We arrived in Jerusalem late Friday afternoon, just in time to check into our hotel and walk down to the Western Wall to witness the celebration of the beginning of the Sabbath. The plaza was packed with groups of people, some just tourists like us observing everything, but mostly Jews celebrating. Some were clearly large Jewish tour groups. They were standing in circles singing songs in Hebrew.

To get into the Western Wall plaza, you pass through a metal detector and security check where they search your bags. There are a lot of police and soldiers in the plaza as well. I also noticed that there were young Jewish males who were carrying crude bolt-action rifles along with their backpacks. The Jewish man in front of me on the steps going down to the security checkpoint had a 9mm slipped into the waist-band of his pants.

Meanwhile, a constant stream of Orthodox Jews passed through the plaza on the way to the Western Wall to pray. They were easily recognizable because they wore black suits and large black hats. Some of them wore large, round furry hats.

Emma noticed this right away and inquired about this seemingly unsensible fashion choice for such a climate.

“Why do they wear furry hats when it is so hot?”

Indeed, it must have been uncomfortable along with the long black overcoats they were wearing.

“It’s their tradition,” Kacey explained.

Emma contemplated the furry hats a bit longer. She began giggling.

“Mama?”

“Yes?”

“Those hats are funny.”

Down on the plaza, there were signs posted that informed visitors that smoking, use of cellphones and taking of pictures were prohibited on the plaza.

Kacey wanted to film of course, so we went up a set of stairs leading out of the plaza and she filmed from there.

“You can’t film this,” I told her. I could read one of the posted signs right from where we were sitting.

“It says that you can’t take pictures ‘on the plaza’,” she said. “We’re not on the plaza any longer. I’m going with a very literal interpretation.”

She kept filming until one of the officers came up the steps wagging his finger at her and telling her “No picture, no picture.”

She put the camera away.

“Told you so,” I said.

“Well, I got a few minutes of footage anyway.”

We left the Western Wall and walked up through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City.

The sun had gone down the shops were reopening for the evening. One of the shops we stopped in was run by a Palestinian from Hebron. We told him about our project and he agreed to be interviewed. Like most of the Palestinians we’ve interviewed, he was eager to pour forth his story and his opinions, especially about the war in Lebanon. For the most part his view of the current situation was quite similar to the Arab view I put forth in an earlier blog entry (see: Burning, Burning, Burning). He added, however, that he believed that America was purposefully using Israel to do its dirty work against Hezbollah with the hope of dragging Iran into the conflict.

“I think American people are very good,” he said, smiling at me. “But your government is making tragedy for Lebanese people.”