Past Perfect: A Visit to the Wailing Wall
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Frenchwoman Colette Modiano has traveled through the Holy Land several times since her first visit in 1967. Her book, Turkish Coffee and the Fertile Crescent (London: Michael Joseph, Ltd, 1974;), describes the places she visited, the people she encountered, people’s impressions of her, and her impression of the burgeoning relations among countries in the early 1970s.
By four o’clock [on Friday afternoon], the Via Dolorosa was deserted and overlaid with shadows. Women do not sit in cafes, still less alone, and my neighbor’s disapproval bordered on contempt. Unbuttoned and collarless, with a filthy black beret and a barbarous beard, he puffed ever more noisily at a hubble-bubble.
The streets are never quiet for long here, and soon there were Orthodox priests with black beards and tubular head-dresses, American girls with maxi-thighs and mini-skirts, hippies showing their navels or sweating in embroidered goatskin gear, tourists and more tourists, and Israeli soldiers walking with a child or a girl-friend. A young man and two Jewish girls in trousers greeted a young Arab sitting near me.
Suddenly it seemed that the tourists gave way to Orthodox Jews on their way to the Wailing [Western] Wall to offer prayers at the beginning of the Sabbath. They came hurrying in compact groups from Mea-Shearim where they worked and traded in workshops and salesrooms aglitter with seven-branched candelabra, ceremonial skull-caps of embroidered satin, tallithot or large white prayer-shawls. The Hassidim wore frock-coats and black hats or, since today was a feast day, frock-coats of brocaded satin, and huge, flat hats of brown fur called shtremmls. The men, young or old, had long ringlets one on each side of the face. The younger men had unbuttoned their frock-coats, and the skirts flapped in time with their steps. They looked just like crows with their offspring held by the wingtip, sweet offspring in long shorts and short trousers, all unimpeachably black, with round hats pushed back, framing their fresh, cheery faces. Many were fair, and a few had red hair. One splendid man had a deep russet beard, and with his frock-coat and fur hat one could imagine him to be an Amsterdam diamond-merchant painted by Rembrandt.
An opulent trio in satin frock-coats flapped past me. One looked like Dirk Bogarde, the second like Christ, and the third like Gregory Peck. Alas, they were the exception. Most of them had the wan look of lettuces grown under the glass; their eyes were fixed on the distant hills of Judea. They had round shoulders and sagging paunches.
I joined the current sweeping towards the Wall. The street sloped gently up-hill, shrinking in the shade of the high arched walls, past a delightful stone fountain. There was a smell of urine and refuse. Lively, grinning Arab children skipped and shouted, “Wailing Wall! Wailing Wall!” The crowd veered left, up a dozen steps into a dark alley like the tube at rush hour. I could see only the broad black back of the Hassid ahead. The pressure eased, and we were in a vast square where a Jewish soldier searched my handbag. A grenade had exploded the week before, wounding eight people. At the far side of the square stood the Wailing Wall of tall stones, all that remained of the temple Herod built on the ruins of Solomon’s temple.
A chain hangs between two slender iron pillars, and only the men are allowed through, one by one. Their heads covered with small black caps, they take prayer books and, facing the Wall, they intone their prayers, punctuating them with shuffling. It was like a sea moving in rhythm with the chant, swelling and behind them others came and went: fathers with their small sons, overawed tourists, soldiers, civilians, local residents, visitors from abroad, each here in devotion, but devotion nothing like that of conventional church attendances. Here was an electric, emotional excitement. The Jews had only 086had access to the Wall since the Six-Day War. Before that it was just one side of a narrow street which the Jordanians used as a rubbish-dump. Now, the Jews had razed the hideous slum behind the narrow street and opened up this uncluttered approach to the Wall, where it stands out clearly as a monument restored to the full dignity of a sanctuary.
Now I was able to see the Wall at close range. I am not a particularly reverent person by nature, but it stirred me. Its rich golden stones are covered with little holes, like old skin long-exposed to the sun; small rolls of paper are tucked in the crevices, and they spell out countless prayers and petitions. I touched the old thing; it was cool and smooth.
It is possible to love Jerusalem like a person, delicately and excitedly, passionately. One is then spellbound, touched, fatigued, thrilled, tired, beguiled, offended, and love is willingly given. It is love with its drawbacks, its impulses, its anxious hearts and its extended hands.
Frenchwoman Colette Modiano has traveled through the Holy Land several times since her first visit in 1967. Her book, Turkish Coffee and the Fertile Crescent (London: Michael Joseph, Ltd, 1974;), describes the places she visited, the people she encountered, people’s impressions of her, and her impression of the burgeoning relations among countries in the early 1970s. By four o’clock [on Friday afternoon], the Via Dolorosa was deserted and overlaid with shadows. Women do not sit in cafes, still less alone, and my neighbor’s disapproval bordered on contempt. Unbuttoned and collarless, with a filthy black beret and a barbarous beard, […]
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