Pilgrimage Part Four: Walls

Walls are a big deal in the Holy Land. Besides the wall around Old Jerusalem (pictured previously), you've got the Western Wall/Wailing Wall pictured above. There is EXTENSIVE--and I do mean extensive--security in all of the tunnels leading here. But the most interesting part of this scene to me is the other wall in the picture--that subdivides the Western Wall into two pieces. The big piece is for men and the little piece is for women. As you can see, there are twice as many women as men, even though there's twice as much wall for men to pray at. Sad but typical of my experience in the Holy Land. I wrote down my own prayer and wedged it in up high; it's surprisingly easy to pack a new prayer into the cracks.



Of course, there are also other walls in the Holy Land, most notably this one, which divides the Palestinian territories from those under the control of the Israelis. Since the wall is built by Israelis to herd the Palestinians onto progressively smaller patches of land, all of the graffiti is on the Palestinian side. I took pictures of the best samples...



I liked the comparison to the Berlin Wall...but it was a solemn thing to imagine my tax dollars hard at work dividing a nation in the same way that communist Russia helped divide Germany.



This one was probably my personal favorite--the irony is just too rich, especially since this particular section of wall surrounds Rachel's tomb and a garden that David supposedly planted there.



I have to wonder about this one, since the majority of people on either side of the conflict are either Muslim or Jewish. Is it a third-party commentary on the consequences of conflict between two non-Christian states or the product of Christian Palestinians?



And of course, what's a wall without razor wire? Can't wait for a child to come and play at the base...