A Walk in the Souk

Jerusalem reminds me a bit of a Tuscan hill town - narrow streets, lots of ups and downs and half arches across the streets in places. Only ratchet the temperature up about 50 degrees, imagine a light honey-colored "Jerusalem stone" on all the buildings and imagine a whole new set of sounds and smells and you start to get an idea of what it's like to walk through the Old City of Jerusalem. The walls have changed in location and construction several times, but I imagine the general character and make-up of the city really hasn't. In some places, there are huge well-worn stones underfoot. We learned that these stones are from around the time of Jesus and though the street level of Jesus is about 6m below current street level, some of the stones from that level have been excavated and brought up.

Jerusalem is roughly divided into 4 quarters: Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Armenian. The Christians here are Arabs as are, of course, the Muslims. The Holy Sepulcher sits in the Christian Quarter and the Temple Mount has the Muslim quarter on one side and the Jewish Quarter on the other. Despite the way it sounds, these "quarters" are really more just loose boundaries and one easily moves throughout the city. The only distinct borders are at the Jewish Quarter which was totally destroyed around 1948 when the Israelis lost control of Jerusalem to Jordan. The buildings are much newer there and from the destruction later came some good - excavations took place that uncovered many interesting sites including the main Roman street of Jesus' time called the Cardo.

In Arabic, the word for bazaar or market is souk and Jerusalem is full of them. Picture a narrow street that is open to above, but fully covered by canopies from shops on either side. It's shaded and cool compared to other streets in the open sun and everything you can imagine is being sold. There are cheesy souvenirs next to exotic spices next to gold icons next to women's underwear - I mean everything! Each step you take literally brings a new smell to your nose. Most shop keepers sit outside their stores on plastic chairs trying to guess the native language of the people walking by so they can invite them in. It is complete sensory overload, but I think very "Jerusalem-y"; there were clearly locals shopping as well as tourists. Most evident of this was the stores selling the long, simple, button-down coats that the Muslim women were wearing. (I am sure there is a name for it, but alas I don't know it!)

This was our first experience walking through Jerusalem and it culminated in buying falafel from a vendor between the Christian and Muslim Quarters which Nate has already described in great detail. Together, these experiences are how I'll remember Jerusalem.