The Atlantic

Jerusalem’s Ramadan Is Different This Year

The Muslim holy month began during a dramatic and deadly week in a region where even religious events are shrouded in politics.
Source: Ammar Awad / Reuters

JERUSALEM—It’s holiday season here in the Holy Land. Parts of the Old City are decked out for Ramadan in paper lanterns of yellow, red, and green. On the first Friday of the holiday, the often quiet streets of the Muslim Quarter were packed. Tiny boys screamed the price of sweets to hungry passersby, many of whom are fasting from sunrise to sunset every day this month. Palestinians from all over Israel and the Palestinian territories pile into buses and cars and travel here for , the weekly communal prayers, at Al-Aqsa Mosque, the holy site where Muslims believe Muhammad prayed. “We can enter Al-Aqsa just on Friday, just in this holy month in Ramadan. In other months, we can’t enter here,” said Fatima Bader, a 19-year-old Muslim woman who was headed into the mosque with her mom and a couple of

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