Unexpectedly heartsick after spending part of kabbalat Shabbat at the Western Wall: Partitioning of the sexes, I can deal with in theory. What I didn't anticipate - and what I don't think I can get over, so to speak - were the dozens of women, not all of them with steady limbs, standing on plastic deck chairs to gaze over the partition at the men's louder singing and dancing. And even the women actively celebrating - the ones within the cluster of open prayerbooks, where I hummed and "la"d for a while - some of them would occasionally look to the left, especially after a particularly joyful shout. And not a single man peering over with curiosity or longing at the women's side. And what I could hear from a distance was mainly the men. Only within the plaza and listening for it could I hear the cadences of the women.

There is much to enjoy in Jerusalem, but if belief was merely a matter of choice or logic, this city would turn me into an atheist before the weekend was out.