Downtown Jerusalem one evening

Funny to see how when my boss comes into the office unexpectedly, whoever is at the reception area scatters to different parts of the place. Once when Hubby came to visit and they thought HE was the boss, they all scattered and he caught them scattering. He likened it to cockroaches scattering when feasting in the kitchen at midnight and the "BOSS" comes in unexpectedly and turns on the light. The thought of it kept me laughing the rest of the day. Today he gets the receptionist to call me at 7:33 am to find out when I'm coming in. He's obviously in a rush. Hubby has no $ for petrol, so I took the bus instead of him bringing me in as usual. I told the office I'm waiting for the bus. "When is the bus coming." "Honey, this is Jerusalem - Israel. You know better than that. Who knows when anything gets here." And I left it at that.

Last night I met with 2 Palestinians and the head of the Interfaith organization to try and do some activities with their Peace and Dialogue group. We decided to have an evening of prayer together at the Tomb of Samuel just outside of Jerusalem. The Palestinians needed a special permit from the Israeli army (which we had to obtain for them) to come to Jerusalem from the West Bank, and they had until 9:00 pm that evening. What a hassle it is for them to come to any dialogue with us. Imagine the look on the restaurant patrons' faces when the two walked into the popular coffee shop in the center of town. This is so out of the ordinary - these public intercultural encounters. I saw the nervous look on one patron's face as the Palestinian woman, with the traditional head covering, stood at the entrance. Even more shocked was this patron when she saw us shaking hands and giving kisses.

Our group of 4 tried to figure out what days would be best to have this prayer session. Fridays - when most Jews are off? No. The Muslims use the tomb for afternoon prayers. We settled on a weekday after it was ok'd by one of the Mukhtars from the village by the tomb. After we made two tentative meetings and other plans for the future, we walked around together. They asked me where the S'barros restaurant was where the terrorist bombing occurred a couple years back. We walked there (a new restaurant is there now) and I told them that we knew some of the victims in that attack. Once you're in dialogue with the other, I continued, you not only mourn your victims, you mourn the other side too in this conflict. They agreed and I'm sure they feel the same way.

They were thrilled to be in Jerusalem and only had 2 more hours to wander around before their permit time was up. I felt as if they were looking at Rockefeller Center in New York City for the very first time, during the Christmas season. It was the same look of awe. They lit up just wandering around downtown Jerusalem. We window-shopped. We watched the crowds at Zion Square hanging out. And wished for a time when there would be no terrorist attacks, no checkpoints, no misery for both of us - where it wouldn't be weird to see Jews and Arabs walking around together and chatting in public.