Christians in Israel were allowed to cross over to the Jordanian side at Easter and Christmas... In the spring of 1967, a few months before the "Six Day War," I decided to try.
I remember standing in a long queue of people at Mandelbaum Gate, the Jerusalem border crossing between Jordan to Israel. In front of me stood a very pregnant woman with two large suitcases. I kept waiting for someone to join her to help her with her heavy bags. Eventually I realized that no one was coming and she was alone.
We began to chat, as one does when standing in a lineup for hours on end. I told her that I was going over by myself for the first time. I didn't even know where I would spend the night.
She was also by herself, she told me. Why not join her at Christ Church Hospice, where she was planning to stay? When I commented on her two large suitcases, she told me that they were almost empty. She had brought them to fill with purchases and treats like Cadbury chocolate bars that were unavailable in Israel...
Over the course of Easter weekend, I learned that she was a British writer - Christian - married to a Jewish Israeli artist. They lived on a Kibbutz. She was expecting her second child. When I heard her name, I was totally in awe... Lynn Reid Banks, author of the L-Shaped Room, a popular novel that had been made into a film which I had seen.
I spent the weekend with her, as she introduced me to the old city of Jerusalem. We even ended up driving to the archaeological ruin at Jerash, as guests of a Canadian clergyman...
Coming across a photo that reminded me of those ruins turned my thoughts recently to that weekend in 1967. I wonder what she is doing now... I googled her name.
(Among her online photos, I came across this one that most resembles her around the time that our paths crossed...)
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