I wrote this blog after ten days in Israel and the West Bank, visiting a friend who is working there.
I planned to write during my trip - indeed I did write my private journal - but I found I couldn't write for others to read while I was there. The experience was such a confusion of impressions and emotions, and it has taken time to settle and form into something I want to put into words.
There are so many walls in Israel: ancient and modern; keeping people in and keeping people out; built to protect, and built to oppress. From the first day I was acutely aware of them.
And Jerusalem is filled with the sound of prayer. Five times a day the call to prayer echoes from its minarets; you cannot walk the streets of the Old City without coming upon Christian pilgrims of all denominations, singing, chanting and praying; and it holds the most significant place of prayer for Jews - the Western Wall.
So the name came to me before I had been there a day - the rest has followed later.
I planned to write during my trip - indeed I did write my private journal - but I found I couldn't write for others to read while I was there. The experience was such a confusion of impressions and emotions, and it has taken time to settle and form into something I want to put into words.
There are so many walls in Israel: ancient and modern; keeping people in and keeping people out; built to protect, and built to oppress. From the first day I was acutely aware of them.
And Jerusalem is filled with the sound of prayer. Five times a day the call to prayer echoes from its minarets; you cannot walk the streets of the Old City without coming upon Christian pilgrims of all denominations, singing, chanting and praying; and it holds the most significant place of prayer for Jews - the Western Wall.
So the name came to me before I had been there a day - the rest has followed later.
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