新しい図書館

すごい！静なのに賑やかです。たくさんパソコンやDVDやCDや雑誌や漫画や本があります。少しだけ英語の本もありますから、村上春樹の小説を借りました。

イスラエル六番目

The Wailing Wall. Imposing, wall-like, worshipped in a way that seems to jar quite badly with my pre-conceived notions of God-worship. No idols, right? Anyway, it's impressive enough, and it amused me that I could enter where Tamar couldn't (women get a small screened-off section of wall to the far right).


These pious-looking types will just spontaneously gather and when they reach a quorum all sorts of murmuring and head-nodding will kick off, in orders of magnitude greater than they can achieve alone.


So the idea is that whatever you write on a scrap of paper and stuff into the wall will be read by God. I figured I might as well do so, and wedged my slip of paper in amongst all the others. Much later an Israeli said to me "So what did you ask for?" to which I replied "Wait. What? I was supposed to ask for something?".


This is the closest I got to the amazing mosque in Jerusalem, as just a little futher down the road there were eight soldiers with big guns who informed me that only muslims were permitted to go any further. Note that all these folk are men, and all are headed away from the mosque.