The level of tension in the city is profound. It's not just the current threat of violence, it's the astonishing pace of physical change in the city's landscape transforming neighborhoods overnight. Tranquility is no longer a molecule in the air people breathe. So the city is losing its Israeli population. They are being replaced by Ultra-Orthodox Jews and poor immigrants from Russia.
People look for calm where they can find it.
To get to Lifta, we took the Begin road, a highway that runs around Jerusalem and connects the new neighborhoods. Englander pulled off the highway at a poorly marked turn and stopped the car - below us the remains of a textbook Mediterranean village were visible. In steep terraced steps, white houses in little plots of land were nestled into a horseshoe-shaped valley. We started walking down the hill. The sky above was black with clouds threatening yet more rain.