A mixed city

In practice, Jerusalem has taken the shape of a bi-national city in recent years. Time will tell how this will impact a future political arrangement.

Nadav Shragai in Mosaic Magazine

One morning a few days ago, a young Jewish woman wearing a head covering sat on a stool in the center of the butchers' market in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. Large slabs of meat hanging from hooks were swinging at the entrance to the row of butcher stands. The shop owners were busy at that hour, sharpening their knives in preparation for another day of work.

Standing behind her was her husband, a young man with a large knitted skullcap. The long tzitzit, the tassels on the prayer shawl religious men wear under their clothes, protruded from his clothing. He was carrying a small infant.

The couple stood and watched with great interest as an industrious Arab youth working at a stand repairing flat tires fixed their bicycle. Everything seemed to be mater-of-fact, normal. The skullcap-wearing Jew shook the Arab's hand after he finished fixing his bike, thanked him for his work, paid him, and parted ways amicably.

Nearby, a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews who had concluded prayers at the Western Wall, were returning to their homes in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood. A few of them stopped at the vegetable stands near Damascus Gate, where they could pick up tomatoes, cucumbers, and small radishes. There, too, just like in the butcher shop, everything seemed quiet, calm, and normal, at least on the surface.

Just a few meters away, near the entrance to Herod's Gate, there was a completely different scene: Jewish passers-by again pelted with stones; Border Police officers and policemen either disinclined to enter or prevented from entering the Bab al-Huta neighborhood, the source of the disturbances; the shooting of fireworks and flairs directly at the police.

There were also nationalistic demonstrations and processions with participants waving the flags of the Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas while chanting slogans vowing to riot against the Jews. In the neighborhood of Silwan, assailants repeatedly threw bricks and firebombs at Beit Yonatan, "the forward post" of Jewish settlement in the City of David, which has emerged as a tourist hub.

Then there was the incident involving the post office in the neighborhood of Isawiya, which continues to make headlines due to the rioting and disturbances that have emanated from there. This incident (which was first reported by Nir Hasson of Haaretz) accurately reflects the conflicting trends that are prevalent today in east Jerusalem.

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