An Unwelcome Visitor in the Home of My Creator (Toby Irenstein, Hasbara Fellow, Vanderbilt University)
On the last day of my Hasbara Fellowships Israel Training Program, and the last day of 2019, I was given the incredible opportunity to visit Temple Mount. Having been researching this incredibly meaningful and diverse location for the past two years, my excitement and expectations were through the roof.
The tour itself was not what I was expecting; Jordanian police (the Waqf) surrounded us, Israeli police yelled at us, and I felt like an unwelcome visitor in the home of my creator. While aggressively told to continue walking, not being allowed to stop for pictures, and being watched as an outsider, I felt marginalized in Israel, an experience that I – as an Israeli – had not yet felt. I felt surveilled, untrustworthy, and inadequate in the space of which I was standing.
I started saying the Shema. In front of me, a group began singing יבנה המקדש, getting louder and louder as they stepped away from the border police at the exit. Confused and excited, my group followed this excited group and discovered that one of the men was getting married that night. As the group encircled the man, singing songs of celebration and Israeli resilience, I once again felt empowered. The man on the left in this photograph is the groom-to-be, and he is giving the man on the right a blessing. In this moment – at Temple Mount, surrounded by ritual song, dance, and prayer, I felt one with my past, accepted with my present, and excited for my future.
