Awestruck in Israel

As I stood with my feet cooling in the shallow waters at the shore of the Sea of Galilee, last Wednesday, I was awestruck. Jesus was here, right here, calling to fishermen to be his disciples. This is the water on which he walked. This is the land where he was born. Israel. I was in Israel. Amazing.

For the last seven days, I toured the country with my art historian Fulbright friend, Justine—Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Akko, Haifa, and points in between, like the castle ruins at Belvoir and Kibbutz Nof Genosar. I have seen divided cities, security guards, check points, barbed wire, barricades, and chain link fences. I have also seen verdant valleys filled with fruit trees, olives, figs, and oranges--the desert, too, and rolling hills, the sea and the dry plains.

Justine’s purpose for the trip was to study Crusader architecture; I wanted to see first hand the divided communities and how Christians, Arabs, Muslims, Jews, Palestinians, and others live and work together; how they isolate their communities or how they blend the divisions between cultures.

Israel is a country of contradictions—modern and ancient cities meld into one; Muslims and Christians, Arabs and Palestinians, Jews and Armenians, Greek Orthodox and Anglican--churches, synagogues and mosques. There is poverty in Israel and incredible wealth. Parked by the roadside stores are camels and BMWs. Our taxi from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem at midnight careened up and down hills at top speed, with songs like “Besame Mucho” and “The Great Pretender” blaring from the cd player on the dash.

On the first full day in Jerusalem, we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, walked the twelve stations of the cross down Via Dolorosa, saw the Wailing Wall, visited St. Anne’s Church, garden, and ruins, got lost in the alleys of the underground market place by taking several wrong turns--several times, saw a woman in a berka and a man in a Palestinian head cover, and bumped into any number of other tourists—Americans, Germans, Nigerians, Australians, and Jewish pilgrims from across the globe.