Shabbat and St. Peter's

Bored on a Friday night in Jerusalem with nothing to do? Never fear, just head on down to the Western Wall for Shabbat! There you will see the most eclectic assortment of people, praying, dancing, and singing ever gathered together.  People watching at its finest. First, you see all the ultra-orthodox Jews piling in, donning their fur hats and black garb. Next, groups of students from nearby Yeshivas come and dance and sing in circles on the plaza as more and more people pack into the fenced in area in front of the wall (men and women separated of course, but that rant will be saved for another post). By sundown, there were upwards of 5,000 people jammed into the plaza. Up front closer to the walls, the ultra orthodox were praying fervently  gathered around rabbis in prayer shawls. Groups of conservative and reform Jews stood further back, dancing in circles and singing songs. Of course, we were near a group of American birthright kids, singing the only song they knew, "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel" (painful to watch). After watching the men for a while, some girls and I went down onto the women's side. The tone was much more pious on this side, with more praying and less dancing. A girl from New York came and gave us the Shabbat prayer book and showed us what prayers we were supposed to pray (after first asking how fast we read Hebrew, to which we replied, not at all). The Shabbat crowds were so full of joy. They would burst spontaneously into dancing and singing, grabbing passersby into their celebrations  Our group agreed that if church was more like Shabbat, we would attract a lot more people!  

 Today, on our first free weekend, we took a bus in to the Old City to explore. A girl in our group did a project on St. Peter of Gallicantu, a church just outside the Old City walls, so we decided to go check it out. This is the site where they think that Peter denied Jesus, and also houses an old jail cell underneath, where Jesus may have been held while awaiting trial. We spent the day exploring the church, with its gorgeous stained glass and mosaics illustrating the Last Supper and Peter's denial. After climbing through the pit and jail cell beneath the church, we entered the gardens that look out over the Old City and the Mount of Olives. We then wandered (got lost in) the Old City for a while, before going to a bookstore/coffee shop in East Jerusalem. All in all, a great first weekend exploring on our own!