Chanukah with the Crazies in Mea Shearim

On the last night of my favourite holiday, Chanukah, I went with my friends to my favourite neighbourhood in Jerusalem, Mea Shearim. It is the ultra-ultra-ultra-orthodox part of the city, and they have signs up all over saying that to pass through, you have to be modestly dressed. Women have to be in long and loose skirts and blouses. The area is famous for its reactions to people who are not modestly dressed. They've been known to throw rocks, eggs and other things at those passing by.

So Lydia, Jess and I dressed super-orthodoxilly, and went down there with our Turkish Delight of a neighbour, Mustafa. Mustafa was so paranoid about being there that he made us call him either "Moshe" or "Mordechai" instead of his actual name. The first 10 minutes passed pretty uneventfully. But then, we saw a beautiful oil Chanukiah, and stopped to take a picture. Suddenly, out of nowhere, this orthodox man ran up, with a huge wooden board, put it in front of the Chanukiah, and started yelling at us in Hebrew. He told us that we weren't allowed to take a picture, and that we didn't belong in this neighbourhood, so we should leave immediately. It sounds funny now, but was fairly scary at the time. It could have lead to violence. So we went on our way, pretty rattled.

We weren't even sure what we did wrong, so later we stopped a non-threatening looking orthodox woman (she wasn't carrying a wooden board, so we figured she'd be safe) and asked her whether you aren't allowed to take pictures of the Chanukah candles. She said that you are allowed, and she does it all the time. So we still don't know what the problem was. But I guess it could have been worse. At least we didn't have rocks thrown at us. And Mea Shearim is still my favourite neighbourhood in Jerusalem. It's just so insane.