The Dome of the Rock/The Temple Mount

All around the Dome of the Rock are these Ottoman stone gateways. They are one of my favorite parts of the Mount.

The most recognizable place in perhaps all of the Middle East is a place with two names. If you are Jewish you call it the Temple Mount, and it includes the Western (Wailing) Wall. If you are Muslim you call it The Dome of the Rock, or Haram El-Sharif. To call it by the wrong name in the wrong company can lead to very heightened feelings, so sometimes, when I'm not sure of my audience, I feel a bit tongue-tied in trying to identify it. It is a place that is frequently shut down on Fridays because of protests or small riots. The Arab organization that runs the Dome of the Rock, in conjunction with the Israel police that keep the peace there, have no qualms about shutting it down at a moment's notice, no matter how many thousand of pilgrims are lined up to get up there. I've tried a number of times to visit it, and was increasingly frustrated by the fact that the beautiful golden dome was so close but so inaccessible. Finally on October 9th I got lucky. The site was open and the line was minimal, so Jill and Karla and I--with Joe in tow--finally got to tour it. They had both been before, but I don't know that it ever gets boring. It's certainly not to the thousands of Christian, Muslim and Jewish worshippers that come here daily. 

To get up onto the Temple Mount you have to go through tight security, then up an old wooden bridge/tunnel that was built years ago as a temporary means of moving tourists up to the platform. Every time someone suggests closing the Mount to build a new, safer walkway that actually conforms to building codes, there is such an outcry that it is postponed again. As you walk up the tunnel, you can look out through the slats onto the courtyard in front of the Western Wall. 

Joe and the rest of us were fascinated by the ceremony of a young boy receiving his first phylacteries. Although the courtyard is separated for men and women, the women of this boy's family were all perched on chairs, looking over the makeshift wall, in order to photograph the event.

Here is a photo of other worshippers at the wall (the men's side).

Once you get up on top of the Mount, there is a working mosque and a small archaeological museum. But mostly, there is just the Dome. Mary (from her school tour of the Old City) informed me that the gold layer on the dome is very thin, but not polished, because if it were polished it would blind us all.

With the well-traveled and very knowledgeable (especially about fine chocolate) Karla Schade.  

The fountain for ceremonial washing before entering the sanctuary. The shadows are bad here, but you can still see the seats and spigots circling the fountain.

The Dome of the Rock sits right up against the eastern wall of the Old City of Jerusalem. There used to be another gate on that side--the Golden Gate--but it has been bricked up for years. Here is Joe walking along the ledge above the gate, assisted by Jill, one of the most generous and genuinely loving people I have ever met. 

After returning into the streets of the Old City, I saw this beautiful old doorway. Jill taught me that the black stencil to the right of the door says the inhabitants of this home have made the hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca).