Religious Demographic Changes in Jerusalem

When I first came to Israel in 1997 my impression was that the country was predominantly secular. At that time four out of every five immigrants were from Russia and these immigrants had little interest in religion. So in my classes, I've given the impression that things haven't changed all that much.  I was wrong. I realize Jerusalem is its own unique case, but I've been reading a lot here about the profound changes in religious demographics.  There are about 800,000 people in Jerusalem. About 35% are Muslim Palestinians, 31% secular Jews, 31% ultra-orthodox Jews, and 3% Christians and other affiliations. But the fastest-growing segment of the population is the ultra-orthodox Jews. About 65% of the school kids in Jerusalem now are from ultra orthodox families. You know the 18th century Eastern European black suits with the big black hats,  hair side locks for the men and the scarves/wigs for the women . . . and lots of 21st century double-wide baby strollers! This is creating some tensions as secular Israelis are leaving Jerusalem, to the tune of about 20,000 in the last seven years, to go to other parts of the country.  I've been following the politics a little in Haaretz and Time Magazine where the recent government coalition fell apart over the draft. In Israel today, all men serve 3 years and women serve 2 years in the military. The ultra-orthodox are exempt from having to serve and are even subsidized by the state to study Torah. That was my biggest surprise. Unemployment among orthodox men is well over 50% as they receive financial incentives from  the state to study at the Yeshivas. So this summer, there were several proposals requiring some kind of government service, but all of them blew apart. There's also pressure on businesses to close on the Sabbath, to take women's pictures off public billboards, and even to have separate seats in the back of the bus for women, as well as separate rail cars in the above ground rail. Some secular Jews are up in arms over the issue, so much so that some of the tensions between the Jews and Arabs have been moved to the back burner. So to my students, when I said that Israel was much more secular than they typically imagine, at least for Jerusalem, that is no longer the case.

Excavation Progress over 3 Months

Since I am just doing archaeological work at Givati one week a month, it is possible to see the progress of the excavation over time in the area where I am working. While I'm playing hookey the rest of the team continues with the excavation. So here are four pictures. The picture above was from the second week of June. You can just barely see the Roman wall vertically up from the bottom of the picture. Also a cistern from the Ummayad period in the foreground and a pit toward the right. A pit in the middle filled with buckets. Any of the pictures can be enlarged by clicking them.

The picture here is one month later, the second week of July. Notice a few things. You can see that the wall  that is just barely exposed in the first picture now is more pronounced, plus there's another wall perpendicular to it.  One of the last things we did was to remove all the stones in the lower left portion of the second picture so we could excavate below them. They were just sitting on fill and not part of any structure.

 Take a look at the bottom picture first.  Both are from August 6. It shows progress and the walls are more pronounced. The picture above is from the other direction and shows several Roman walls and the completed excavation of the Abbasid cistern. It is plastered and has a drain going into it from the top.  As you can see these are pretty massive walls, but it doesn't appear to be a public building.

Now I'm posting another pic from my September week of digging. In addition to the Roman wall, you can now see a wall of huge stones going across the pic that the Roman Wall was built over. We're not sure yet but think this is from the Second Temple Period. In fact, there are several walls emerging that need sorting out.