At the Boundaries of the Sacred
At the Boundaries of the Sacred
The Reinvention of Everyday Life in Jerusalem’s Al-Wad Street
In Jerusalem's walled Old City, the Muslim and Jewish site of the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount is central to both religions, and to the conflict. In addition to religious institutions, the area is filled with residential and commercial structures, places of everyday life; Tariq al-Wad, or al-Wad Street, is an active example. This chapter explores how al-Wad Street has become a new arena of conflict in Jerusalem. It concentrates less upon political policy than upon the cultural construction of the various sites and artifacts in the market street that both emerge from and enable intense levels of popular partisan political participation. It reflects not a polarization of sacred and profane but more nuanced conditions at the boundaries of the sacred, where religious practices and beliefs permeate mundane situations and everyday acts. In contrast to this environment, the chapter also considers a recent attempt to interpret an archaeological site, known as the Western Wall Tunnel, as a holy place. This relatively new creation has been isolated from these quotidian settings and delineated from the world of the street. There we find a contrasting mode of intervention for asserting religious and national claims beneath the major holy places.
Keywords: Jerusalem, Old City, sacred sites, al-Wad Street, shared sites, political participation, religious practices, beliefs, Western Wall Tunnel
Columbia Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
