letter I wrote to friend..

i was just in jerusalem (at the western wall)for one of the holiest days of the year. it was absolutely amazing ..everyone was dancing/chanting/singing/praying/lifting eachother up! A ton of the arabs hate jewish people though and we had to walk through the Arab quarters (the country is split up into Jewish quarter,Arab quarter, and Christian quarter) and they were spitting at us and yelling at us"go home this is not your land" etc. I saw an arab mother abuse her child today too.. she took her three year olds ponytail and yanked her and pushed her to the ground it was so sad. Honestly the Arabs here will do anything to rip you off.. this one guy tried to kidnap me and my roommate Emily by saying he was a taxi driver and "get in my car I taxi driver!" and was following us it was so scary. It sucks walking down a road and knowing everyone hates you... thats how it is here. especially if your an american tourist, all arabs know your a zionist/jew. Its crazy how much tension between races are here.. but they have been living with it for so long that it is normal. Before you go into any building/mall/bus there is hard core security like what they have in airports, and they look through all your bags and stuff. it's such a different world here..... I do feel safe though. There has been some terrorist threats tho(which isnt so abnormal here). Hmmm what else... oh well I fasted allll day today!!! It was so hard! I couldn't eat or drink anything untill 6.30. I didn't do it for religious reasons.. I wanted to do it because I've never really felt what real hunger is, and so much of the world is hungry all the time and you can't be 100% sympathetic unless you have a little taste of what its like to be hungry. It really worked though because after I ate, I saw some homeless people and thought "why do I get to break fast and not them?" I haven't done anything better/more special then they have ... and i'm not more worthy. It really isn't fair at all, so I ended up giving 100 shekles to one guy. The beauty of religion lies in the human spirit, not in silly beliefs. The cool thing about Judaism is that it focuses on living and how to live a meaningful/happy life, whereas most religions focus on living right to attain a good afterlife.