Jaffa Gate

Jaffa Gate at 5pm

It was such a busy day I forgot to bring my Ventolin spray in my bag. The "day" started at 3am with class and then work in the library, then 2 meetings, then lunch (which is a chore for me) because the Custos came, then guiding him through the library, then rushing 1km to school for 2 classes. Result: got an asthma attack at the end of the day. Frantically searched my bag for my inhaler only to remember I left it in my room. So wheezing and gasping, I walked to Jaffa Gate to our christian pharmacy. Rami who was making his shift there quickly brought out an inhaler and I got my double dose. Sat in the pharmacy till I felt better.

Going home, I decided to go back through Jaffa Gate and following the City Walls. It was just after 5pm but it was already very dark. Winter time. The lights on the City walls were stupendous. The chill made many people stay indoors so there was no crowd at Jaffa Gate Plaza. Behind the southern wall rose the steeple and cross of the Catholic Patriarchate's co-cathedral. The main cathedral is the Holy Sepulchre Church further inside the City.

City wall with the co-cathedral
behind it

The traffic outside was horrendous: the jam was as long as the eye could see. Then there were sirens blaring and horns blasting because the Prime Minister was coming home. No amount of noise could get the traffic moving so the PM was stuck in the jam like everyone else. That's democratic equity.

Well not everything was so equal. Today in Parliament the Ethiopic and Eritrean MPs blasted the rabbi and his govt. supporters for using their babies as guinea-pigs for circumcision. I mentioned this several blogs back. As long as I can remember, these african jews have been treated as 2nd class in Israel. Several years ago after police aggression against unarmed african jews led to demonstrations throughout the country. Sad.

Well they're not the only ones. AJ news has a video of an old muslim man who survived an air-raid in Aleppo that killed many people including 5 children in a market, cursing the world's muslim leaders because muslims are killing muslims by the thousands each day in Syria and the world's muslims still keep silence. Sad.