Don’t Let Fear Stop You 

View of the Old City from East Jerusalem

Fear can do strange things to people. It can make us paranoid, delusional, and worst of all it can close off our world.

When I first got to Jerusalem, all of the news reports talked about how unsafe East Jerusalem was. There were emails that I received cautioning Americans not to travel into East Jerusalem. There was an event where 10,000+ people participated in a so-called “Day of Rage” which resulted in police getting involved and people being killed and injured. With all of this being at the forefront of my mind, I weighted any travel into East Jerusalem very heavily when completing my risk analysis of places I wanted to visit (I know, nerd alert. But hey, I’m an American traveling alone in a country where I don’t look like most of the people and don’t speak the language). I didn’t want to travel into East Jerusalem at all; there’s just too many other places I could see with much less risk involved. That all changed when I met a group of Brits out at dinner in the Old City one night. I struck up a conversation with them, and it turned out they were working at a place called the Garden Tomb and invited me out there. Not knowing where exactly it was from their directions, I agreed to come visit them out there the next time they worked. WELLLLL. Turns out the Garden Tomb is in East Jerusalem.

I now had a decision to make: Should I be a man of my word, throw caution to the wind, and go visit them OR should I do the reasonable, prudent thing and just explain to them why I wouldn’t come visit them? I was never mistaken for a MENSA candidate, so of course I went to visit. When you enter East Jerusalem, it’s very noticeably different from the rest of Jerusalem in that there are many more people wearing traditional Muslim attire and it is a very different environment. Different how you ask? Signs that were usually in Hebrew/Arabic/English were now only in Arabic. The types of food being sold in the street were different. There were burn marks in the street. And most notably: the Israeli police/Army seemed to have an unusually large force situated right across the street from the entrance to East Jerusalem. I made it safely to the Garden Tomb, had a wonderful time taking the tour, and catching up with one Gerry (one of the Brits I met earlier).

When I made it back to my apartment that night, I reflected on the whole situation. I’m alive, how can this be?…Okay, maybe I wasn’t that melodramatic about it, but I was surprised how easily I transitioned in and out of there. It was settled, I was going to explore the rest of East Jerusalem, and I am so happy that I did. I got to see so many amazing places, took that wonderful picture of the Old City (Above), and met a tour guide that actually used to live in my home state of Arizona (he insisted on showing me his ID to prove it).

Moral of the story is: don’t limit your options because of fear. I didn’t fly thousands of miles into a country at war just to limit the places I would visit. I’m going to see all the places I wanted to, and that’s that. You never know what kind of adventure you can find outside of your comfort zone.

Have you had a similar situation? When did you decide, enough is enough?

You are awesome!

-Mike

Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Please leave them down below.