If a Place Can Make you Cry...

I'm reading this book called "If a Place Can Make you Cry" written by Daniel Gordis, a well know writer for the NYT's and other news services.  This book was written nearly 10 years ago when he and his young family decided to move to Jerusalem.  He tells stories of the sadness and disillusionment with both side of the conflict here. Like Daniel, I am trying not to take sides... .but today made it a bit more difficult for me.



Paul and I took a walk to the Peace Forest (The Jerusalem municipality plants a tree in this forest for every child born in Jerusalem, representing the eternal hope of peace bridging the Arab and Jewish populations). We walked past some of the most gorgeous contemporary homes I've ever seen.  We turned a corner an beheld the most beautiful panorama imaginable (photo above), the old city off to the left, Mount of Olives and Mount Scopus, and the Valley of Hinnom laid before us, all places I'd read about but never really seen, at least not this closely. This was an amazingly lovey park with walking paths, play equipment and all sorts of birds and trees. Almost like heaven... but this turned into a bad dream. One of the homes overlooking the promenade appeared to have its front garden burned, many trees were burned or down and the landscape was bare, (Molotov cocktail).

In the distance to East Jerusalem we saw black smoke in the clear blue sky something was burning... reminding me of the fires and rioting in Nairobi when we had to cut our trip to Kenya short..  As we got deeper into the forest away from the lovely Haas Promenade we saw the garbage we've seen so much of.  The photo shows acres of plastic bottles, bags and and broken glass from hard liquor bottles... heaven was appearing to become a garbage dump. We kept seeing signs reminding people to take care of the park as it belongs to the people.

We saw these amazing looking structures (5 or 6)  that looked like they were from the game "Myst", they were all newish and very contemporary, but had "moats", several levels and popped in and out of view through the trees.  As we climbed up to them we saw they had plaques mentioning who donated them (in the late 1990's). Each was viewing center with several levels.

As we went from one site to the next we were greeted with Arabic graffiti, human feces, broken booze bottles, and intentional destruction of these generous gifts to the people.The photo below is of a large Menorah that was part of the viewing site grouping that was destroyed by vandals.

We talked with a few people and I later read of the abuse of this wonderful idea gone terribly wrong.  I don't even want to repeat what I read and heard:-(  If there can't be peace in a forest, I fear for this city and country.

Other photos are of the graffiti in one of the view sites, Arab children playing soccer amid garbage,  Paul and I at the top of the park... It took at least a dozen attempts to get me to smile... I didn't feel happy.