Yerushaláyim - prologue

All those dummy tourists, wondering around, making pictures of those buildings they have no idea about, buying “made in China” souvenirs – they all come back home and share their impression. Usually it’s either “awesome” or “nothing special”, and if you are lucky and your friend is not an average, but maybe an advanced dummy tourist you may also get some extra guide book definition. But that is it. The truth is that’s all what you can get from a dummy tourist – an opinion based on emotions. I’ve seen that, cause in fact I am the same dummy tourist. And all the places I admire are the places I visited with bunch of friends. Sure, it is important who you are with, but if it is, eventually it may be not important where you are… And some places simply don’t deserve it.

After 1.5 years since I was fortunate to visit Yerushaláyim (that’s how Jerusalem is pronounced in Hebrew) I realized it deserves at least respect. Otherwise, you are not able to understand what you see. I had a guided tour, which my cousins arranged for me. And trust me, in some places even a guided tour is not enough. I was guided around and told about places and characters I have never heard before. After I came back, my cousin told me I should have read a little before my trip. He showed me a book in his dad’s library – a huge book among millions others. I took it as a joke, even though I knew it wasn’t.

I won’t be able to explain you

what Jerusalem is like. But still, I’d like to share my sketchy impression about Yerushaláyim – The City of Peace.

There is a big chance that you are not familiar with The Master and Margarita, a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov. It is considered as

one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, published 26

years after writers’ death. The novel begins with Voland (the Devil) visiting Moscow in the 1930s, joining a conversation between a critic and a poet arguing about the existence of Jesus Christ and the Devil.

When you are walking on the 1st century street it’s your right to believe or not that Jesus Christ may have walked the same street more than 2000 years ago. It is also your right to believe in any God you want or none of them at all. I’m not a believer, but I have to admit that there has to be something what made those stories survive and those people believe in them…

Finally, history is the same stories, just with some proofs, and here the whole city is one huge proof of all those stories, believe it or not…