Here is an unpublished piece I wrote, this is part 1, stick around for Part 2 next week

I took the bus from Yafa to Jerusalem. It cost 19 shekels, and I kept wondering if this was real — or some sick dream.

Was Jerusalem truly just a bus ride away?

The city I had known only through story, memory, and maps was now within reach. Would there be clashes today? Would I be able to see the Dome of the Rock?

The bus wasn’t moving. The driver was outside, arguing with someone in uniform. Hebrew tossed back and forth — too fast and sharp to follow. Inside, everyone seemed calm. A woman scrolled her phone. A teenager chewed sunflower seeds. The normalcy felt surreal.

For me, each passing kilometre felt like shedding a layer of armour. The closer we got, the more exposed I felt.

And yet, I didn’t want to turn back. This was my land — even if it no longer recognised me.

When we finally arrived, I took a cab. The driver spoke Arabic. I didn’t ask where he was from. He asked where I was from.

“Jordan,” I said. It was all I could claim. My passport and my identity — both formed through dispossession.

He didn’t care about my story. He just wanted to see that I had the right papers. I did. That satisfied him.

“Where to?”

“Jerusalem,” my brain screamed. But to him, this was Jerusalem. To all of them, it was. Not to me.

I had studied the Old City meticulously: maps, names, stories. I knew the gates, the quarters, the histories.

The Old City that Omar Ibn al-Khattab took from the Byzantines. The same Omar who insisted the Jews rebuild their quarter. The same quarter the Arab Legion later razed.

The Temple Mount, once a garbage heap. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where monks still brawl over turf. The key still with a Muslim family. All of it.

But the road from the bus station to the gate? That, I didn’t know.

“Damascus Gate,” I told the driver.

He chuckled. “First time?”

And just like that, all my preparation collapsed.

Did I really look that foreign? Foreign to the city where my grandfather sold tomatoes and mint?

Could I still call myself a Jerusalemite if I couldn’t fool a cab driver?

He dropped me near the gate, named for Sultan Suleiman — the one who built it. I stepped down the stairs and saw a missionary handing out Bibles.

And then — I walked through.

I felt it.

Surely others had too. At least once. Jerusalem is not normal. Not really. The weight of it isn’t physical. It’s something else entirely. Spiritual, maybe. Heavy in a way that’s hard to name.

Vendors called out, their shops woven into the stone. The signs were almost mythical. One pointed to Omar Ibn al-Khattab Square, another to the Greek Catholic Patriarchate. One showed the way to the Temple Mount, the Western Wall to the left, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to the right.

Islam, Christianity, and Judaism — paths diverging, crossing, colliding.

Then I saw it: the sign for Via Dolorosa — the road of sorrow.

That one sign encapsulated my entire visit.