Picture this: Sunny, clear day, +25 Celsius degrees, your favorite Italian summer fuchsia dress, while in Jerusalem… Not a great combination!
I’m guilty of loving dresses, but I swear I love pants too, especially sweatpants when I work from home. I live in Europe, which pretty much means I can’t wait to summer to wear my dresses, which are all stocked up in my closet for, what? +8 months a year?
Anyway, this story happened in 2022. I planned a journey to Israel to attend a wedding in Tel Aviv in late summer. As a enthusiast traveler, my first thought was to pay Jerusalem a visit due to its historical significance, although I’m clearly not a religious person, otherwise I probably wouldn’t be writing this post.
The wedding went great, lots of fun and good food, and Tel Aviv beaches were crystal clear. Of course, I enjoyed seeing firsthand all these sculpted bodies running and jogging around. Oh boy! Men and women there have glorious bodies. Kudos to all!
After 3 days in Tel Aviv, I continued my trip to Jerusalem. It was a hot day and it was the turn for my beloved Italian fuchsia dress, which I can barely use in London (where I live). I was more or less told that Jerusalem was a bit more conservative city than Tel Aviv, but I truly failed to understand to what extent this was the case, and more importantly, how my dress would put me on the spot there, like a sore thumb.
I took a train to Jerusalem, which was pretty much full of tourists. Nothing strange so far. Upon arrival 1 hour later, I noticed I had little time to make it to the Yad Vadshem memorial museum before it closed around 5pm, so I dropped my luggage at the hotel and ran to the closest tram station to go there.
Less than 2 minutes after, there was a time span when around half of the tram was staring at me without any intentions of not getting noticed. Most memorable reaction was from what looked like a high-school girl, who was looking at me with a mix of curiosity, surprise, and disgust at the same time. When our eyes met, she immediately looked away, opened the Torah on her hands, and started praying (I hope she’ll get to wear one of these dresses soon! Ideally without any guilt). What started as, I thought, a funny anecdote to remember later (it is today!), soon started to feel uncomfortable. Other men in the tram also stared at me intensively, with all sort of nuances. This was as unexpected as seeing everyone in there dressed in black! It really felt I was the only one not going to the funeral.
Despite not feeling welcomed during my tram journey, a few people in Jerusalem did quite the opposite and they even celebrated my dress. Two guys in a car even horned and shouted “Nice dress!”. Yay! Thank you for the support, whoever you are. End of the day, I managed to arrive sound and safe back to my hotel, where the folk who just started the front desk shift greeted me with: “Wow! Were you in a party? That’s an unusual dress” . I just smiled and explain to him what just happened.
Moral is, sometimes it looks like we live in a small world, but it’s for sure a pretty diverse one. A normal summer dress in Europe results strange, even offensive in Jerusalem. Whether the roots for this are sexism, a patriarchy legacy, or religious customs, if you find yourself visiting Jerusalem, consider that unspoken dress codes are everywhere in the city, and they go beyond the ones you would normally adjust to in religious places such as the Holy Sepulcher. The invitation is to always be yourself while traveling well-informed to avoid unwanted surprises. Happy travels!
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Random Lessons 