Sacred Heart

Watching the opera
last night

It's the last Friday of Ramadan and the crowds are much larger than usual ... meaning several hundred thousand more muslims than usual. This is quite worrying because yesterday morning there was a small group of extremist muslims who threw stones and chairs in the Al Aqsa Mosque, injuring a tourist and a policeman. Fear of violence spreading today is real ... but nothing happened. The police have been tougher than usual, checking bags and other luggage at Gate entrances. But as I said in an earlier blog, Israel's new approach to Ramadan is much more enlightened than previous years, allowing free access to the Mosque by muslims of any age and place. This was prevented any disgruntle among the muslims and hence no violence at all. https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-hurl-chairs-stones-from-al-aqsa-mosque-injuring-tourist-cop/

At the same time we also noted that while Gaza is embroiled in clashes every Friday with Israel, the rest of Palestine is quiet. In fact no one seems to be interested. Muslims in other cities and towns go on with Ramadan celebrations and not interested in spoiling the holiday mood. Once again Israel's new policy of unfettering the palestinians is working very well. Yes there will be a few extremists who fall out of the rule, and we should watch out for them, but there was no large scale protests and violence at all. This is enlightened security.  https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5269724,00.html

Butterfly and
Pinkerton on stage

Last night at Sultan's Pool (in the Valley of Gehenna) just south of the Old City, Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly was performed with korean soprano Elisa Cho as Cio Cio San. The rest of the cast was local Israeli. I wanted so very much to go watch it but I didn't know how to buy the tickets, nor did I have the money for it. But I was determined not to miss it so at 8pm I walked out to the hillside opposite the Sultan's Pool to watch the opera. It was a dark alleyway of a row of houses overlooking the Pool which lies in a deep valley. But I was very happy. Stood there for over 2 hours listening to everything. Of course it was not very clear ... there was traffic noises, police sirens, arab cars blasting music, another Isareli pop concert in the other end of the valley ... and cyclists and pedestrians walking up and down the alley. It interfered with the music ... but I didn't mind. It was free and I got to see it. I was about 200 meters from the stage. There were the highlights I especially wanted to hear: the love duet, the humming chorus and Butterfly's aria Un Bel Di Vedremo. Utterly enjoyable. Anyway all that walking (over 2 km) to the concert and back made my left ankle swollen. Today I'm hobbling.

Today for us it's the Feast of the Sacred Heart. Let's hope the Sacred Heart will have mercy on our poor region and protect our christians suffering a new wave of persecution in Syria, Iraq and Yemen this week. The news I received yesterday from the sisters living there is horrific. Pray for them.