Yom Kippur

The solemn day of Atonement ... where once the sins of Israel were cast onto the scapegoat and it was driven out into the wilderness. Nowadays a chicken substitutes the scapegoat .... and eve more commonly, a stack of money. The chicken is cooked and given to the poor to eat, and the money is similarly donated to the poor.

Herod's Gate is closed off

For us, its quite an inconvenient day ... the eastern part of the City is closed off. Blockades everywhere, heavy military presence. Youths below 45 years may not enter the City nor the Al Aqsa Mosque. The jews fear the arabs may cause violence on this day when jews are not allowed to work or kill. The entire West Bank (Palestine) has been closed off - meaning the checkpoints have been closed so no one can come out into Israel. Yom Kippur is definitely also a day of penance for the arabs who cannot travel or pray in the Al Aqsa mosque.

I'm working as usual in the library. Moving thousands of books alone today. Yesterday some students (3 actually) came to help ... which was great! And another student Elisa has been helping most of the days as well. But for the majority of the time, I'm alone. Yesterday was bad as I was very sick. The students and workers kept telling me to go and rest but I couldn't leave them alone to work. Was very nauseous and finally vomited ... nothing .... as I didn't eat anything. Extremely giddy and with a fever. Fell asleep at 6pm and woke up several times in the night before it was daybreak. It was a good sleep I guess. The heatwave is awful though ... 30 degrees in the night.