The morning is but a few minutes old when I find him. Shopkeepers in the throes of opening for the day are arranging their displays and setting chairs outside their doors, from where they’ll call out to passersby, “Please, come into my shop.” The jewelry shop that belongs to Joseph is right where I’d placed [...]

In Part I of Jerusalem Jeweler, I met Joseph, a man who crafted me a pair of earrings while we talked in his jewelry shop in the Old City souk on my first solo trip to Israel. I returned to Jerusalem in October of 2009, never having forgotten that I hadn’t paid him. Today I’m [...]

I have found that when locals spot you traveling alone, they are sometimes inspired to gravitate toward you. Solo travelers are, by the nature of our all-alone status, more approachable than people moving about in pairs or groups. Here’s the begininng of a tale of a sort of friendship that formed with one man in [...]