1. “What are you doing here?”

On the last night of Ramadan – the month-long fast observed by Muslims – I pass through the Jordanian-Israeli border at a crossing called the Allenby Bridge. This is the only border crossing open to West Bank Palestinians. It is the only way Palestinians can come and go from their country. This border is patrolled and controlled by Israel.

I am here to renew my visa. But most of the crowd is made up of Palestinian families wheeling enormous suitcases and coming to Palestine for the four-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr that immediately follows Ramadan.

At the border, I’m quickly pulled aside by Israeli security. Because I live in the Palestinian West Bank and write – for this website and others – about Palestinians, Israelis, the conflict and the occupation, I’m regularly questioned.

Though I was surprised the first few times, now I’m used to this, to being pulled aside, interrogated and asked to wait.

“Where are you going?” one Israeli official asks me. “Why are you coming to Israel?”

“I’m going to Ramallah,” I say. “That’s where I live.”

He nods and squints at my passport.

“Samuel?” he frowns. “Are you Jewish?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say. “I am.”

He pauses.

“What are you doing here?”

The official leafs through my passport and makes a quick phone call. An armed guard appears behind me. “We’re going to ask you some questions.” The guard presses me forward, through a set of doors and to a row of chairs. He doesn’t say anything. I take a seat next to a Palestinian father and his two daughters, who have also been set aside for questioning.

The family next to me – and most of the crowd here – are Muslims. They’re fasting, waiting for sundown to eat, drink and smoke their cigarettes. There are no windows inside and no one can see the sun set, but people glance at their watches. One man unpacks a woven prayer mat and slings it over his shoulder. It’s almost time to pray.

2. “It’s a beautiful time of the year”

For the holy month of Ramadan, the city of Ramallah is quiet. Shops are closed during the day. Office hours shorten.

During the day, the pace of life slows. The sun can be brutally hot at midday.

Muslims observe a complete fast, abstaining from food, drink and other physical pleasures from sunrise to sunset. The holiday, I’m told, cultivates values like restraint, discipline, meditation and compassion.

“It’s a beautiful time of the year,” a Palestinian Muslim friend, Jamila tells me.”I enjoy the fast,” she says. “It’s hard sometimes,” she admits “but it’s good.”Then she adds “al-hamdualla,” which means, “thank God.”

She finds a real, spiritual resonance with Ramadan. For her, there’s value in the intense, demanding fast, which many Muslims say brings them closer to God.

Not everyone can maintain the fast, of course. Religious practice in Islam, like all faiths, doesn’t always match up with religious doctrine. For Jamila’s husband, Nabil, Ramadan isn’t easy.

Nabil tells me all that some days when he’s fasting, he daydreams of Coca-Cola. He knows he should be thinking about God. But he’d like to take a liter bottle, he says, and drink it in one swig. He knows it’s supposed to be a meditative month, but sometimes, he admits, all he can think about is soda.

Sometimes, he says, it gets so bad that he takes a break from fasting. “I get these headaches,” Nabil says, “maybe from not eating, maybe from not smoking, and I have to stop the fast for a few days.”

This is okay, Nabil tells me, “because it’s not forbidden to break your fast if you’re physically unwell.”

Jamila tells me the most important thing about Ramadan is to focus the mind.”We’re supposed to be in a good mindset all month,” she says, “in a peaceful mindset, no fighting, no violence.”

Nabil nods in agreement. “This is what it’s about,” he says.

By afternoon, the air has cooled and a breeze – thankfully – starts to blow. The shadows lengthen. An hour or two before sundown, the markets come to life. Families are getting ready foriftar, the evening meal and the daily breaking of the fast, and they need to shop. People buy food, lots of it – fresh bread by the bagful, meat, sweets and vegetables – and rush home to cook and eat.

As the sun begins to set, the muezzin’s voice sounds from the mosque. A hush comes over the city.

Today’s fast is over.

All over Ramallah, Muslims break their fast, traditionally by eating a sweet, dried date and drinking a glass of water. From sundown to sunrise, they can eat. But once there’s light in the sky, the fast begins again.

Ramadan lasts for one lunar month and commemorates when the prophet Mohammad received the first verses of the Qu’ran. Then, Mohammad became – like the prophets before him – a vessel, a vehicle for receiving divine words direct from God.

Nabil and Jamila have both grown thinner from fasting. It’s a month-long process of humbling and emptying oneself, they tell me.

3. “This is the fast I desire”

This year the month of Ramadan fell in August and overlapped with the Jewish holiday of Tisha B’Av, which is also a day of fasting.

Tisha B’Av is a one-day commemorative fast, a day of mourning for the destruction of the two Jewish Temples in Jerusalem. In most contemporary traditions other tragedies – specifically World War II and the Holocaust – are also commemorated.

It’s called “the saddest day in the Jewish calendar.”

The first Temple, tradition teaches, was built by King Solomon and destroyed by the Babylonians. The Temple was rebuilt and completed by King Herod, but was also destroyed, this time by the Romans. The Western Wall, in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, is believed to be a remnant of the second, Herodian Temple.

For centuries, Jews would visit the wall and cry. They would cry for something lost – a sacred connection that they felt had been severed, their great temple to God.

The wall is made up of huge, old stone blocks, worn down from the years from pilgrims’ and visitors’ palms. Weeds and wild vines grow between some stones and birds perch where they can.

Some visitors write notes – prayers or messages to God – and slip them in between cracks in the wall. Here, some say, God’s presence – the Shekhina – hovers and listens.

This year, on Tisha B’Av, the Western Wall was busy. Israeli flags had been raised around the wall and they fluttered in the afternoon breeze. Tisha B’Av takes on an especially patriotic significance here in Israel – where the line between national narrative and sacred stories is blurred.

When Israeli military forces took East Jerusalem during the Six Day War, the Old City and the Western Wall were wrested from the Jordanians and came under Israeli control. For many in Israel, this military victory took on a holy meaning.

The Six Day War also created thousands of refugees.

During the Six Day War around 240,000 Palestinians were uprooted, adding to the nearly 750,000 refugees who had been displaced during Israel’s War of Independence in 1948. Since 1967, another 400,000 Palestinians have been displaced due to Israeli policy within the occupied Palestinian territories.

Before 1948, cities like Haifa, Jaffa, Ramla, Lydd and Akko were once home to thousands of Palestinians, both Christians and Muslims. Most of them were forced to leave. Some of these Palestinians were rich, some were poor; some fought against the fledgling Israeli army, others were civilians, caught in the crossfire.

We know the names of these cities, but other Palestinian villages and towns have been forgotten entirely by Israelis and the outside world, razed to the ground. Their Arabic names have been erased. They are only memories. But many Palestinians still remember their old homes, a land they used to call their own.

For centuries, the Western Wall was a place that Jews remembered their lost glory, a Temple where they communed with God.

The Western Wall, which for centuries had been accessible only through a small, cramped alleyway, has undergone major restorations. A large, smooth plaza now sits in front of the wall and spotlights shine all night. There are armed security guards at every entrance.

But looking at the old wall, I can imagine a time before the renovations, when the wall was a more modest site – a sacred corner in a city full of sacred places.

On Tish B’av at the Western Wall, prayer services are still held. A Torah is removed from a huge wooden ark. The sacred scrolls are decorated beautifully, with silver, gold and velvet. The parchment was unrolled and read by an old Yemini Jew.

To hear above the din – hundreds of prayers being chanted and spoken – I lean in close.

“We are eager for the nearness of God,” the book of Isaiah writes. “Why, when we fasted, did You not see?” the people ask God. They’re looking for guidance. “When we starved our bodies, did You pay no heed?”

What makes a fast worthwhile? God answers Isaiah. “This is the fast I desire,” God says. “To unlock the fetters of wickedness and untie the cords of the yoke. Free the exploited. Break off every chain.”

“Share your bread with whoever is hungry,” God says. “When you see the naked, give him clothes. Do not ignore your brothers.”

4. Eid al-Fitr

After four hours of interrogation at the Allenby Bridge, I’m given back my passport and allowed into the country. By the time I’m in the parking lot, the sun has set. It’s dark and cool outside. I watch as the crescent moon rises, small and bright on the horizon.

Ramadan is over, someone tells me.

And at the end of Ramadan – which is also the beginning of a three-day holiday called Eid al-Fitr (eid means “holiday,” fitr means “breaking the fast”) – Ramallah erupts in celebration.

The streets are swarmed. Young men, arms draped over each other’s shoulders, swagger through the street. Families are here, too, pushing strollers, shopping, meeting up with friends. In the central square, speakers have been set up and are amplifying the latest Palestinian pop song. The music is loud; the streets rumble.

The men lock arms and hold an impomptu dance. They jump up and down, kicking their feet wildly. They are dancing the traditional dance, the dabke, in perfect time with the music. Some boys are hoisted on top of their friends’ shoulders and they wave their hands above the crowd, tipping from side to side.

Syrupy, sweet juices are for sale – date, coconut and lemon – and there’s an almost tangible sense of relief. The fast is over. “Eid Mubarak,” people greet each other, “Blessed Holiday.”

Huge, billowing clouds blow through the night sky and the air is cooler. September is here. The seasons are changing.