we entered through the Dung Gate.
It is open to all people – Christians, Muslims, Jews and atheists like me – but you have to pass through a security check in order to get in.
There were lots of people in uniform.
Including the odd Muslim.
As usual with the Abrahamic tradition, where women are second-class citizens, there was segregation by gender. The women had their bit of the wall and the men theirs.
It says that you should keep the word of god before you at all times – so what better way than to strap it to your head??
All very devout!
It was, as one might expect, lavish, spectacular and beautiful. The artists and artisans had certainly gone to town.
One had the feeling that there was definitely an edge of competition here.
As an atheist, I could appreciate the artwork and wonder at the devotion and ecstatic expressions of the worshippers – reminded me of the expression on my face when I met Bo Diddley.
The Cenacle is supposed to be the site of the Last Supper. It seems a little far-fetched to me. But even though I am an atheist I believe Jesus was a historical figure (not the mythologised figure he has become) and he had to eat somewhere. This felt wrong – too grand and too conveniently close to King David’s tomb. But it certainly pulled in the punters.
I love history. Jerusalem is full of it. It is a holy place for Christians, Jews and Muslims and has been fought over many times. It is still being fought over.
King David’s tomb is a sacred place for Jews. Visiting it left me with a number of questions:
Why in this modern age are women separated from men and treated as second-class citizens?
If there is a god (which I very much doubt) would she really make such bizarre demands on religious costume?? Having to wear strange clothes and strap gospels to your head and body?
Is it the best way to spend your brief sojourn in this universe studying ancient writings and treating them as the definitive word? I think, personally, that reading and investigating ancient history has a place – but life’s for living.
We arrived in Haifa at dawn to discover a port that was not exactly the world’s most picturesque.
Israel intrigued me. I am not a religious man. Indeed, I think religion is the cause of many of our problems. But I was aware of the history and could see that Jerusalem was the focus of centuries of conflict between the three Abrahamic religions. It had fought to an uneasy truce. Jerusalem was the powder keg for the whole Middle East. It could go off at any moment. The Palestinian/Jewish situation looked like it would never be resolved.
For the West this presented a great opportunity to benefit from the unrest. The whole Arab world was in conflict.
It was easy to see how this constant state of animosity and fear pushed people to more extreme positions and beliefs.
I was eager to have a look. A lot of history was bound up in this small area.
Boarding a coach we set off for Jerusalem and received our first glimpses of Israel through the window.
We arrived at the walled city and entered in.
We caught our first glimpse of orthodox Jews. We were going to see a lot more religious extremists in the course of the day.
We arrived at the  Abbey of the Dormition.
These are a couple of short extracts from the book – Farther from the Sun’ that I wrote twenty years ago and am presently editing:
Just leave footprints. The world is in our care. We are just passing through.
15.9.01
Muslims do not allow living things to be represented in their art. They have a thing about idolatry. No face can be depicted. Their art is largely abstract design. I have no problem with that. Their art is beautiful but their certainty and intolerance is the ugliest side of humanity. Their blind interpretations and adherence to every word of a text written more than a thousand five hundred years ago are abhorrent.
Religion is a personal view. I have no problem with what a person believes.
There are no facts. Certainty is ignorance.
I do have a problem with what they do in the name of belief.
When they ousted the Hindus in India and took over their temples they knocked the heads of all the statues and gouged the tiles.
One has to ask why? They were not theirs. They were merely passing through. They defaced the seventh-century Jain sandstone carving outside of Agra. The Afghanistan Taliban demolished the even older and more beautiful Jain statues carved in sandstone on their steppes – the Buddhas of Bamyan.
These are crimes against the whole history and culture of the world carried out by brainwashed fanatics. Such intolerance and disregard is at best ignorant. It displays egotistic arrogance.
I tell you – certainty is our biggest enemy.
15.9.01
At the time of our visit to the Batu Caves there was a festival in one of the temples (I gather this is a regular event). A lot of people were gathering, bringing offerings, and dressed in their finest. Many of the people were couples with babies. I was intrigued to see them with their hair died extremely blond. I’m not sure what that was about. They were very keen for me to take photographs.
Can anybody shed further light on this?
Used
Â
Used.
Indoctrinated
And abused.
Taking advantage
Of the confused.
Too serious
To be amused.
Given a bomb
That’s not defused.
No longer alive
To be accused.
Opher – 17.5.2020
I wrote this for the young suicide bombers who are duped. Young men so serious and obsessive, who are sucked into religion and fall for it one hundred percent, for whom there is no questioning or doubt, who are groomed, who really believe in what they are told, whose anger is stoked and directed, who fall in love with martyrdom, who believe that they will wake up in paradise, who are seduced by the idea of young virgins.
I wrote this for the gullible lost young men and the cynical, evil men in the background who use them.
