Jerusalem heads into a subdued Passover and Easter under the shadow of the Iran war

Jerusalem’s ma­jor holy sites are shut­tered, and fam­i­lies are de­ject­ed and ex­haust­ed ahead of Passover and East­er as the Iran war en­ters its fifth week. The mood stands in stark con­trast to a usu­al spring, when longer days her­ald a pe­ri­od of fam­i­ly gath­er­ings and an in­flux of tourists for the ma­jor Jew­ish and Chris­t­ian hol­i­days.

Met­al shut­ters are drawn on near­ly all stores in the Old City, home to key holy sites, and on­ly scat­tered foot­steps echo on de­sert­ed stone al­ley­ways. Vast plazas are miss­ing the typ­i­cal throngs of faith­ful and tourists.

Jerusalem has large­ly es­caped past wars, with Is­rael’s en­e­mies ap­pear­ing to be hes­i­tant to launch mis­siles near the city’s Mus­lim holy sites. But since Is­rael and the Unit­ed States launched strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, Jerusalem has re­peat­ed­ly come un­der fire.

Ear­li­er this month, an in­ter­cept­ed Iran­ian mis­sile sprayed shrap­nel on the rooftop of the Greek Or­tho­dox Pa­tri­ar­chate, just steps from the Church of the Holy Sep­ul­cher, one of the most im­por­tant sites in Chris­tian­i­ty. The church, built on what is revered by many Chris­tians as the site of Je­sus’ cru­ci­fix­ion, bur­ial and res­ur­rec­tion, re­mains closed un­der Is­raeli mil­i­tary guide­lines pro­hibit­ing gath­er­ings of more than 50 peo­ple.

Mis­sile de­bris al­so hit a road lead­ing to the West­ern Wall, the holi­est site where Jews can pray.

From his of­fice over­look­ing the plaza at the West­ern Wall, now al­so closed to wor­shipers, Rab­bi Shmuel Ra­bi­nowitz, lament­ed the emp­ty plaza.

“The heart aches great­ly, it bleeds, see­ing the West­ern Wall as it looks now,” he said.

The mas­sive priest­ly bless­ing for Passover, which usu­al­ly draws tens of thou­sands, will take place with just 50 wor­ship­pers, Ra­bi­nowitz said. That’s the max­i­mum al­lowed to pray to­geth­er in the en­closed area by the West­ern Wall un­der wartime safe­ty guide­lines — rem­i­nis­cent of the re­stric­tions im­posed dur­ing the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic.

East­er cel­e­bra­tions are can­celled

The Latin Pa­tri­ar­chate can­celled the Palm Sun­day pro­ces­sion in Jerusalem, com­ply­ing with Is­raeli mil­i­tary guide­lines that lim­it­ed gath­er­ings to un­der 50 peo­ple.

De­spite that, the Pa­tri­ar­chate said Jerusalem po­lice pre­vent­ed the Catholic Church’s top lead­ers from en­ter­ing the Church of the Holy Sepul­chre to cel­e­brate the Mass mark­ing Je­sus’ tri­umphant en­try in­to Jerusalem.

The Catholic church called it “a man­i­fest­ly un­rea­son­able and gross­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate mea­sure” and said it was “the first time in cen­turies” that Church lead­ers were pre­vent­ed from cel­e­brat­ing Palm Sun­day at the place where Chris­tians be­lieve Je­sus was cru­ci­fied.

The Jerusalem po­lice did not have im­me­di­ate com­ment.

The tra­di­tion­al Palm Sun­day pro­ces­sion nor­mal­ly sees tens of thou­sands of Chris­tians from around the world walk from the Mount of Olives down the nar­row, hilly streets to­ward the Old City, wav­ing palm fronds and singing.

Ra­mi Asakrieh, the parish priest for Jerusalem’s Catholics, said the com­mu­ni­ty will sore­ly miss the pro­ces­sion, a deeply emo­tion­al and spir­i­tu­al part of the hol­i­day. But the can­cel­la­tion is al­so a re­minder that faith comes in­ter­nal­ly from the heart, not from ex­ter­nal ac­tions, he added.

“We are cel­e­brat­ing res­ur­rec­tion, res­ur­rec­tion is from death and win­ning the pain and the war,” he said. “It will not come by hav­ing fear, but by hav­ing faith.”

A lo­cal Catholic high school, emp­ty of stu­dents as class­es have been can­celled, was al­so re­cent­ly hit by de­bris from an Iran­ian mis­sile in­ter­cep­tion, Asakrieh said.

A Fran­cis­can priest, Asakrieh is still cel­e­brat­ing Mass for up to 50 parish­ioners at the Saint Savoir monastery’s cav­ernous mar­ble hall, near the cen­turies-old com­plex’s mu­sic school, the Mag­ni­fi­cat In­sti­tute. The school was built in what was once the con­vent’s base­ment, which has been ap­proved by the Is­raeli mil­i­tary as a suit­able shel­ter.

Jerusalem’s small­er syn­a­gogues, mosques and church­es are al­so open to groups of up to 50 peo­ple — if they are lo­cat­ed close to a shel­ter or a safe space.

Closed for most of Ra­madan

Next to the West­ern Wall is Al Aqsa Mosque com­pound, Is­lam’s third-holi­est site, which has al­so stood emp­ty since the war start­ed, can­celling prayers dur­ing most of the Mus­lim holy month of Ra­madan, which end­ed 10 days ago.

Fayez Dakkak, a third-gen­er­a­tion Mus­lim store­own­er in the Old City whose shop has catered to Chris­t­ian pil­grims since 1942, said he was heart­bro­ken over Al Aqsa’s clo­sure dur­ing the Is­lam­ic holy month.

“It’s like there was no Ra­madan for us,” Dakkak said. He added that he prayed sev­er­al times at a lo­cal mosque but that it can’t com­pare to be­ing able to pray at Al Aqsa.

Po­lice or­ders have closed his shop, along with all non-food stores in the Old City — al­so part of the safe­ty guide­lines dur­ing the war.

Dakkak said that for years now, as the num­bers of pil­grims and tourists plum­met­ed, he’s bare­ly been able to make ends meet. Still, it would have been nice to open his shop for some sem­blance of rou­tine and just chat with oth­er store­own­ers.

Clean­ing for Passover, run­ning for the shel­ter

Is­raelis have al­so grown weary af­ter near­ly a month of dai­ly sirens, 16 civil­ian deaths and dozens of peo­ple se­ri­ous­ly in­jured.

For seder, Jew­ish fam­i­lies are plan­ning small­er, stripped-down cer­e­mo­ni­al Passover din­ners that com­mem­o­rate the Jew­ish ex­o­dus from Egypt — a far cry from times when large fam­i­ly gath­er­ings of­ten wel­comed rel­a­tives from abroad. Is­rael’s Ben Gu­ri­on air­port has been op­er­at­ing on a se­vere­ly lim­it­ed ba­sis through­out the war. Many point out the irony that ahead of Passover, Is­raelis are flee­ing the coun­try through the land bor­der cross­ing with Egypt to the Sinai desert, while the hol­i­day com­mem­o­rates the sto­ry of an­cient Is­raelites leav­ing Egypt via Sinai to Is­rael.

Ob­ser­vant Jew­ish fam­i­lies are fran­ti­cal­ly clean­ing for Passover to re­move traces of leav­en­ing, which re­quires “turn­ing the house up­side-down in be­tween run­ning for the shel­ter,” said Jamie Geller, a cook­book au­thor who works in Jerusalem’s Old City.

From her of­fice at Aish, a Jew­ish ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tute with head­quar­ters next to the West­ern Wall plaza, Geller can see where shrap­nel dent­ed and smashed rooftops, roads and a park­ing lot in the area.

“It’s shock­ing,” she said. “The Old City has al­ways been a bit off lim­its for in­ter­na­tion­al ter­ror and war, but not this time.” —JERUSALEM (AP)

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Sto­ry by MELANIE LID­MAN | As­so­ci­at­ed Press