Market madness

Mahane Yehuda, commonly known as "The Shuk," (which means market in both Hebrew and Arabic (Suk)), is Israel's largest market. I could not miss an opportunity to see the madness before shabbat starts. Plus, as many of you know, I am a market junkie.

The shuk was bustling with shoppers and market-sellers trying to get the best deals. The smell of frying felafel, marinated olives and spices, were interspersed with wafts of freshly baked bread and pastries. Jam-filled dognuts, a specialty eaten during the festival of Channukah, are already lining the baker's stalls. I could not help buying a big box of pastries filled with sweet white cheese, chocolate, cinamon, poppy seeds and fig jam.

I was again struck by the diversity. A Jewish-Israeli shopkeeper and his Filipino wife sold me four different varieties of eggplant. An Arab-Israeli baker sold me a challah. At one point, when I was buying fruit, there was an Ethiopian woman standing to my right and a Russian man speaking on the phone to my left.

But the Shuk has also been the target of numerous terrorist attacks. On 30 July 1997, 16 people were killed and 178 wounded in two consecutive suicide bomings. On 2 November 2000, 2 people were killed in a car bomb explosion near the Shuk. On 12 April 2002, 6 people were killed and 104 people wounded when a woman suicide bomber detonated a bomb at the entrance to the Shuk. And on 2 July 2008, 3 people were killed and 50 wounded when a man driving a bulldozer plowed into cars and pedestrians nearby to the shuk.

Suicide attacks have left a massive scar on Israeli society. Whilst they have signifcantly reduced in the past few years, people still say they live in fear. They do not show it; not in the marketplace or on the street. People seem to lead perfectly normal lives. But deep down you can feel it; the security checks all around, the manic rush to get things done as quickly as possible. It is as if two simultaneous realities exist side-by-side.

Today, thankfully, the shuk was peaceful, filled with the crazy sounds and intense smells of any typical marketplace. Now that is the kind of madness I like to be a part of.

Tomorrow I am meeting a representative from the Red Cross.

55 days to go...