First of all, to discuss the terrorist side of things. People really don't mess with Jerusalem. There are so many people who consider it a sacred, holy place that it generally get's left alone. While everyone would be ok with getting rid of their rival's holy sites, their own holy sites happen to be just down the street. And Jerusalem has the Dome of the Rock, the third most holy site in the Muslim religion. No faithful Muslim is going to do anything that could possibly harm the Dome of the Rock. What happened back in December is very, very rare. As a generally rule, Jerusalem is safe from terrorist attacks.
As I mentioned in my last post, the Jerusalem Center is located in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian part of town. We are surrounded by Muslims. There's a mosque across the street. No Palestinian is going to bomb the Palestinian neighborhood. They'd go to West Jerusalem, where the Jews are. So I'm safe in that way as well.
Also, they take no chances when it comes to bombs here. If there is a bag of any sort that is unattended, it get's blown up. They don't even inspect it, they get everyone away then blow it up. There are also Israeli soldiers around everywhere.
But if there were to be a problem, there are two bomb shelters in the Jerusalem Center. Both are large enough to hold everyone who lives and works in the center plus some extra. There are also bomb shelters throughout the city. If there is a legit problem, we would have about a minute and a half to get to a safe place. That's plenty of time while in the center, and security would help us if we were outside the center. So I would be just fine.
Bombings are something to be ready for and aware of, but not to stress out about here.
We have a lot of rules to keep us safe in and around the city. Whenever we're out, we have to be in a group of three, and there always needs to be at least one male in each group. We cannot be in the Old City or East Jerusalem after dark. Period. Not even to walk back to the center. We can stay out until midnight in West Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, but then we'd have to take some kind of transportation home, like a taxi. No public transportation after dark.
There are also some places that we just aren't allowed to go. There is one road that we were warned to never, ever go down, no matter how many people we have in our group. And to go to the Orson Hyde Memorial Garden, we need at least 10 people in a group, and at least 2 boys.
We were all issued cell phones by the center that have the security for the center on speed dial. We are required to take these phones with us whenever we leave the center. They allow for us to keep in touch with security in the event of something happening. The security guys here are very good, they can get to us or get us whatever we need really fast. My tour guide yesterday said that she saw one security guy get to somewhere in the old city in about 3 minutes. They're good, and they've got our backs.
There is a problem here with Arab men having a poor image of Western, particularly American, women. Having grown up watching Western shows that show the women as being morally loose, they assume that we all are, and they can be a bit...forward...to put it mildly. If there is ever a problem with a guy messing with a girl from the center, we call security, and they will come, hunt down the guy, and threaten him with his and his family's lives if they ever catch them harassing another Jerusalem Center girl again. They are very serious, and very convincing. They don't get repeat offenders. So if there is a problem, there are people here who take care of things.
So, this was supposed to help you all not stress out. Basically, don't worry. We're being taken care of.
No comments:
Post a Comment