EYEWITNESS FROM JERUSALEM

A WEEKLY JOURNAL WRITTEN BY SISTER MARY

Jerusalem Journal # 2

 January 8, 2001

The previous journal page from Jerusalem mentioned two of the "quarters" in the Old City of Jerusalem:  the Christian Quarter and the Muslim Quarter. These areas, along with the Armenian Quarter and the Jewish Quarter, have been specific religious and residential areas for many, many centuries.

The Christian Quarter, where I live, spreads out around the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre and includes many churches and monasteries. It can be reached easily through the Jaffa gate, the New Gate and the Damascus Gate. The Armenian Quarter extends from the Jaffa Gate all the way over to the Zion Gate and is centered around the ancient Armenian Orthodox Cathedral of St. James.  Another famous church in the Armenian Orthodox compound is in the Convent of the Olive Tree and that church dates back to the fifth century. And then outside the Zion Gate the Benedictine Abbey of the Dormition graces what is today known as Mt. Zion.

The Muslim Quarter stretches from the north around to the west of the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aksa mosque, where the September incidents took place. The Muslim Quarter is a very large quarter and the gates that lead into it are the Lions' Gate, Herod's Gate, and the Damascus Gate as well.  In this quarter one can see fine examples of the characteristic architecture of the Mamelukes as well as some from the Ottoman period.  In its heyday, around the 14th. - 15th. century,  this quarter of the city must have been a magnificent area.

The Jewish Quarter is between the Armenian Quarter and the Wailing Wall. I understand that it is some of the most expensive real estate in the country. The buildings there are from the late 1970's, built after Israeli excavations had taken place in that area of the Old City. So, unlike the other three quarters, the dwellings are mostly all very modern structures. 

The other three quarters share several things in common. Our dwellings are old. We are built over, under, beside and around each other. Often when we leave the maze of the Old City streets, we enter a very small courtyard around which our residences are grouped. Sometimes as many as seven kitchen windows send their aromas out into that same courtyard!  It is normally a relief to enter one's own courtyard because it is swept clean and often has plants or a tree. The streets in our three quarters no longer have "dumpsters" or large garbage cans for our garbage. People have to put their trash in plastic bags and set them out in the street. Then the cats get into the bags during the night before the garbage is removed by carts in the morning. So our streets, thanks to the present mayor of Jerusalem who removed all the dumpsters, are often very dirty and strewn with garbage. Not so the Jewish Quarter where there is a place to put the garbage and where Israeli children have clean open areas to play in. Our quarters are difficult for the children. There are no green areas here, no large areas for the children to play and they cannot use the public parks outside the walls of the Old City in western Jerusalem because they are Palestinians.  There is a lovely park very close to the Old City where I would love to take some of the children to play.  It has a dedication in it from the American people to "all children". I asked a Palestinian man what would happen if I took some of the Palestinian children over there to play. He told me: "You will start another problem". But I have found that the Palestinian children can be very inventive when it comes to finding things to play with. An old plastic l.5 litre bottle of coke becomes their soccer ball right there in the street -- if they can keep it from bouncing down the stairs. And there is some new game now with plastic bottle tops, it's almost like a game of marbles. No wonder that it's a Palestinian young man, who was educated right here in the Christian Quarter, who is the imagination and brains behind the landing module for the Mars probe in the U.S. space program! 

 Also in our three quarters, because the buildings are so old and are made with stonewalls, the dampness seeps into our homes and it is very difficult to keep paint on the walls. It seems that walls need to be repainted at least once a year. And they must be kept painted to keep the wall itself from deteriorating.  Those of us who live below street level have rooms with truly vaulted ceilings. Being in the center of my kitchen/living area reminds one of being below typical Crusader vaulting. My bedroom window opens to a covered area which leads out to another corridor which joins this building from a totally different entry-way. Such is the maze in which we live! I know that in our quarter there are many dwellings that have masonry from previous periods. When the Christian sites were destroyed by the Persians in the 7th. century, apparently sculpted pieces of masonry were gathered by the Christians for reuse. So in Nadya's home, next to mine in the courtyard, she has Byzantine lintels adorning two of the doors into her residence -- her home originally must have been two very small dwellings. Crusader crosses are also seen in secondary use in various buildings in the Christian Quarter. The Johannitter Hospiz along the Via Dolorosa, actually has a Roman column, apparently from the nearby Roman cardo, incorporated into the kitchen wall. The Hospiz itself was originally a Crusader building.

Even in these crowded and sometimes uncomfortable conditions, living in this Sacred City, for that is what "Al-Quds"-  the Arabic name for the city means, is an experience that is very special! I used to wonder what it was like to live in this walled city and what inside the homes would be like, and now I know because I live here.  Here is where I call "home".

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