#WeAreAllOne

This is not a political post. Please, let’s not take sides on this issue.

In CAFE CONFIDENTIAL, my second memoir, I share that I sold everything in Mexico and bought a series of one-way tickets with no return destination! Would I return to Mexico, live in Thailand, or live in Israel?

I had no idea where I would end up. It turned out to be Istanbul, at least for now.

CNN today. Map

All the tensions are over the holy site in the Old City of Jerusalem.

I chose to stay INSIDE the walls of the Old City and entered or exited every day through the Damascus Gate — the scene of current attacks.

This area is very small, a tiny neighborhood. My host, Michel was an Arab Christian and could not have been any nicer to me. His home, through Airbnb, was recently fixed up for guests. The apartment had been in his family for 700 years! It was a stone cottage entered through a passageway accessed by the Damascus Gate, and a 5-minute walk to the Wailing Wall and the Al Aqsa Mosque where all the current fighting began.

Before I left for Israel in 2019 I said “My luck they will drop bombs on Israel while I’m there!” And there was a bomb that exploded while I was in Tel Aviv!! But it was a one-off event and no one seemed the…