The “Dome of the Rock” as seen from Mount Scopus. Mount Scopus was the first stop of our tour’s
pilgrimage. This beautiful golden dome was for me the focal point of all East Jerusalem. This holy space
is the geographical mark whereupon Judaism and Islam converge. For practitioners of the Islamic faith, it
is the place where the Prophet Muhammed rose to heaven AFTER he had been transported in a dream
from Mecca. The dome reaches into that liminal space where the eternal and the temporal intersect. For
practitioners of the Jewish faith though the dome is literally built directly over the “Holy of Holies.” This
construction happened during the Second Temple period. The Holy of Holies is the room that only the
High Priests could enter. At the time that I first saw this it didn’t seem real because I had never seen
anything like it in the United States. But as I got closer, I began to feel the history and the drama the time
then and now encloses.