this just in
by Debra Kamin

o, Jerusalem!

Jerusalem is a magical city. Everyone knows that.

I stood not far from Jerusalem’s Dung Gate, shivering. I looked from my tour guide Amir to the five other journalists I was traveling with, wondering if any of them had a pen and paper. We were headed to the Western Wall, and I had forgotten to write a note.

The day before, Amir had gathered us into a circle. We were six notebook-clutching pilgrims, attempting to conduct interviews under the influence of altitude and much emotion. “I don’t believe much in religion,” he said in his lispy accent. “Because for me religion is just a repetition of movement.”

He paused to measure his words, and continued. “I have a friend, he is not religious, who went to the Western Wall. His hands became stuck to the stones, like with glue. There is something, be it energy or magic, that is there.”

“You’re shaking…so am I. It’s because of Jerusalem, isn’t it? One doesn’t go to Jerusalem, one returns to it. That’s one of its mysteries” (Elie Wiesel, A Beggar in Jerusalem).

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve visited the wall. It must be more than a dozen. If given the chance, I would search the stones’ crevices for my rolled-up scribbles to God, the evolution of handwriting and language marking my years like a growth chart.

I forgot all about what I wanted to write this visit, though, as the wall came into view. It was packed with soldiers – a swearing-in ceremony the Ministry of Tourism had not been aware of when they arranged our itinerary. A cavalry of green-clad girls clogged the security check, Uzis and long braids swinging. We had no choice but to watch, biding the time until our turn at the metal detector.

“A man who comes back to Jerusalem is aware that the places/ that used to hurt don’t hurt any more,/ But a light warning remains in everything,/ like the movement of a light veil: warning”(Yehuda Amichai, Jerusalem, 1967).

As it should be in Jerusalem, the day had begun with tears. The first stop on our itinerary was Yad V’Shem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial. A new wing, designed by Canadian architect Moshe Safdie, was drawing hundreds of visitors a day. Even I, with all my time in the Holy Land, had yet to see it.

Maybe Safdie is truly a genius, or maybe I’d learned some hard lessons since my last visit. Either way, after making it in just far enough to see the thronging crowd and twisting, disorienting glass walls, emotion overwhelmed me. I escaped into the fresh air, and it was there that Jerusalem found me.

Making my way to the ladies’ room, I noticed a stooped lady in a heavy coat behind me. I must have opened the door marked Nashim/Women a bit too wide, because Jerusalem herself slipped in beside us. The lady was speaking, and I realized it was my name that she was saying.

“Debra! Mah at osah—what are you doing here?”

A year ago, I had lived on a Kibbutz in the Jezreel valley, learning Hebrew and preparing meals for the Kibbutz elderly. This lady, Shoshi Tabernitch, had been my director. I thought we had said goodbye forever, but here, in the toilets, we found each other again.

“Of the 10 measures of beauty that God hath bestowed upon the world, nine of these fall to the lot of Jerusalem.” -The Talmud

Now a few hours had passed, and I’d had a cup of coffee and a good laugh. Cold and slightly bored, I was focused only on the wait for the security check. I might have already forgotten the sweet holiness of my coincidence, but Jerusalem wasn’t finished with me yet.

The girl soldiers rushed past, beautiful and tough in a way I can only dream of. Then I heard it again.

“Debra? Debra!”

Every night on that Kibbutz, after struggling over verb charts and rubbing cream into my soap-chafed hands, I had come back to the tiny room that I shared with a young woman from San Francisco. When we met, she was a mess – a little girl lost, wanting to escape her past but having no plan for doing it. By the end of our time together, though, she had fallen in love with Israel, learning on the way to also love herself. Now she stood beside me, stunning in her green uniform, a proud soldier for her adopted county.

Later that day, I would explain my surprise to Amir. “How is it,” I asked him, “that I had two incredible coincidences in the same day? I thought I had said goodbye to these people forever.”

My sweet tour guide took my hand. “Jerusalem is a magical city,” he said. “Everyone knows that.”

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