Cinnamon Zone

As we watched Abdullah Joudeh standing inside the Dome of the Rock mosque, my brother turned to me and said: This makes you feel lucky that our roots go back to that place. In deed, that's the way I always felt.

I'm in Jerusalem is a golden prize-winning documentary film featuring the trip of Abdullah Joudeh, a young boy from Gaza, through the city of Jerusalem. He takes you on a trip through the streets of Jerusalem, visits the holy places, the markets, talks to the people and participates in demonstrations. All the way through the trip, Abdullah keeps you glued to your seat as he explores the charms of the old city. Signs of astonishment and bewilderment keep drawing themselves on Abdualla's face as he asks questions and gets answers he didn't seem to expect. Perhaps the most disappointing part for him was when he ran all the way to the dome of the rock, full of excitement, and when he gets to the shrine of Al-Aqsa mosque, he is shocked to see tens of Jews praying at the western wall of the shrine, that we call The wall of Buraq, while the Jew call the wall of wailing.

Perhaps the last part of the movie is the what makes it all make sense; for the trip turns out to be a dream, and it is actually a dream, not only the dream of Abdullah, but of every one of us. After the film it struck me that at some point I wished very hard that I could go there, and when I ran the film through my head I found that it really resembled a dream.

I do feel ultimately luck and grateful that, of all people, Allah made me not only a Palestinian, but also from Jerusalem, and what this film did is that it intensified this sentiment all the more, and revived a tender dream, hopefully not too distant, of being there sometime on a trip of my own.

I didn't find much about it on the net, since the movie is relatively new, but I found this interview with the creator of the film, Muna Jraidy, you can read it to find more about the movie: http://www.alwatanvoice.com/arabic/news.php?go=show&id=94518