Pretty amazing that almost 50 world leaders are here now, noting the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Here's the "view from the street": First off, things here have been getting busy for the past week, when the first leader (Australia's PM) arrived, but things really heated up on Tuesday and Wednesday in preparation for Thursday's big ceremony.
I usually work in 4 schools in various parts of Jerusalem on Thursday, including one in the Old City. It looked like today was going to be a REALLY bad day to shlep around Jerusalem, with the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway closed for large parts of the morning while Mike Pence and Vladimir Putin arrived, and Pence scheduled to visit the Old City not long after I'm usually at my school (but well within the time for the whole place to be shut down by security). The chief of traffic police sent out a message saying something like, "unless you absolutely MUST be in Jerusalem on Thursday, we ask that you not come". Ilana's friend had a high school entrance interview scheduled at a Jerusalem school and not only was the interview cancelled, the school didn't even open for the day!
In the end, I went into work Wednesday (when I tried to find out if my usual parking garage near the Old City was even open, I was warned by the online denizens that I was likely making a huge mistake). Thankfully, I found that, WHEW, all was pretty quiet in the city. A HUGE (huge huge) security force was out--according to a news article I read, 11,0000 security officers are in Jerusalem today; I believe it! There were security officers at most intersections as I entered the city and the presence grew and grew until, around the major hotels that the bigwigs were staying at there were hordes of officers around, and the street that the David Citadel and King David hotels are on was totally closed off to traffic [I have a feeling Putin and Pence got through]). For those familiar with the city, from Gan Sacher up through Rechavia and all the way to the Old City there were barriers along the sidewalks (no crowds out watching yet, though!) with security officers on every block. It was very impressive to see.
My vote for best speech (although I haven't read through them all yet) was by German President Steinmeier who said, “I wish I could say that we Germans have learned from history once and for all, but I cannot say that when hatred is spreading. I cannot say that when Jewish children are spat on in the schoolyard. I cannot say that when crude anti-Semitism is cloaked in supposed criticism of Israeli policy.” He finished his speech by saying, "here at Yad Vashem, I renew this promise before the eyes of the world. And I know that I am not alone. Today we join together to say: No to anti-Semitism! No to hatred!” AMEN
