Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Old City of Jerusalem, viewed from the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives
While Jerusalem is a city rooted in
ancient history, at the same time it lies
at the heart of a region which possesses
a distinctly youthful nature. Both Israel
and Jordan, the two countries which,
along with Egypt's Sinai peninsula,
make up what we know as the Holy
Land, are barely more than half a cen-
tury old. It is a greatly over-used travel
cliché, but here it is difficult to avoid
commenting on the striking mix of the
ancient and modern. In Jerusalem, ultra-
Orthodox Jews wearing clothes that
were fashionable in Eastern Europe
300 years ago mingle with Christian
pilgrims armed with state-of-the-art
digital cameras. In the wilderness of
the Negev Desert, Bedouin tribesmen
speak nonchalantly on mobile phones,
while in Galilee Palestinian farmers
lead oxen to fields that lie in the
shadow of huge biotechnology plants.
Equally striking is the mix of peoples.
The modern state of Israel has drawn
its citizens from virtually every conti-
nent, embracing a worldwide roll call
of Jewry, from Minnesota to Murmansk,
Adelaide to Addis Ababa. Side by side
with the Jews - and Arabs - are such
minority peoples as the Druze, a mys-
terious offshoot sect of Islam, and the
Samaritans, who speak Arabic but pray
in Hebrew and number less than 600.
In this land of diversity, even the one
common element shared by the major-
ity of Israelis, the Jewish faith, is not
the uniting factor it might be. The
notion of what it is to be Jewish and,
more pertinently, what form a Jewish
state should take, are subjects of great
contention. There are large, and
increasingly influential, sections of
society that believe Israel should
adhere strictly to the laws prescribed
in the Torah. The greater part of soci-
ety, however, views the notion of a
religious state with horror. The gulf
between the two standpoints is best
Young boy playing football at the Dome of the Rock
