I don’t know where to start. We actually experienced Jerusalem for the first time today. I think the most significant moment of my day was when I heard the bells of a church blending in with the sound of the calling for prayer from a mosque that symbolized the multi layered complexity of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is not just a regular capital of a regular country. It is almost like an independent state-capital of a very complex country. The municipal goverment of Jerusalem has both Muslim and Jewish leaders and the Jewish state itself has nothing to do with the ruling of Jerusalem. The residents of Jerusalem may or may not be citizens of the Israeli state; there are Palestinians living in East Jerusalem. They mostly boycott the elections to condemn the Jewish state but they are residents of Jerusalem who get to vote in municipal elections if they wanted to. Jerusalem is unique in its independence from its country and in its religious, ethnic and historic complexity.

(to be continued…)