Secular Tel Aviv gets its very own ‘messiah’
| FEATURE |
 |
TEL AVIV — Tel Aviv has long prided itself on being a secular, cosmopolitan outpost in a land overflowing with religions, saints and shrines — but now it has its very own “messiah.”
Sitting cross-legged on the ground in a gritty part of town by a bustling open-air market, he exudes the air of a Biblical character, down to his long hair, beard and sandals.
“One year and two months ago I was an ordinary person and then a snake bit me in Bethlehem. And then I started to see God,” he told AFP, describing how he died and was “resurrected” as the messiah.
Calling himself only “The Messiah of Tel Aviv,” this 31-year-old Russian-born immigrant has become a fixture in a neighborhood more accustomed to beggars and bohemians before he announced he was a prophet, bringing dark warnings of the approaching apocalypse.
His story is unusual in Tel Aviv, but observers say the “Messiah of Tel Aviv” fits a pattern all too familiar in the Holy City, which gives its name to a rare condition called Jerusalem Syndrome.
That condition largely affects tourists who come to Israel and the Palestinian territories, where holy sites of Christianity, Judaism and Islam intersect, and suddenly find themselves overwhelmed by it all, believing themselves to be characters from the Bible..... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20101118com3.html
0 comments
Post a Comment