Jerusalem: The Biography

The rabbi, forty years old and descended from Russian immigrants who arrived in Jerusalem seven generations ago, comes from families in the Gerer and Lubavitcher courts. The father of seven children, bespectacled, bearded and blue-eyed, in black suit and skullcap, proceeds down through the Jewish Quarter, whether it is cold or hot, raining or snowing, until he sees Herod the Great’s Wall rising up before him. Each time ‘his heart skips a beat’ as he gets closer to ‘the biggest synagogue in the world. There’s no earthly way to describe the personal connection to these stones. That is spiritual.’

High above Herod’s stones is the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque on what Jews call the Mountain of the House of God, but ‘there is room for all of us,’ says the rabbi who firmly rejects any encroachment on the Temple Mount. ‘One day God may rebuild the Temple – but it is not for men to interfere. This is only a matter for God.’

As rabbi, he is in charge of keeping the Wall clean: the cracks between the stones are filled with notes written by worshippers. Twice a year – before Passover and Rosh Hashanah – the notes are cleared out; they are considered so sacred, he buries them on the Mount of Olives.

When he reaches the Wall, the sun is rising and there are already around 700 Jews praying there, but he always finds the same prayer group –minyan – who stand at the same spot beside the Wall: ‘It’s important to have a ritual so that one can concentrate on the prayers.’ But he does not greet this minyan, he may nod but there is no talking – ‘the first words will be for God’ – while he wraps the tefillin around his arm. He recites the morning prayers, the shacharit, which finish: ‘God bless the nation with peace.’ Only then does he greet his friends properly. The day at the Wall has started.

Shortly before 4 a.m., just as Rabbi Rabinowitz is rising in the Jewish Quarter, a pebble skims across the window of Wajeeh al-Nusseibeh in Sheikh Jarrah. When he opens his door, Aded al-Judeh, aged eighty, hands Nusseibeh a heavy, medieval 12-inch key. Nusseibeh, now sixty, scion of one of the grandest Jerusalem Families,^* already dressed in suit and tie, sets off briskly through the Damascus Gate, down to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Nusseibeh, who has been the Custodian of the Holy Sepulchre for more than twenty-five years, arrives at 4.00 a.m. precisely and knocks on the towering ancient doors set in Melisende’s Romanesque façade. Inside the Church, which he locked at 8 p.m. the night before, the sextons of the Greeks, Latins and Armenians have already negotiated who is to open the doors that particular day. The priests of the three reigning sects have spent the night in jovial companionship and ritual prayer. At 2 a.m. the dominant Orthodox, who are first in all things, start their Mass, with eight priests chanting in Greek, around the Tomb, before they hand over to the Armenians, for their badarak service in Armenian which is just starting as the gates are opened; the Catholics get their chance at about 6 a.m. Meanwhile all the sects are singing their Matins services. Only one Copt is allowed to stay the night but he prays alone in ancient Coptic Egyptian.

As the gate opens, the Ethiopians, in their rooftop monastery and St Michael’s Chapel, its entrance just to the right of the main portal, start to chant in Amharic, their services so longthat they lean on the shepherd’s crooks that are piled up in their churches ready to support their weary worshippers. By night, the Church resounds to a euphonic hum of many languages and chants like a stone forest in which many species of bird are singing their own choruses. This is Jerusalem and Nusseibeh never knows what is going to happen: ‘I know thousands depend on me and I worry if the key won’t open or something goes wrong. I first opened it when I was fifteen and thought it was fun but now I realize it’s a serious matter.’ Whether there is war or peace, he must open the door and says his father often slept in the lobby of the Church just to be sure.