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Once we were married in 1990, we decided to travel back to Israel every year to visit my wife’s family. Even thought I lived in Israel from August 98’ to April‘90, I never drove a car in Israel. I didn’t shy away from it, I never had the opportunity. Driving in Israel was not for the common man, or woman. Cars were expensive, roads were narrow, grades were steep and unpredictable and the drivers were even more so. Israeli drivers were so unpredictable that assuming every driver on the road didn’t see you and they were about to either stop for no reason or move into your lane at any time was the safest way to arrive  to your destination unscathed .

In 1994, the fourth time visiting the holyland I decided to rent a car for various reasons but the overarching reason was, our 1-1/2 year old baby girl life was at stake. 

I reserved the car over the phone from a Hertz location in Jerusalem which was about as awkward as watching a sexually explicit movie with your mom. 

When I think about the rental car process back then  I’m not sure it was possible to reserve a car on-line back then, and the rental facilities were not guaranteed to have facilities at a major airport. 

A few days after we’d arrived in Israel, we caught the bus to Jerusalem and walked a couple blocks from the central bus station to the Hertz rental facility. It wasn’t so much a facility as it was a storefront. The waiting room could fit three people comfortably, maybe four, and three people behind the desk. When we walked in the three people behind the desk were all involved in helping one customer who must’ve been a high maintenance customer with all of the words volleying back and forth faster than a professional ping pong tournament. The conversations were all in Hebrew and I only understood a few words every so often and even though there were no red faces, the discussion took on the tone of an argument.  I don’t really remember how long it took for them to satisfy the current customer but it was close to an hour. As the customer walked out there should be three people available to help us but two of them disappeared quickly once the customer left. I thought that’s ok we only need one. I soon realized that we would need all three, and eventually got all three. Everything seemed to be a negotiation. What car we rented, the rate we paid, additional insurance, the type of credit card, where we returned the car, number of miles we drove and the number of signatures they needed from us. Two of the three spoke English very well but I’m not sure that made the process easier. It just seemed like this was the first time they has rented a car, ever. More than 2 hours lapsed before we were climbing into a small 4 door manual automobile and on our way back to the kibbutz.

The next day we planned on driving to the old city in Jerusalem with the in-laws and my sister-in-law. 

I ‘ve been to the old city many times in the past. When I lived in Israel, I stayed in Jerusalem for a month, 5 blocks away from the old city so I though I knew what I was getting myself into with this trip.

The old city of Jerusalem was built 5000 years old. Most of the walls seen today  around the old city today were rebuild around 1500 AD. When the walls and roads were built, carts pulled by donkeys and horses were the concern of the day.

We drove to the old city with the three ladies sitting in the back, my year old daughter on the lap of my wife and my father in-law, Shlomo, sitting shotgun. My father-in-law was my navigator. When I say navigator, I mean he grunts and shakes his finger to direct me . A point and a grunt sent me up a road towards Jaffa Gate. This gate has been built, destroyed and rebuilt by the best and brightest of the ages from the Greeks and Romans to the Persians. The most recent builders were the Turks in 1540. As I look up the road and see the gate ahead I though to myself, where is the parking lot or turnoff between here and the gate? As we drove up to the gate I asked where we should go and Shlomo pointed and said, “go through”, so I drove through the gate.  20 foot tall arched opening in the stone wall, wider than the average car but not by much.

As I entered the courtyard just inside Jaffa gate, it looked similar to what I assume it looked like 2000 years ago minus the bikes, taxis and motorcycles and IDF members with Uzis. The walls, gate, buildings, streets and sidewalks were all made from white Jerusalem stone. Big white blocks of limestone that is unmistakably old world. There were vendors selling bread and spices off wooden donkey carts, shops sprouting from the bottom of the buildings selling bright colored tapestries, blue and white pottery, Turkish rugs, shinny gold and silver jewelry and clothing that hasn’t changed in a thousand years. 

Shlomo points me to the right and of all the times I’d been to the old city, I didn’t remember a road wide enough for a car past the front courtyard but there it was, meandering off the the right along the inside of the old city walls. I creeped the car forward and to the right down the road, squeezing past pedestrian and street vendors feeling like I was breaking every rule of the three most important religions in Israel. I’m not an anxious person and I jump at the chance to find myself in the middle of nowhere with no way out but this was different.  There were holy men in this city. What if I get in the way of an Iman or a Cardnial, or worse yet an orthodox Rabbi? Would they stone us to death right here in the old city? Maybe, I mean we are driving a modern machine all over their precious holy ground their ancestors going back thousands of years have walked on, eaten, given birth, and prayed on.  I was beyond anxious, I was a finger point away from a full out panic attack. I averted my eyes from everyone we passed.  The road began to narrow between the city wall on our right and a building on the left and the road disappeared around the building and I thought, this is it, we will need to back the whole way up to the gate. Just as we approached the corner of the building at a snails pace, the road opened up behind the building and I could see our destination, the western wall. Off to the right about 200 meters away was indeed a small parking lot but there were construction cones around it and the pavement was torn up. As we approached the area Shlomo told me to park the car in front of the cones. I said, “But it under construction” and he said there were no signs so just park. I tried to argue again but this man’s level of stubbornness was born in Jerusalem before Israel was a country and was cultivated through more than 10 wars and conflicts in the Middle East. I gave up, parked the car in front of the cones and we all exited the car. After about an hour of visiting the Western Wall, we walked back to the car and I was bracing for a ticket. As soon as I caught sight of the car I realized the ticket was not the problem, there was a police man leaning against the car. His foot was tapping the ground so loud I think I heard it before I could see it, and the tapping said, “I’m so angry with your parking, I need to yell at you while I write this ticket.”

 As soon as he realized I was the offender he began walking towards me, yelling along the way. When he was within strangling distance I politely asked, “English?” He replied” AMERICAN?, WHAT?!, this is how you park back home? give me your license! What makes you think you are allowed to park anywhere you want?” As he started into his next diatribe on my uselessness to the human community, my father-in-law arrived on the scene and wedged himself in-between the two of us with an elevated rant in Hebrew. The policeman paused, let Slomo finish the rest of his breath and the moment he paused to take a breath, the cop turned back to me and stuck his hand out for my license and demanded I cooperate. As I finished the process and handed over my ID, Shlomo started in again, and this time even closer to the cop. I did offer to the policeman that I was sorry and it was my first time driving in Israel and at that point the discussion, Shlomos Hebrew heated up and they moved away from the car. I used the my break in the action as an opportunity to check on the rest of the family who were all worried, but not for me. I turned around and at that moment, the policeman walked back to me and the family, handed my ID back and said, “I am not going to punish you.” and then he turned in Shlomo’s direction and pointed at him like a judge handing down a sentence declared, “I will punish you!” He then grabbed him by the elbow and they walked towards the Dung gate. 

This gate was first used in 50CE to remove the sacrificial ashes from the holy temple after the religious ceremonies. Today the gate is the closest access into the old city to visit the western wall and the dome of the rock. The road and sidewalk leading into the old city from the gate has been lined with people begging for money to take advantage of the pilgrims. Christian, Jewish and Muslim pilgrims from all over the world come through this gate to pay homage to their holiest religious sites. During their visits, Almsgiving is tradition.  The act of giving charity to another and that is where the policeman led my father-in-law. As Shlomo made his way down the line, giving money to the people begging, the policeman followed him, opening up his own wallet and giving charity to the needy.