A conversation between people and across time in Jerusalem

This weekend I was reminded that Jerusalem is a city of marvelous paradoxes, at once ancient and modern, secular and religious, quiet and loud. The streets of the city on Shabbat offer a perfect snapshot of the ways in which the old and the new blend together: while some Jerusalamites walk to synagogue with their Tallit draped over their shoulders others fill the few cafes and restaurants open on Shabbat and others still fill the parks and playgrounds along with their children. And of course there others out and about as well, Arab families going for walks, tourists visiting the old city alongside Israelis from other parts of the country who have simply come to see and experience this place.

Earlier in the day I visited a spot where the old and new have been joined together in an exciting and progressive way, in a recently renovated area around the old Jerusalem train station, a bustling center of activity in the early to mid-twentieth century which by the  beginning of the 21st had been abandoned. Now the city has revamped the area entirely, adding a playground, restaurants , shops and space for events, all with a bike path running along the outer edge. Visitors can also learn about the history of the place through photographs and informational signs (in both Hebrew and English) which chronicle the role that the British governmment played in expanding and improving rail service in the country during the Mandatory period. With this strategy the desgners of this new space have managed to weave together a narrative that combines seemingly dsparate parts of the history of a Jerusalem in a seemless way.

The idea of Jerusalem as a unifying place for Jews is one I think I have mentioned here before - it may seem a little paradoxical, given how much the media reports on strife within the Jewish world centered around things like acccess to the Kotel plaza and other points of friction between the Ultra-Orthodox and other Jews, but in fact it can also serve to unify people, because regardless of denominational differences,  Jerusalem holds a deeply-rooted place in the history of the entire Jewish people. I was reminded of this again at the Jewish Agency Assembly Shabbat dinner last night, where I had the pleasure of sitting with a pretty diverse group of people, including lay leaders from the  Orthodox community, an American studying in Israel for the year and an Irish Jew who had made alyah and served as a lone soldier. Despite our differences in background,  we were able to have a wonderful conversation about the role of the Orthodox Rabbinate in Israel when it comes to marriage, the beuaty and spirituality of the melodies given to the world by the late Shlomo Carlebach and the role that art can play in Jewish education. Throughout the evening ee shared pieces of our own stories with one another, noting the places where our experiences had overlapped or diverged in the Jewish world and discovering we had more in common than one might think, and while I suppose it's possible for such a conversation to happen in other places, to me there was something special abouut having it in Israel, in the capital of the Jewish State.

Copyright Daniel E. Levenson 2013.