ided

Jews, Christians and Moslems
lead parallel, untouching lives
in Jerusalem.

JUDITH SUDILOVSKY

Special to the Jewish News

L

ike turtles after a rain shower, the
Jerusalemites came out to sun themselves
on a recent sunny Friday afternoon. Each
took his or her own end of the log.
In west Jerusalem, where Jews predominate,
the sidewalk cafes spilled over with residents and
tourists, jostling for coffee and sweets. Tourists
eyed the shop windows that Christian propri-
etors had stocked with crucifixes and statues of
the Madonna. In eastern Jerusalem, Palestinians
packed the winding alleyways of the Old City,
some returning from Friday prayers.
They are, of course, only a few minutes' walk
away from each other, yet none of the groups
seek much daily contact with the others.
Palestinian families sometimes venture into
the Jewish area in west Jerusalem to shop down-
town or browse through the mall, and Jews are
now starting to once again go to the Old City
for hummus and - falafel. The physical barriers
that once separated them are gone, but the psy-
chological barriers seem intractably high.
Residents listen to the various political pro-
posals for the city's governmental future, some-
times nodding agreement or offering vigorous
dissent to ideas of confederation or shared sover-
eignty. On the ground, each stakes a physical
claim by building homes or opening shops. Like
city residents anywhere, they have gripes about
high taxes and lagging city services, about too lit-
tle parking and too much congestion.
So in one sense they share this city, but they
do so tenuously, living parallel lives with few
meaningful intersections.

The Israelis

Faigie Kreger, 51, a Hebrew University employ-
ee, speaks like many other Israelis of a "pluralis-
tic" city where all are free to live their lives. She
is a tad more hopeful that her husband, Norman,

50, a high-tech worker who says he is skeptical
that coexistence can be established; It isn't easy to
erase a centuries-old conflict, he said.
The Kregers, like most of their peers, insist on
Israeli sovereignty over the city. Some Israelis men-
tion the possibility of sharing the rule. But they
scoff when someone asks about an international city.
"Just what is an 'international city?"' asked
Dov Rosenwald, a 55-year-old businessman, over
lunch with his wife and two friends. The ques-
tion is rhetorical, and he answers it himself.
"There is no model for an international city."
His wife, Shulamit, 44, said her "fantasy
Jerusalem" would be one where Jerusalem is the
undivided capital of Israel under complete Jewish
sovereignty. She doesn't know if they can ever
reach a settlement, she said.
But Gedalyah Meyer, 41, an Orthodox rabbi, has
high hopes for the City of Peace. He would like to
see it as a city able to capture the ideals of the whole
world with a spiritual aspect. Still, he acknowledged,
that won't be so easy since "the city is in a 50-year-
old state and it is just getting starred."
There is room for both nationalities, he said,
it is just a matter of each recognizing the other's
legitimacy to be here. "I may sound foolish, but
I am an optimist," he said.
For most, the abstract "future of the city" is
less pressing than the daily concerns, shared with
the Palestinians, such as taxes, parking, the high
cost of housing, the quality of education avail-
able for their children, the lack of jobs in emerg-
ing fields such as high-tech and growing religious
coercion in both communities.
Israelis also mention the flight of young peo-
ple from Jerusalem to the lure of secular Tel
Aviv and to outlying cities where the cost of liv-
ing is more manageable. Soon, said Benny
Ohry, 44, who works for the Israeli Ministry of
Tourism, Jerusalem will be a city of only
Orthodox Jews and Arabs.
His wife, 35-year-old Yael Ohry, a nursery
school teacher, cites growing animosity with the

Related editorial: page 37

ultra-Orthodox residents of the city.
A 12th-generation Jerusalemite and the moth-
er of two daughters, Ohry said much has
changed in the city since she was a child. "We all
respected each other, and there was no provoca-
tion. It was very nice," she said.
"Now I feel there is a religious war going on
over the religious character of the city and I don't
know how to deal with it. It is scary. I am a good
Jew, and I believe I have a good relationship with
God. I don't need them to intervene."

The Christians

Over in east Jerusalem, William Amer, a 39-year-
old Christian accountant, has the same appre-
hension about growing Islamic extremism.
It is unnecessary, he said, and it threatens the
strongly shared practical interests in home and fami-
ly. "We — Muslims, Christians and Jews — all have
children and we want a good life for our children."
The big issue is just getting along day to day
with some reasonable respect for your neighbors,
said Lina Karam, a 35-year-old Christian shop-
keeper in the Old City. For instance, she com-
plained, she was robbed twice in one month, she
said, and the police simply say they can do noth-
ing about it.
"If I told them there was a terrorist attack
they would come running, but for a robbery they
can do nothing," said Karam.
It is not just her, she says. The police are
equally unresponsive to the needs of the
Palestinians in the city.
What worries her is the dwindling size of the
Christian community. Most of her family lives
abroad and Christians own only about six shops
in the Christian Quarter. She feels beleaguered
between the Muslims and the Jews. She doesn't

DIVIDED CITY on page 9

3/24
2000

7

