Day Five: Walking Around the Quiet Streets of Jerusalem
A city under threat of sirens prepares for Shabbat
There's nothing quite like being woken up at 3:00am in the Holy City by your phone buzzing and blaring with an emergency alert. Not a gentle "good morning sunshine" sort of buzz, but rather the sort of aggressive, persistent vibration that immediately tells your half-asleep brain that something is very, very wrong.
The alert was too the point, albeit in Hebrew, a little hard for my bleary-eyed, morning and glasses less eyes. My sister in Tzfat texted me that they were hearing sirens. Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, the streets were eerily quiet—no sirens, just an unsettling calm that felt like the whole city was holding its breath.
I rolled out of bed and decided that if this was potentially the beginning of something bigger, I might as well see Jerusalem in a way most tourists never do: completely empty.
I made my way through the quiet streets, my footsteps echoing off ancient stones, well not quite. It wasn’t that empty. But i’m painting a picture here!
Thankfully, I found someplace to get a coffee. A small place near the shuk served up what I can confidently rate as a solid 5/10 coffee. The barista and I shared that knowing look that said, "Well, this is certainly not how we planned to start Friday morning."
By the way, I’ll mention that I was wearing a short-sleeve shirt. This is noteworthy because I almost never do this, given my generally skeletal frame and the unfortunate genetic lottery that blessed me with what could generously be called "writer's arms."
This wardrobe choice would prove to be consequential when I encountered an elderly gentleman outside the market who took one look at me and delivered what might be the most direct advice I've received all trip.
"Young man," he said, eyeing my exposed forearms with the sort of concerned expression usually reserved for Israel’s stray cats, "you need to start lifting weights. Your arms, they are like matchsticks."
Well he didn’t actually say it in these words but they were to that point.
I stood there for a moment, processing this unsolicited life coaching, while my too-tight shirt protruded against my stomach in a way that suggested perhaps he had a point. In a city potentially under attack, this man's primary concern was my lack of upper body strength. I respected that.
"Thank you for the feedback," I replied, because what else do you say to someone who's just diagnosed your entire physical existence as inadequate?
The market itself was a study in controlled chaos. Despite the morning's alerts, vendors were setting up with the sort of determined normalcy that only comes from living in a place where abnormal has become baseline. The mivtzoim were out in full force—apparently potential rocket attacks don't deter the Rebbe’s Mitzvah campaigns. If anything, it seemed to energize them. There's something beautiful about the Israeli wrapping tefillin with the chosid.
I stopped at a small makolet to buy some water and found myself in conversation with the proprietor, a friendly man who insisted we share a cigarette outside his shop. We talked for about fifteen minutes—about the morning's events, about life in Jerusalem, about whether the summer heat was worse this year than last—and just as I was preparing to leave, he looked at me with genuine surprise.
"Wait," he said, "you're not from Israel?"
I laughed. "No, I'm not."
"But where are you from then?"
And here, dear readers, is where I must come clean about something I've been dancing around.
In my last post, I mentioned being a "New York native," and while I do live there now, and while it makes for better storytelling, the truth is somewhat less cosmopolitan. I was born in Melbourne. Australia. Yes, the land of Vegemite and quite fantastic coffee. But a man can dream of a better origin story, can't he? A man can dream of a better life... a better life… [wistful fade]
Anyway, I neglected to mention a big reason I’m in the Holy Land. My cousins are hosting their fourth son's bar mitzvah. The boy himself is quite the performer and he owes me a rendition of the pilpul he delivered on Thursday, which I'm told was nothing short of spectacular.
Later, I made my way to visit a family I'd grown close to during my yeshiva days in Migdal HaEmeq back in 2017-18. When I frequented their home on off-Shabbosim. They knew me well enough to remember that I'd once vomited on their couch after a particularly ambitious Shabbos meal, and gracious enough to invite me back anyway.
We caught up over coffee, and conversation quickly shifted to my dating life. But that’s a story for another time
As evening approached, I made my way back to my Airbnb, showered off the day's adventure, and prepared to face another night in Jerusalem's stifling summer heat with my backpack-squished-and-crumpled hat and jacket.
That's where I leave you at the end of Day Five. Thanks for joining me through what turned out to be a quiet, peaceful Friday in the Holy Land.
Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem.