Jerusalem: Day 2, Part 1

• The difference between Muslim and Non-Muslim access to the Temple Mount is stark: Muslims have a large number of available entrances, including some near the Ecce Homo where we're staying, but to access the Hadif, we'll have to walk to the far South of the Old City, beyond the Western Wall, where a two-lane checkpoint is open at some times for non-Muslim guests. Security at the other openings is much simpler - I saw a bag being checked, but no metal detectors.
• I was struck also by the sexism of the Western Wall. Men at the Wall had a lot of space this morning to stand a pray; sections of the wall were open. Women, on the other hand, were tightly crowded into a much smaller space that gave them much less access. 
• The tourist approach to the Mount is a part of the Iron Rule in Jerusalem that there's nothing more permanent than a temporary solution. It's a causeway atop scaffolding that stands where a the hillside used to be, before it was cut away by diggings on both sides and erosion. When the hillside eroded beyond safety, a permanent bridge was planned, but the required concrete had to be dug down. The diggings had to be sensitive to the history of the site, and inspired controversy.  Thus the scaffold remains.
• The Western Wall security was very bored with me: I didn't have to remove my backpack and had only to put my phone and iPod next to the detector. Any non-metal objects could have gotten in, no problem. My fellow student with a headscarf got a search. I'm also told that any Muslims who don't "look" like Muslims (is not Arabs) have a harder time getting onto the Mount and the Muslim-only buildings atop it.
• The Western Wall is a mixed metaphor - its plaza was formed through forced evictions of Jerusalem residents, and when the plaza overwhelmed the wall, Jewish authorities merely dug down to make the Wall appear larger.
• We ran into someone featured on a video we watched on he Bereaved Families Forum in Williamstown - small world.
• The Temple Mount is both very peaceful and very gun-filled. The last time the guns were fired, our guide thinks, was in 2000 when Sharon came up to the Mount. Some kids were playing soccer up there - its a very big space, even with the two sacred buildings.
• A small kid came up to me with an outstretched hand when we were about to leave the city - Slumdog Millionaire made me much more comfortable saying no, though I still felt dirty for having done so.
• I was very frustrated by the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Instead of being a model for all Christians, it is as much a show of divisiveness as the Temple Mount/Western Wall. The splits seem political, not spiritual, and I find myself very discouraged by the church's interior.