A Week in Jerusalem

Beitar Jerusalem is the local football team. The prenom "Beitar" comes from a militant Jewish youth movement formed before the birth of modern Israel... which in turn took the name from a fortress whose Jewish defenders were slaughtered by the Roman legions before the birth of Christ.

Jews have long memories.

In other parts of the world, sport goes hand in hand with politics and ethnicity. For example, in Rome, SS Lazio was Mussolini's team of choice, and its fans- and some of its players- are right-wing fascists.


Beitar fans are Israel's Lazio fans. Religious, yarmulke-wearing, footie fanatics who spend Friday nights in the synagogue and Saturday nights in the stadium. They wear yellow-and-black skull-caps embroidered with the menorah and the Lion of Judah. And they hate Arabs.

They're the kind of Jews who won't vote for the Likud because it's not extreme enough.

They're the kind of Jews who want Israel to be a "Jewish State", not a "State of Jews"- read: theocracy.


Beitar fans booed during a memorial service for Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated by a right wing zealot, Yigal Amir... and then sang raucous songs of praise for Amir.

Beitar fans are known for chanting "Death to the Arabs" for the full length of a football match.

Beitar fans took out space in the obituary sections in all of Israel's major papers after they lost the 2004 league final to Sakhnin, their archrivals and the only Arab Israeli team in the league. Why? To declare Israeli soccer dead.

More recently, Beitar fans were banned from attending one home match- their team would play to an empty stadium. The crime? Chanting "Muhammad is dead! Muhammad is dead!" at a previous match.

I'll grant them this: Muhammad is dead. But it's still kinda offensive.

The team Beitar would play for that "banned attendance" match was- oh, IRONY!- the Arab team from Sakhnin.

So I went to the next match, against some chumps from Petah Tikva. Beitar won 2-1, but really, I was there for the fans.

They did not disappoint. Those matches are just excuses for Jews to swear at each other in choreographed chants.

I love my Canucks, and my city. But we need to borrow some fans from the footballing world.

* * *


This is Yamata-san.

He's the product of a new Japanese fad: a teddy named "Relaxed Bear"- the Japanese name defeats my tongue. There is a zip in the teddy's back, into which you can stuff...er... items. Keep this in mind; it becomes important.

Yamata-san was originally owned by an enigmatic Jap named "Lucky", who dressed in black and wore a balaclava. He'd brought his teddy on his trek across Asia, taking pictures of him in front of famous monuments and landscapes... and then posted the pictures on a Japanese blog that chronicled The Adventures of Yamata-san.

Lucky, in turn, bequeathed the teddy to Kazumi, a spunky 36-yr old who looks like she's 17, has had two Israeli boyfriends younger than me, and used to sing in a Japanese death metal band.

Kazumi told me that Yamata-san used to have a toy model of a little old man stuffed in through the zip in his back. The idea: Yamata-san is not really the teddy, but the little old man- who is wearing the teddy bear as clothing.

Every time I get a glimpse into the twisted workings of the Japanese psyche, I feel like I just swallowed the red pill.


I've said this before, and I'll say it again. I will go to Hell long before I ever go to Japan. I ain't tumbling down that rabbit hole.

* * *

It's snowing in Jerusalem.

Israel, like Vancouver, has neither infrastructure nor inhabitants built for snowfall. All Jerusalem shut down yesterday. Shops, churches, mosques, and malls. The felafel guy down the street took the day off, so I couldn't get breakfast. The priests at the Lutheran church stayed home to pray, so I couldn't climb the church spire to catch a view of the snowed-in Old City. The street drainage systems aren't built to handle more than rain, so the melting snow has been causing flash floods. Half the Old City's twisting, climbing streets turned into waterfalls and running rivers.

On a funnier note. Jeremy pointed out that the nearby Valley of Hinnom was used as a giant refuse pit in the time of Jesus, which was periodically set on fire. The garbage would burn for weeks. So in the Gospels, whenever Jesus referred to "Gehinnom", or Hell, he was talking about the burning garbage heaps of Hinnom Valley as the very incarnation of Hell.

Jeremy said that if you walked by Jaffa Gate, you could see that the Valley of Hinnom was completely snowed in.

Hell has frozen over.

* * *


Mar Saba is a rambling, ziggurat-like monastery east of Bethlehem. It clings to the side of a rocky cliff, overlooking miles of raw, rolling desert hills.

The monastery's founder, St Sabas, was one of those mad ascetics that young religions are famous for throwing up. Disgusted by the sinful world, he retreated into the Judean foothills for five years, living alone in a tiny cave hollowed into a stratified cliff-face, perched over a hundred foot drop.

Mar Saba's 15 monks are all Eastern Orthodox. They live without electricity- and without women, who are not even allowed to cross the threshold.

The Brother who showed us around had been a monk for 30 years, and the isolation and lack of sex had unhinged him a little. He rambled aimlessly, spoke incoherently, took the opportunity to get Jeremy to explain the English instructions on the back of his phone card, and apropos of nothing, expressed a desire to learn more about Native Americans.

Mar Saba was beautiful.


The tomb of Sabas had been this copper-domed structure, since moved to the side of the main chapel. Both tomb and chapel were painted with stunning, Sistine-quality murals from the Bible: a stream of animals tumbling out of Noah's Arc, Abraham with his dagger poised mournfully over Isaac, the gift of the Ten Commandments at Mt Sinai, Archangels Michael and Gabriel... all in the bold, stylized lines, rich hues, and hollow-cheeked, stern-faced visages unique to Eastern Orthodox iconography.

We were not allowed to take more than a few photos. The Brother forbade it. The monks, in the first place, did not want Mar Saba to turn into a tourist attraction. Prayer and photography are a zero sum game. Banning cameras are a simple way to ensure that visitors act like pilgrims, and not like Japanese.

But the monks had something more important in mind. I'll let the Brother explain.

"You know, people come here, take 120 photos, but they don't feel. They photo other people praying, but they don't pray. They run around, photo everything- but they forget to stand here and, you know... (And here, the old guy spread his arms, tilted his head, and took a deep, exaggerated, blissful breath.) They are so busy taking photos to remember for tomorrow, they forget about today. They forget about now. They forget to see and feel and know where they are.

This is why we don't want photos. Don't take photos and forget to live. Don't sacrifice the now for the memories."

* * *


I was in a record store in West J-town. I was trying to find music that Israelis listen to... Zionist hip-hop or something. Instead, I found some Hallmark cards for Israeli teens about to enter the mandatory Army service.

"So you're going to the Army!"


"... I hear in my mind all of these voices
I hear in my mind all of these words
I hear in my mind all of this music..."

* * *


The Temple Institute is made up of Messianic Christians and Jews whose fanaticism makes Saint Sabas look tame. Their ultimate goal is to destroy the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount and rebuild the Jewish Temple.

They've gone to the effort of recreating all the priestly items used for the sacrifices in the Second Temple two thousand years ago. Apart from the regular knick-knacks: incense vessels, lamps, silver spoons, oils, and vestments, the Institute has tried to breed red cows, which according to the Bible are reserved solely for sacrifice to the Lord. (The breeding attempts failed.)

The crowning achievement of this biblical recreation is the Menorah, a towering, five-foot candlestick covered with 43 kilos of pure gold.

The idea is that in the End Times- which every year is predicted to be the following year- Israel will blow the golden lid off the Dome of the Rock, resurrect the Temple, shove in that candlestick...

And HALLELUJAH, the Lord will descend from the heavens with armies of armored angels to battle the legions of Hell, lead by demons, hooded horsemen on pale horses, and a giant, naked whore with ten breasts who some say is Hilary Clinton.

It sounds like quite a show.