What's that siren!? (Jerusalem)

Member Name: dangaroo

Product:	Jerusalem
Date:	07/01/09 (55 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lot of history, friction and interesting sights

Disadvantages: Boring place for young people to live long-term I imagine.

Jerusalem is a super religious city and the most important to Christians & Jews and also important to Arabs. It's a hilly place that is usually a bit chillier than the coastal destinations, in fact it rained quite a lot when I was there and they do occasionally have snow. Arriving at the bus station from Tel Aviv we arrived at the bottom of the bus station and had to go through baggage checks and screening as there was a shopping mall there. I've heard from other foreigners that it's not necessary to go through these but it certainly seemed so in Jerusalem and I couldn't spot an alternative route.

Apart from the huge queues near the bus station. I was quite surprised how quiet Jerusalem was, I expected it to be as hectic as big neighbour Cairo. With a small population of 1 milion, it's not too surprising although there was a noticeable military presence everywhere and a lot of tourists - in particular Russian, American and Polish. This may have cooled off now since the recent outbreak of war in Gaza.

I'm not religious in any way as you may have guessed by the abundance of metal reviews, so I was mainly there out of curiosity. As one of the oldest cities in the world and with so much history it was defintiely worth visiting. I only spent a day there which contradicted the rest of my itinerary as I had much longer stays in other places except Haifa. I did however get a good 7 hours march around the city, getting lost along the cobbled alleyways and only stopping to try various nuts and some baklava at a market and later some felafels from a cheap snack place near Damascus Gate. There was a huge queue inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre supposedly the place of Jesus' crucifixtion and cave burial. I had a quick nosy and it was quite packed, I'm not a fan of churches and this was no different. What I did find amusing and in some ways sad were the tourists squabbling over their position in the queue - heathens!

When it comes to buying felafels - it is normally 3 to 5 shekels just to sit down so if you are on a tight budget make sure you take it away. The one near Damascus Gate is by no means the best but it's definitely passable and for 6 shekels, you can't really turn your nose up.

The old centre of Jerusalem is quite picturesque albeit tourist laden, there's a great deal of souvenir shops that will do anything to make a buck, it's one place where you can witness t-shirts with Free Palestine on one side of teh shop and "America Don't Worry, Israeli is Behind You" written on the ones opposite.

Budget accomodation isn't too dear, there are some cheap Arab ran hostels near Damascus Gate which I've heard are a little grubby but passable for 40-50 shekels a night. I stayed with a German guy from Couchsurfing.com and the community in the city is quite active, so that may be worth checking out.

My favourite part of my visit to Jerusalem was the exoticness of visting a completely ultra-orthodox area of which I don't know the name and can't seem to work it out from looking at maps! The streets are clean and look a bit old-fashioned, a large family starts after 13 children, the majority (didn't get to meet all of them lol) were Hasidic Jews from Belarus, Ukraine and Poland and apparently haven't changed a great deal or at all in recent centuries and thus remain the real deal. Wearing silk like robes and furry hats (Shtreimel), their plats swinging - they looked quite the sight. There were large signs at the entrance to the neighbourhood saying that they despised tour groups, so I wouldn't recommend taking out your camera as tempting as it is. Also make sure you are dressed correctly as an Israeli friend of mine (a girl) was close to this area with a top that showed a small amount of shoulder and she was stoned by local women etc.

The craziest part of my visit to this neighbourhood was that it was Friday and I arrived there just as Shabat was beginning, so a huge siren went off in the neighbourhood followed by people hurrying around (later I discovered to the synagogue or home).. I had no idea what was going on and thought a war was starting! The siren was followed up by traditional Jewish music and loud vocals.. surely a rabbi or something but it sounded like a recording to me. Wandering around at that time, as interesting as it was didn't seem all together safe and I got a lot of vicious stares which didn't make me feel altogether comfortable.. cars passing through this area during shabat are likely to be stoned. Interesting area, pretty hardcore area with not a secular Jew in sight.

Jerusalem is pretty unique, apart from the tourist filled centre where people jump off by the bus load, the city seems to have quite a tense feeling and there's not many places like it, with an exciting mixture of friction and history. I wouldn't like to live there though, seemed more of a place to visit than a place to have fun and I imagine the night life is comparable to chewing on a wet sock.

Summary: I liked it!