Market Street

Yesterday at breakfast, I met an Israeli couple from Caesarea, Porat and Yali, who were vacationing in Jerusalem for Porat's birthday. They asked me about my favorite places in Jerusalem, and I told them a few. Later that day, I was walking into a small museum I had mentioned to them just as they were walking out. They invited me to go along on their sight-seeing expedition, so we headed toward the Church of the Holy Sepulchre so see the Ethiopian village described in their guidebook to be on the roof of the church.

Later, we walked through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. We were having a really fun time talking and laughing, and I learned that they had met when both were soldiers in the Israeli military (she was the guide for his unit). Today they have been married twelve years and have four children. Next we came into a long and narrow street of market stalls. As is typical, the shopkeepers were standing out front trying to lure shoppers inside. Just this week, I have been proposed marriage by the mostly Arab merchants at least five times while walking through these areas. If you're female and you'd like to hear how beautiful you are, just walk through one of these markets. That afternoon wasn't any different. One particularly zealous shopkeeper kept following me, and when it became clear that I wasn't going to enter his store, he called out, "Pray for peace in Palestine!" I hear this frequently from shopkeepers, and I gave him my usual reply: "I pray for a two-state solution." In my experience so far, this has been a very satisfactory answer. Not for this guy. "No two states!" he yelled after us. "One state! One Palestine! You watch," he raised his voice and pointed at Porat and Yali. "I will push your friends into the sea!"

We left the merchant street shaken. My experience so far with Palestinians had been pleasant, if the sales tactics are often a little aggressive and annoying for my taste. I had never seen the conflict come out in such an ugly and personal way. Later, Porat and Yali told me that during the Second Intifada, they didn't like to leave the house at all, the atmosphere was so ugly and dangerous. The Second Intifada started in 2000, but the effects, according to Porat, have only recently died down. Had they walked down a merchant street like that during the Intifada, he explained, they would likely have had rocks thrown at them along with the verbal abuse.


Yali and Porat in the Old City.


Checking the map in a carpet-lined street in the Muslim Quarter.


The Ethiopian village at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.


American tourists pose for pictures with Israeli soldiers in the courtyard of Holy Sepulchre.


The market street.


Before the ugly encounter, we had fun with some friendlier shopkeepers feigning flattery and fending off advances.