Traveling to Jerusalem can either be a very mundane, everyday kind of experience with all of the traffic and parking frustrations of any big city. Or it can be a kind of surreal reminder of how Jerusalem is a focal point of the tension that exists between the ancient and modern, religious and secular; and, of course, the very heart and soul of the continuous debate of how Israel can be both a Jewish and democratic state.

Last Wednesday I went into Jerusalem with my children. I had an appointment at the Jerusalem sleep clinic to get a new c-pap machine. I have sleep apnea. The clinic happens to be located in an old stone building on Strauss Street, just a couple of blocks away from Shabbat Square, an intersection which separates Geula, an ultra orthodox neighborhood from Mea Shearim, an ultra ultra orthodox neighborhood. Needless to say, we were surrounded by men in long black coats, black hats and beards and women dressed from the neck and wrist to the ankle and, if they were married, their hair covered tightly so that not one strand could escape.

Passing through Shabbat Square we all saw smoke coming out of metal garbage dumpsters and in the square itself an overturned burned out car. This was all the result of "demonstrations" (read riots) by the ultra orthodox against the gay pride parade that was supposed to occur today. In the end the parade was cancelled, partly because of the tragedy that happened in Beit Hanoun, Gaza the day before yesterday, but partly because the police were searching for any excuse to cancel. They were planning on using 9,000 police to protect the march even though the route had been switched from the center of town to the government complex/Israel Museum area. This is an area in Jerusalem that is not busy on Fridays and wouldn't come close to any orthodox neighborhoods. The gay organizations are still having an event in Jerusalem but holding it at the stadium of Hebrew University. The ultra Orthodox are brie thing a sigh of relief also-with the compromise they hastily withdrew petitions to the Supreme Court to stop the march so that they did not take the chance of losing court battles or having legal precedents set against them.

A couple of other snippets from the visit.

I overheard a conversation between two orthodox men waiting at a street corner.
"So they threw flash grenades at us and they came riding in on their police horses swinging their batons."

And then, while I was sitting in the waiting room of the sleep clinic a couple of times a car came by with a message blaring from loud speakers: "We have to protect the Holy City of Jerusalem. What they are planning is a desecration of the holy name!!!!"
And on and on in the same vein.

In the end, the gay pride event that they held in the stadium went on without any major disturbances.