Issue link: http://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25165
four thousand years. Jerusalem has been a magnet for political strife and spiritual devotion. As the ancient city enters a new millennium. Israelis and Palestinians clash in violent street battles while Christians trace the last steps of Jesus. Muslims pray at the spot from where the Prophet Mohammed ascended to Heaven on a white horse. and Jews pray at the Western Wall. the last vestige of King David's great Temple. Meanwhile. the city teems with messiahs. prophets and doomsday cults. Preaching apocalypse-the end of the world as we know it- and the return of Jesus Christ. they span a wide range of ethnicities and beliefs. But they all have one thing in common: they are intoxicated by Jerusalem. At 2 AM, ten days before the end of the millennium, the ramshackle, four-story Petra Hostel is alive with action. Overlooking a busy square in the Christian Quarter just inside the Jaffa Gate, it is home to an international community of shekel-stretching backpackers. Pink Floyd blasts from the roof, where a crowd of travelers dances, smokes and grills kebabs amidst a clutter of sleeping bags, tents and dirty laundry. Downstairs, the lobby is full of people drinking beer and talking. An old man passes by, mumbling to himself, and walks straight into a wall. Two young girls make out on a couch. In a dormroom on the first floor, Benkhai, a thin African-American man in his early thirties with a long beard, a crisp white skullcap and an electric stare, is perched deliberately on a chair before a mess of papers scribbled with numbers. A Bible, annotated with more numbers, lies in the circle of light cast by a standing fluorescent lamp. He welcomes me in. "The Bible foretells events 3,000 years in advance. It describes a great cataclysmic occurrence along with the coming of the messiah," he tells me. "There are certain signs to look for, knowing that the end is near. One is the revealing of the Son of Perdition: the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky affair. This was very prophetic. America is Babylon. Great destruction is going to take place." His eyes are bright and hard and give nothing away. "We are in an extremely spiritually-volatile revealing season." I asked Benkhai if there were others in Jerusalem who shared his vision of the end of the world. "Portions of my vision, yes," he replied. "But I had to disconnect myself from them because of disagreements relative to the law." I soon realize that Benkhai is my introduction to a growing number of self-proclaimed messiahs, doomsayers and pilgrims who have come to Jerusalem for the beginning of the new millennium and have made the Old City and the Petra Hostel their home. Jerusalem has always attracted spiritually-inspired pilgrims. But in 1979, an Israeli psychiatrist, Dr Yair Bar-El, coined the term "Jerusalem Syndrome" to describe the most extreme of these pilgrims. According to Dr Bar-El, Jerusalem Syndrome leads its victims to believe they are holy messengers, biblical figures or even messiahs. Christians often become convinced that they are Jesus