Introduction: Indonesia and the Middle East Beyond Boundaries

In a seminal article on social sciences’ study of boundaries, Lamont and Molnár (Reference Lamont and Molnár2002) propose to examine the relationship between symbolic and social boundaries. In a nutshell, symbolic boundaries are conceptual distinctions made by social actors to define reality and create a sense of membership with an in-group and demarcation from out-groups. Social boundaries are defined by inequalities in the access to material and nonmaterial resources and social opportunities (Lamont and Molnár Reference Lamont and Molnár2002: 168). When symbolic boundaries are widely agreed upon, they can become social boundaries (Lamont and Molnár Reference Lamont and Molnár2002: 169). Applying this analytical differentiation to contemporary religious package tourism from Indonesia to the Middle East fosters the understanding of complexities in the politics of religious identities in Indonesia and in Indonesians’ ambivalent relationships with the Middle East.

Religious aims are the most important reason for Indonesians’ outbound travels, particularly to undertake the hajj and umrah pilgrimages to Mecca. Recently, al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem has become another increasingly popular destination for Indonesia's Muslim travel industry. Interestingly, since the 1980s, Jerusalem has already been a highly popular destination among Indonesian Christians, who describe so-called Holy Land pilgrimages to biblical places in Israel and Palestine as an equivalent to their Muslim compatriots’ hajj. However, sharing the same geographic destination does not always enhance cross-religious national togetherness. In contemporary Indonesia, religious travels to the Middle East are laden with spiritual and political sentiments which are often expressed along stereotypical dyads of friend and foe. Yet, these symbolic boundaries do not only concern differences between Muslim and Christian Indonesians but also between competing Muslim groups and competing Christian groups.

Historically, the Middle East has been an important reference point in Indonesian religious life, and ambivalences in this South–South relationship remain topical in today's transregional connections. While large Muslim and Christian institutions emphasize differences between Indonesia and the Middle East and continue to support Indonesia's multireligious state philosophy, the Pancasila, new religious movements sometimes neglect it. In the course of what has been referred to as the “conservative turn” (Sebastian and Arifianto Reference Sebastian and Alexander R.2020; van Bruinessen Reference van Bruinessen2013a,Reference van Bruinessen and van Bruinessenb), some public figures in Indonesia honour Middle Eastern Muslims as earlier Muslims and emphasize the historical centrality of the Arabian Peninsula (Bowen Reference Bowen2008: 34; Burhani Reference Burhani2010; Chaplin Reference Chaplin2014: 223; van Bruinessen Reference van Bruinessen and van Bruinessen2013b: 47).

References to Israel and Palestine in this context are especially controversial and sometimes express symbolic boundaries between various competing Muslim and Christian groups. As an example, Israeli national and Jewish religious symbols are widespread in some Christian groups, like Pentecostals, especially in urban areas and in predominantly Christian regions like Papua, Sulawesi, and North Sumatra (Lücking Reference Lücking2019: 199, 210). Among urban middle-class Muslims, expressions of transnational Muslim solidarity are widespread, and solidarity with the Palestinian cause is one of the most vivid examples of Indonesians’ contemporary interest in Muslim life beyond Southeast Asia. In fact, the Palestinian flag has become a symbol of the so-called ‘Aksi Bela Islam’ (Action to Defend Islam) demonstrations, today's most influential opposition to the incumbent government of President Jokowi. The movement began with protests against Ahok, the former governor of Jakarta, a non-Muslim and ethnic Chinese politician who was accused of blasphemy due to a reference he made to Surat al-Maidah, verse 51, of the Qur'an, in an election campaign speech in 2016 (Burhani Reference Burhani and Saat2018; IPAC 2018; Sebastian and Arifianto Reference Sebastian and Alexander R.2020). Ever since, an alliance of Muslim groups has taken to the streets, claiming that Islam needs to be defended in national and international contexts. One of the spokespersons of the movement, Habib Riezieq Syihab, leader of the now banned organization Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defenders’ Front), spreads the message that he would lead the liberation of Al-Quds (Jerusalem), relating local struggles to international ones.

Symbolic boundary-making in reference to the Israel–Palestine conflict is not unique to Indonesia. Similar surrogate references to the conflict can be found in Northern Ireland, South Africa, the Basque Country, and Cuba (Hamber Reference Hamber2006; Rolston Reference Rolston2009). That such symbolic alignments inspire travels to the Middle East is also not a new phenomenon. However, in Indonesians’ religious travels to Israel and Palestine, boundary-making is not as clear-cut as it might seem at first glance, and experiences with spatial boundaries do in some cases challenge preconceived ideas of the world and feelings of belonging. Through an analysis of Indonesians’ travels to Israel and Palestine, this article seeks to enrich tourism studies by considering how experiences with spatial boundaries affect symbolic and social boundary making in guided package tours. Furthermore, it complements existing research on contemporary expressions of Islam and Christianity in Indonesia by contributing a perspective from ordinary peoples’ experiences.

Indonesians refer to their visits to Jerusalem as ziarah, which means ‘pilgrimage’ in the Indonesian language and is derived from the Arabic word for ‘visit’. A common cross-religious practice among Indonesian Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims is to undertake ziarah to gravesites and to places in nature that are attributed with supernatural powers. In addition to the term ziarah, Indonesians speak of wisata religi (religious tourism) in this context. Further, terminological differentiations exist such as wisata rohani (spiritual tourism), which is a common concept among Christian Indonesians, and the term wisata halal (halal tourism), which is becoming increasingly widespread among Muslims. In line with the emic amalgamation of pilgrimage and tourism, and based on pilgrimage studies’ observations of the similarities between tourism and pilgrimage (e.g. Turner and Turner Reference Turner and Edith1973: 20), I use the terms ‘pilgrimage’ and ‘tourism’ interchangeably.

Studies on tourism and pilgrimage (Badone and Roseman Reference Badone, Sharon, Badone and Roseman2004; Bauman Reference Bauman, Hall and du Gay1996; Salazar Reference Salazar2010) show that preconceived ideas of cultural Others, including symbolic boundaries, are mostly confirmed during travels. Salazar (Reference Salazar2010: 64) refers to “mobility imaginaries” in this regard, showing that European tourists find confirmations of their imagined exotic paradises in tourist environments. Similarly, Bauman (Reference Bauman, Hall and du Gay1996: 29–30) argues that “in the tourist's world, the strange is tame, domesticated, and no longer frightens; shocks come in a package deal with safety”. Especially in guided package tourism, which is the preferred format of Indonesians’ pilgrimage tourism, the preconceived expectations and the in-group dynamics create an “environmental bubble” (Cohen Reference Cohen1972: 171). The studies of Feldman (Reference Feldman2016) and Bowman (Reference Bowman, Eade and Sallnow1991) are seminal examples of such package tours to Jerusalem, showing how Christian pilgrims of various denominations travel with certain theological and political preconceptions that are confirmed during their travels. The same holds true for Indonesians who travel with spiritual aims and with the idea of “taking sides” (Lücking Reference Lücking2019), and yet, these ideas can be challenged by pilgrimage practices, as I have shown with regard to shopping activities (Lücking Reference Lücking, Buitelaar, Stephan-Emmrich and Thimm2020b) and eating preferences (Lücking Reference Lückingforthcoming).

Based on ethnographic research undertaken between November 2017 and February 2020Footnote ¹ in Israel, the West Bank,Footnote ² and Indonesia, in the article at hand, I seek to move the discussion about the discourse–practice divide in Indonesians’ transregional religious travels one step further by unravelling the interrelation between symbolic, social and spatial boundaries. Firstly, I shall explain domestic boundary-making—both social and symbolic—along with an introduction to changing trends in religious travels. Secondly, I contextualize these social and symbolic boundaries with reference to political and public discourses. Thirdly, I will juxtapose four locations in Indonesians’ pilgrimages to Israel and Palestine that might appear rather peripheral but that entail meaningful experiences with spatial boundaries, namely memorial gravesites, each with a different geopolitical status: shared, contested, and separated (see Bowman Reference Bowman, Breger, Reiter and Hammer2012). The conclusion summarizes how experiences with spatiality—in particular spatial boundaries, barriers, and separation in Israel and Palestine—manifest or challenge symbolic and social boundaries.

Shifting Religious Identities in Indonesia's Travel Industry

National borders—as a specific form of spatial boundaries—and symbolic boundaries of identity and culture are often not congruent. Nations and states can be two different things (Lamont and Molnár Reference Lamont and Molnár2002: 183). Anderson (Reference Anderson2006 [1983]: 6) defines a nation as “an imagined political community”. This imagination is subject to social boundaries and political hierarchies. In Indonesia, like in many other countries, it is rooted in the colonization of an area that was proclaimed as the independent Republic of Indonesia in 1945. In the Indonesian Constitution, religion has a central and non-exclusivist place alongside the recognition of six official religions: Islam, Christianity (Catholicism and Protestantism being counted as two separate religions), Hinduism, Buddhism and, Confucianism. As a matter of fact, ethnicity and religious affiliation are conflated in some (but not in all) ethnic communities in Indonesia; national, religious, and ethnic feelings of belonging are intertwined in social identities. As an example, the Dutch colonizers supported the establishment of ethnic churches in regions that were not Islamized, like the Batak church and the Karo church among ethnic groups in North Sumatra (Anderson Reference Anderson2006 [1983]: 170), while among the Javanese, ethnic traditions have been integrated into both Muslim and Christian practices.

Members of an imagined community do not know all members of their community, but travel and media can inspire their identification with the community or spread knowledge about those associated with an in-group or an out-group (Anderson Reference Anderson2006 [1983]: 54). Gupta and Ferguson (Reference Gupta and James1992: 11) argue that in an increasingly globalized world, where travel becomes more easily accessible, the imagination of other places and peoples becomes even more relevant. The imagination of a community and the symbolic boundaries between “us” and “them” are often more rigid than spatial boundaries, separation, and difference (Gupta and Ferguson Reference Gupta and James1992: 14). Bowman (Reference Bowman, Eade and Sallnow1991) shows this for Christian pilgrimages to Israel/Palestine, arguing that pilgrims experience what they have been looking for and thereby find their preconceptions confirmed. The formation of such preconceptions begins at home. In the Indonesian case, transregional religious tourism is inspired by domestic pilgrimage traditions.

In Indonesians’ domestic and international travels, various features of identity—such as gender, class, religion, ethnicity, and nationality—weave a complex web of identity formations. And even though transregional travel is booming, most Indonesians travel inside the Indonesian archipelago. Pilgrimage, fun, and entertainment are intertwined here, and religion is not the only reference point. Some of the domestic ziarah destinations are multi-religious spaces, like Mount Kawi in East Java, Mount Lawu near the city of Solo, or Mount Rinjani on Lombok Island (Gottowik Reference Gottowik, Dickhardt and Lauser2016; Soeryowidagdo Reference Soeryowidagdo1989; van Doorn-Harder and de Jong Reference van Doorn-Harder and de Jong2001). Even in domestic travels that are more exclusively Hindu, Christian, or Muslim, there are cross-religious elements of touristic engagements with the local culture in the pilgrimage destination. This engagement happens through (among other things) the purchasing of souvenirs and local culinary specialties which serve as gifts that are known as oleh-oleh (Quinn Reference Quinn2019: 66). Thus, in domestic travels, there is room for identification as Indonesian national citizens or as members of an ethnic group across different religious affiliations. Spatial boundaries in this context concern gender separation at sacred sites or hierarchical separation between ordinary pilgrims, gatekeepers, and religious authorities but not a physical separation between different religious or ethnic groups.

However, in recent years, some tourists’ preferences have changed. A new buzzword is increasingly being heard: wisata halal (halal tourism) is competing with ziarah pilgrimages and wisata religi. Both in domestic tourism and incoming tourism, Indonesian travel agencies and the Ministry of Tourism promote the country as a world-leading destination for halal tourism. The Islamic classifications for permissible (halal) and forbidden (haram) are most commonly used in the context of food restrictions (e.g. pork is haram and halal meat needs to be slaughtered in a specific way). However, in the context of tourism in Indonesia, halal defines places that are generally Islamic themed and do not pose any distractions from leading a pious life, such as through bikini-free and alcohol-free tourist areas, with prayer rooms, halal food, and gender-segregated areas. Religion has become a more crucial feature in the imagination of community, and symbolic boundaries are expressed through labels like wisata halal.

While the qiblat (the direction of prayer) for Muslims all over the world is Mecca, and the Middle East is widely acknowledged as the birthplace and centre of Islam, in a public relations poster produced by the Indonesian government, Indonesia presents itself as: “Kiblat Wisata Halal Dunia”, the World Halal Tourist Qiblat (Indonesian Ministry of Communication 2018). In this regard, growing globalized mobility does entail symbolic boundary-making in terms of stricter ideas of separation and belonging. In such travel advertisements, Indonesians express alignment with Muslims all over the world, and they proclaim a leading role in this imagined community. Thus, there is a simultaneous identification between being a member of the global Muslim community and part of the Indonesian national community which is marked by new boundaries between religious groups.

It is probably no surprise that Indonesians also expect to find such halal spaces when they travel abroad. Indonesians who can afford to travel abroad usually belong to the growing middle class, and symbolic boundary-making coincides with social boundaries that exclude lower class citizens. The number of outbound tourists, meaning journeys abroad by Indonesian citizens, is constantly increasing. In 2017, the number of departures in Indonesia was 8,856,000, compared to the 2,205,000 departures witnessed in 2000 (Indexmundi 2020).Footnote ³ Concerning economic growth, the expenditures in Indonesians’ outbound travels “increased from 2411 million US dollars in 1997 to 7709 million US dollars in 2016, growing at an average annual rate of 6.91%” (Knoema 2020).

Social boundaries between middle classes and lower classes exclude the majority of Indonesians from international travel. For those who can afford to fly abroad, the journey is a prestigious undertaking, given the material resources required and the access to blessings. This latter aspect equals domestic pilgrimage experiences and corresponds with theological Islamic conceptions of increasing knowledge and spiritual fulfilment through travel and pilgrimage (see Eickelman and Piscatori Reference Eickelman and Piscatori1990).

While the hajj to Mecca is an obligatory pilgrimage for Muslims who can afford the journey, other types of travel or domestic pilgrimage are voluntary but in Indonesia are widely considered to be recommended (mandūb) according to Islamic law, which differs significantly from Islamic law on the Arabian Peninsula, where ziarah to gravesites is considered a heretical innovation (bid'a). Due to long waiting lists for participation in the hajj, many travel agencies offer alternative pilgrimage tours, such as the minor pilgrimage, umrah (see Mayasari Reference Mayasari2014), the pilgrimage to al-AqsaFootnote ⁴ Mosque in Jerusalem (see Lücking Reference Lücking2019), and religious package tours to destinations around the world. In non-Muslim destinations like Korea, Japan, or European countries, the issue of creating a halal environment is particularly crucial, forming symbolic boundaries between the travellers and their non-Muslim destination.

Similar trends emerge in the Christian tourism market, where travel is usually advertised as wisata rohani (spiritual tourism). Christian Indonesians have been going to Jerusalem since the 1980s on so-called ‘Holy Land pilgrimages’ to biblical sites in Egypt, Israel, Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Jordan. These tours are best-sellers next to pilgrimages to Lourdes, Fátima, and Rome. In Christian travel agencies’ advertisements, the country name “Palestine” usually does not appear—in contrast, some of them use Jewish symbolism in their company logo/name, such as Menorah Tour and Travel or King David Tours, and they emphasize their solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people. Yet, there are differences between different denominations. A Catholic travel agent explained: “We advertise our tours as ‘Holy Land pilgrimage’, that's more neutral than using a country name, but for the Protestant market, I see that they love to write ‘Israel’ as destination. They love the Jewish people and the state of Israel. We are more careful because our Muslim compatriots can be sensitive about Israel.”Footnote ⁵

On the island of Nias, I experienced how the congregation of the ethnic Nias church, Banua Niha Keriso Protestan BNKP accumulated funds for a bishop to complete a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In Nias and other Christian areas in Kalimantan, North Sumatra, and Sulawesi, it is sometimes even the local government that sponsors a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for high-ranking Christian civil servants or community leaders, just as the hajj or umrah is financed by the government for some Muslim public figures. Indeed, people on Nias and those living among the Batak in North Sumatra joke that a pilgrimage to Israel is their hajj, emphasizing the similarity of going on a pilgrimage.

Muslim pilgrimage to Jerusalem is a relatively new offering in Indonesia's tourism sector. According to Jerusalemite travel agencies, of the 30,000 to 40,000 Indonesians who visit Israel annually (Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics 2014, 2015, 2016), around 20 per cent are Muslim and 80 per cent are Christian. During interviews, several Indonesian Muslim travel agents claimed that they want to invert this number to show that Jerusalem is a Muslim city. The halal label in wisata halal to Jerusalem not only concerns food restrictions or an overall Muslim environment but also what is considered as politically correct (or ‘politically halal’). As Jerusalem is under Israeli authority, and many Muslim and Arab people from neighbouring countries cannot enter the city, there is controversy in the Muslim world (and beyond) about abstaining from visiting al-Aqsa Mosque and thereby boycotting travel to Israel. A fatwa by the Egyptian scholar al-Qaradawi condemns Muslim visits to what is labelled ‘occupied Jerusalem’, while the Palestinian Authority encourages foreign Muslims to visit the mosque to strengthen Muslim presence in the city. As the largest Muslim society in the world, Indonesians are deemed critical of Israel, and the two countries share no diplomatic ties. Nevertheless, in the Indonesian market for Islamic tourism, more and more customers are interested in taking pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and the state of Israel gives special group visas to Indonesian citizens. Here, physical borders are breached despite the lack of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and Israel, but symbolic boundary-making is widely visible in the travel business.

Many Indonesian travel agencies address the criticism they face from fellow Muslims who demand a boycott of Israel by advertising their Jerusalem tour packages as a form of solidarity tourism to show that they stand with Palestine (Lücking Reference Lücking2019: 197). Thus, Indonesia's booming business for religious tourism is prone to essentializations and an overall theming in favour of one group or another. Increasing religious exclusivity is characteristic of the changes in religious lifestyles that have occurred over the past two decades since the transition from autocracy to democracy in 1998. Here, symbolic religious boundaries are intertwined with social boundaries. Hefner (Reference Hefner2017: 95) argues that inner-religious frictions challenge inter-religious togetherness and the imagined community of fellow Indonesian citizens. Recent orthodoxy among Muslim Indonesians provokes intolerance against religious minorities, including other Muslim sects like the Ahmadiyah (see Sebastian and Arifianto Reference Sebastian and Alexander R.2020).

Boundary-making in Public and Political Discourses

The frictions that can be seen in the pilgrimage tourism business relate to more general controversies surrounding the legitimacy of Indonesian indigenous Islamic practices. Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia's largest Muslim organization, proclaims the superiority of ‘Islam Nusantara’, meaning the ‘Islam of the archipelago’, which is an Indonesian way of Muslim life that is often contrasted with representations of the Middle East (Lücking Reference Lücking2016). As an example, in the YouTube video series The Divine Grace of Islam Nusantara, which was released by NU's International Institute of Qur'anic Studies (2015), Indonesian Islamic rituals and traditions are presented as peaceful, harmonious, and pluralistic and juxtaposed with footage of executions and fighting scenes created by the self-acclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). NU's propagation of Islam Nusantara can be seen as a political agendaFootnote ⁶ that targets domestic as well as international audiences in trying to contain radicalism and presenting Indonesia as a moderate Muslim nation (Lücking Reference Lücking2016: 10; Zahara Reference Zahara2015). This is not a new discourse—it echoes the ‘Islam Pribumi’ (Islam of the natives) discourse of the 1980s (Slama Reference Slama2008). In these discourses, the problem of violence in the name of Islam is outsourced to the Middle East, and thus globalized Islamophobia is localized as “Arab-phobia” in Indonesia (Lücking Reference Lücking2020a: 130).

The Islam Nusantara discourse and emphasis on symbolic boundaries between Indonesia and the Middle East, such as clothing styles, corresponds with Indonesia's state philosophy of “unity in diversity.” The state's founders, most prominently Indonesia's first president Sukarno, applied this philosophy in an attempt to unite competing groups and create a sense of national identity. Proponents of political Islam had to compromise when the Pancasila, a non-confessional constitutional reference to religion, was chosen instead of the Jakarta Charta, which would have defined Indonesia as a country based on Islam (Formichi Reference Formichi2012: 80). Sukarno's manoeuvring between national, religious, and communist camps came to an end with a military coup in 1965, and during the subsequent authoritarian regime of general Suharto, political Islam—and even more so, communism—were suppressed. After the end of Suharto's so-called New Order (in 1998), public expressions of being Muslim became proof of newly democratic structures and served as a protest against authoritarianism. However, in the meantime, religious fashion, leisure activities, and ideologies were also related to class affiliation. Members of the newly growing urban middle class, or people who aspire to be part of the middle class, gained a new interest in religion.

In between this seeming polarization, there are multifarious ways of looking at the Middle East in contemporary Indonesia. Ordinary peoples’ attraction to new religious movements does not always entail a specific political positioning. Coming back to the introductory example of the Aksi Bela Islam demonstrations, there is evidence that members of the alliance are quite diverse (IPAC 2018). Based on fine-grained observations of the demonstrations and research on protestors’ lived realities, Yen Tzu-Chien (Reference Yen2017) argues that the followers of these leaders are even more heterogenous and share a general interest in fun, entertainment, and the feeling of unity of an ummahFootnote ⁷ of Indonesia. Yen Tzu-Chien (Reference Yen2017) concludes that it is “clear that parallel to the elite-level political intrigues runs a current of pride and joy in being a part of the symbolic awakening of Islam in Indonesia. The Aksi Bela Islam is an opportunity for a symbolic convergence of heterogeneous groups in the name of Islamic unity. The fact that the opportunity was created by inter-oligarchic rivalry does not mean that such a rivalry is how most of the participants and sympathisers experience and make sense of their movement.”

In Indonesian tourism to Israel and Palestine, there is similarity in its rather overt symbolic boundary-making and in the average pilgrim's experiences on the ground, although much of this remains unspoken. In the competitive environment of religious tourism, political standpoints—like contrasting positions on the Israel–Palestine conflict—become a marketing strategy. A Jakarta tour guide proudly informed me that he gives a 30 per cent discount to customers who join the Aksi Bela Islam protests.

The adaptation of Jewish-Israeli or Palestinian symbols expresses opposition between the large mainstream organizations and new religious movements as there is not only competition between travel agencies but also between religious institutions. In the case of Indonesian Islam, the large Muslim organizations NU and Muhammadiyah compete with new Salafist movements (see Burhani Reference Burhani and Saat2018; Fealy Reference Fealy, Lindsey and Pausacker2016; Sidel Reference Sidel2008; Wildan Reference Wildan and van Bruinessen2013). Among Indonesian Christians, the mainstream Lutheran, Calvinist, and Catholic institutions compete with Pentecostal, Evangelist, and Charismatic churches (see Chao Reference Chao and Chong2018; Hoon Reference Hoon and Chong2018). Furthermore, some of these new religious movements have global aspirations. For example, Pentecostalism is one of the fastest growing religious movements worldwide, with churches in the Global South playing an increasingly important role in international Christian networks (see Chong Reference Chong2018).

Interestingly, beyond the symbolic inter- and intra-religious boundary-making among Indonesians, Palestinian and Israeli stakeholders describe all Indonesian tourists as being relatively similar because all of them employ the same setup, travelling in a group with a tour leader for organizational matters and a spiritual guide (a priest or imam) for religious matters, and they are all focused on a spiritual agenda. In Israel and Palestine, Indonesian tourists are known for keeping to themselves and maintaining their biblical/qur'anic and communal spiritual experience within the group. They do what their group leader and spiritual guides say and move within an “environmental bubble” (Cohen Reference Cohen1972), creating all-Indonesian pilgrimage experiences featuring Indonesian food and language and having a homeward vision of their prestigious return. Furthermore, Muslim and Christian Indonesian pilgrims are both interested in sensual spiritual experiences, of which gravesite visits are a good example.

Visiting Shared, Contested, and Segregated Shrines in and around Jerusalem

“Indonesians want to feel, touch and see”, this is what one Israeli tour guide explained when I asked him about what is important when guiding Indonesian groups. His experience of guiding Christian Indonesian groups for over 30 years led him to the conclusion that for Indonesian pilgrims, sensual experiences are more important than historical, theological, or political explanations. Other tourist guides confirmed this observation, claiming that North American or European tourists would read a lot prior to their travels and often engaged in content-related discussions. They further explained that in tour guiding, it is important to be aware of the cultural differences between customers. The tour guides tend to essentialize in their categorizations, and yet it is interesting that they share similar observations and claim, for instance, that Indonesians are famous for three major activities: praying, shopping, and taking photos. Furthermore, using the Indonesian language and being able to eat Asian food are considered essential for customer satisfaction.

Likewise, Indonesian pilgrims themselves argue that their travel is spiritual and that they want to spend as much time as possible at the holy sites. “A prayer at al-Aqsa is worth a thousand times more than a prayer elsewhere”, I was told by one young pilgrim, and a travel agent confirmed that she has to make sure that the short time her clients spend in Jerusalem is used to the maximum in terms of the hours spent at al-Aqsa Mosque.

While walking with Christian pilgrims on the Via Dolorosa, an elderly woman encouraged me to touch the wall at Station V that is believed to be the spot where Jesus placed his hand as he stumbled while carrying the cross. She explained, “I have never felt so close to the Lord”.

On the Via Dolorosa, many Catholic and some Protestant Indonesian groups carry large wooden crosses, re-enacting the way of the cross and stopping at each station for prayers, often touching or kissing the walls in the small alleys. Spending as much time as possible at al-Aqsa Mosque, being physically present at holy sites, and touching them is very important for Indonesian pilgrims.

Regarding such practices, one tour guide claimed that Indonesians do not care as much about the historical or denominational background of a place. When accompanying groups to the Western Wall, I observed many Indonesians (mainly Christian) putting slips of paper with intercession prayers between the stones of the wall, which is a common practice in Jewish tradition.

In this matter, Israeli and Palestinian tour guides describe Indonesian pilgrims as “additive” in their spiritual practices. Thus, even though Indonesians travel in an “environmental bubble” (Cohen Reference Cohen1972), and as Bowman (Reference Bowman, Eade and Sallnow1991: 121) has argued, pilgrims learn at home what they desire to find in the pilgrimage destination, in Indonesians’ pilgrimages, there is an element of curiosity in, and adaptation to other pilgrims’ practices, breaching boundaries between different religions and confessions.

When accompanying Catholic Indonesian pilgrims to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, I noticed their curiosity regarding the Russian Orthodox practice of putting souvenirs, candles, and scarves on the Stone of Anointing at the entrance to the church, and some of them copied the practice. Later, their spiritual guide, an Indonesian Catholic priest, told them that there was no need to do so or to buy souvenirs in the Old City of Jerusalem that shop vendors advertised as having been blessed on the Stone of Anointing. Obviously, the leading priest corrects his followers, reminding them of where they come from and what they should believe in. He assured the group members that prior to departure, he would bless all their souvenirs in the hotel. Indeed, on their last day in Israel, all of the group members gathered in a meeting room in their accommodation in Tiberias, putting the souvenirs that they had purchased on a table in the middle of the room and starting a ceremony to bless these souvenirs and gifts by sprinkling holy water over them.

The importance of blessings and sensuality also applies to Indonesian Pentecostal Christianity, which in Indonesia strongly relates to gravesites, spirits, and demons, while in other evangelical and Pentecostal traditions, the word of the gospel is more important than holy places (Chao Reference Chao and Chong2018: 55; Hoon Reference Hoon and Chong2018: 28).

The blessing of souvenirs in Christian Indonesian pilgrimages resembles the distribution of gifts and souvenirs by returnees from Mecca. Since the social pressure to distribute gifts upon one's return from the pilgrimage is high, many Mecca returnees buy such gifts in Indonesia, with only close family members and good friends receiving gifts that were actually purchased in Mecca—these are considered as being filled with blessings, or berkah/barokah, from the Holy Land (Lücking Reference Lücking2020a: 70, 180).

The belief that blessings are contained in holy places is a cross-religious one and widespread in Sufi Islam (Meri Reference Meri1999; Schimmel Reference Schimmel1995). In Indonesia, access to such blessings is also connected to local pilgrimages and ancestor and saint veneration, which have their roots in pre-Muslim and pre-Christian traditions (see Chambert-Loir Reference Chambert-Loir, Chambert-Loir and Reid2002; Fox Reference Fox and Ricklefs1991; Muhaimin Reference Muhaimin2006; Quinn Reference Quinn2004, Reference Quinn2019; van Doorn-Harder and de Jong Reference van Doorn-Harder and de Jong2001). This means that despite symbolic boundaries of alignment with Israel or Palestine in the pre-travel context, in travel agencies’ advertisements or company logos, for instance, Muslim and Christian Indonesians share sensual pilgrimage experiences and breach boundaries between different denominations.

From my outsider's perspective as German anthropologist and from the Israeli and Palestinian tour guides’ perspectives, Indonesians of different religious and denominational traditions have a common interest in blessings, and in their search for blessings and supernatural powers, they become curious about other pilgrims’ practices, thereby leaving the “environmental bubble” erected around them, even if only briefly.

Regarding social boundaries, during the pilgrimage, most groups are rather homogenous, and the social boundaries between the (upper) middle class and lower classes (touched upon above) become less relevant while they travel together. However, there is a significant social boundary, or hierarchy, between the average pilgrim and their leaders. Taking a closer look at experiences of spatial separation at shared pilgrimage sites indicates how shared physical experiences affect symbolic and social boundary-making.

Itineraries

The main destination for Muslim and Christian pilgrimage tours to Israel and Palestine is Jerusalem, with al-Aqsa Mosque as a major holy site for Muslim pilgrims and the location marking the culmination of following Jesus’ footsteps to the alleged places of crucifixion and resurrection being important for Christians. In this regard, Jerusalem is a unique place, giving pilgrims something they cannot find in Indonesia.

However, despite these highlights and the well-known landmarks, like the Dome of the Rock or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the itineraries of virtually all Indonesian pilgrimage tours include visits to shrines and gravesites. These more peripheral destinations resemble domestic pilgrimage experiences with regard to the belief in blessings and supernatural powers. The differing atmospheres at gravesites, travel agents’ choices, and the search for and discovery of new pilgrimage destinations reveals shifting boundary-making between Indonesian customers and Israeli and Palestinian tour operators. For example, many Pentecostal and Evangelical Christian groups are highly interested in King David. An Israeli tour guide informed me that he had once received a demand for a “King David tour”, which confused him because he was confronted with the challenge of identifying places that were related to King David's biography, which was not in the usual repertoire of such travel itineraries. He considered Indonesian Pentecostals as being out of the touristic mainstream for making such a request, and he explained that only the tomb of King David on Mount Zion would be added to the itinerary.

Further examples of recent demands made by Indonesian Evangelical Christian groups are for visits to Rachel's Tomb, which Stadler (Reference Stadler, Finkelman, Pinto Fdeda, Sagiv and Coen-Uzzielli2018: 256) describes as “the most hotly contested place in the Jerusalem-Bethlehem region” because of the gravesite's location on what is considered internationally to be Palestinian territory but that was de facto annexed by Israel in 2002 when authorities decided to extend the separation wall between Bethlehem and Jerusalem around the gravesite compound so that Rachel's Tomb would be on the Israeli side.

Muslim Indonesian travel agencies seek to add other holy sites in addition to al-Aqsa Mosque. The travel agency Cheria Wisata (Reference Cheria2020), for instance, uses the expression “Napak Tilas di Bumi Para Nabi”, referring to an excursion to the prophets’ lands. The Cheria Wisata itinerary includes visits to the Nabi Musa shrine and to Hebron, with the graves of Abraham's clan members, which in Indonesian are referred to as Nabi Ibrahim, Siti Sarah, Nabi Yakub, Nabi Ishaq, Nabi Yunus, and Nabi Yusuf.

The prophets are known in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the alleged burial sites or memorial sites are shared, yet contested, multi-religious pilgrimage destinations. Among them are the Ibrahimi Mosque (Arabic: al-Haram al-Ibrahimi/الحرم الإبراهيمي )/the Cave of the Patriarchs (Hebrew: Me'arat ha-Makhpela/מערת המכפלה) in Hebron, but also the Nabi Musa shrine near Jericho, and the Tomb of Samuel, in Hebrew referred to as Kever Shmuel ha-Nevi (קבר שמואל הנביא) and in Muslim references known as the Mosque of Nabi Samuel (النبي صموئيل ), which is north of Jerusalem. These sites are not only shared but also contested, each of them with a complex historical and geopolitical background (Bowman Reference Bowman, Breger, Reiter and Hammer2012; Breger et al. Reference Breger, Reiter and Hammer2013; Reiter Reference Reiter, Breger, Reiter and Hammer2013). For example, the Tomb of Samuel is located beyond the ‘green line’ but in Area C of the occupied West Bank; thus, it is administered by Israeli authorities—in this case, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. The Ibrahimi Mosque/Cave of the Patriarchs has separate Jewish and Muslim sections, being located in the midst of the tense atmosphere of Hebron's occupied old city. Selective snapshots from Rachel's Tomb, the shrine in Hebron, the Nabi Musa site, and Mount Zion give an indication of how Indonesians make sense of their experiences at the different sites.

The setup of the gravesites or memorial sites is relatively similar. At Rachel's Tomb, Mount Zion, Nabi Musa, and in Hebron, cenotaphs are covered with ornamental cloth and are located within a larger construction where access for men and women is mostly segregated. Usually, the introduction to the site begins on the coach and often includes readings from the scriptures and prayers. At the site, pilgrims pray individually or as a group, depending on how crowded the site is at the time. When accompanying women during the visit, I saw them touching and kissing the cenopaths or the iron grids surrounding them. Moreover, they were filming or taking selfies in front of the cenotaphs.

Rachel's Tomb

In spring 2018, one of the Jerusalemite tour guides for Indonesians called me in excitement, explaining that he was guiding a group that was not really Christian but more Jewish, as he claimed. Upon meeting the group, it turned out that they were Christian Zionists who emphasize Christianity's “Hebrew roots”. Indeed, the group members used Hebrew prayers and Jewish customs throughout the day, like ritual handwashing before eating or wearing a kippa and headscarf. One of their pilgrimage's first destinations was Rachel's Tomb, which is a cenotaph in honour of Rachel that is located in the midst of a Muslim cemetery next to Checkpoint 300, the main checkpoint to enter Bethlehem. The compound can only be accessed through a maze of security roads and army posts, and it is walled off by an eight-meter-high wall (Stadler Reference Stadler, Finkelman, Pinto Fdeda, Sagiv and Coen-Uzzielli2018: 256).Footnote ⁸

Among the ‘Hebrew-roots’ Christians from Indonesia, the complex political situation of their destination's location became evident to them when the minibus made its way through the army checkpoints. An American Jewish friend had helped them to put together their itinerary, and the women in the group explained that they had heard of the power of blessings at Rachel's Tomb, or in Indonesian kuburan Rahel, which would be especially suitable for issues related to pregnancy and motherhood. The group's spiritual guide read two verses from the books of Genesis (35:19–20) and Jeremiah (31:14–15) that mention Rachel's motherly sacrifice. The actual visit to the site was brief, giving the pilgrims time for their personal prayers and photographs.

The high wall and the military presence somewhat puzzled the group members, and when their guide explained the situation, they began to talk about the Israel–Palestine conflict, commenting on what they described as the “threat” of Muslim people, which they claimed to feel strongly in Indonesia as a religious minority. They continued to explain that their affinity with Judaism would put them in danger and that generally, Christians in Indonesia were like Jewish people in the Middle East: a minority in the middle of a predominantly Muslim area. Because of this similarity, they called Israel their “best friend”. This had started through the friendships they had made with Jewish Americans they had met in Indonesia. Encountering a possible danger here at the border of Bethlehem would not stop them from showing solidarity with Israel and praying at Rachel's Tomb.

Upon asking why Rachel's Tomb had been put on their itinerary in the first place, I learned that some group members—and especially the tour organizer—wanted something different from more the conventional Christian Holy Land pilgrimages offered by specifically seeking out “Jewish destinations”. This confirms Bowman's (Reference Bowman, Eade and Sallnow1991: 98) observation that pilgrims make their own choices in terms of how they will see the Holy Land, thereby confirming their theological view and creating various Jerusalems (in plural) “as signs in the diverse discourses on religion, power, and identity of the visiting groups”.

Obviously, the spatial boundaries at Rachel's Tomb strengthen discursive alignments with Jewish Americans who support the group in Indonesia and demarcations from Muslim people. Nonetheless, for the women in the group, it seemed to be more important to relate spiritually to the story of Rachel and to utter prayers at the site. For instance, one of the female participants shared: “I am supposed to get married, and I signed up for this trip to prepare myself spiritually. Building a family is a challenge, and I want to be strong in my faith”.

Mount Zion

David's Tomb, or King David's Tomb (קבר דוד המלך), is located just outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. After the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the founding of the state of Israel, Mount Zion became one of the most important holy sites for the young nation, as the Western Wall and the Temple Mount were under Jordanian control and inaccessible for Jewish people (see Bar Reference Bar2004; Borabeck Reference Borabeck2019).

Unlike Rachel's Tomb, the site is not dominated by spatial boundaries or an armed military presence. It is relatively accessible for anyone in Jerusalem who wishes to visit it. Despite Israeli efforts to Judaize the site (Bar Reference Bar2018), today, the area is more inclusive and pluralistic, with information boards written in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, and it has no entry restrictions. In addition to the room with the cenotaph, some pilgrims visit the so-called ‘Room of the Last Supper’ and Dormition Abbey. Mount Zion is also a common destination for Israeli army units, but their appearance is very different from the guards at Rachel's Tomb, as they carry their guns rather loosely over the shoulders and participate in a community-strengthening retreat. Furthermore, the compound is an area where pilgrims can move relatively freely and flexibly on their own, in contrast to Hebron or Rachel's Tomb. This can lead to chatting with members of other groups or spontaneous photo sessions with young Israeli soldiers, whom Indonesian pilgrims consider an exotic attraction. Here, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish pilgrims from Jerusalem and from all over the world do experience brief cross-religious encounters. Conversations with both Muslim and Christian Indonesian pilgrims and observations made during their visits reveal their excitement about meeting fellow Indonesians; sometimes, they identify similar practices and an overlapping religious heritage. Christian Indonesians note the Arabic calligraphy in the Room of the Last Supper and the fact that the crusader church had been turned into a mosque during Ottoman times; however, this does not evoke hostility against Muslim visitors who are also present at the site but rather expresses their curiosity in the historical events. Overall, Indonesians perceive the site as peaceful and enjoy being able to move around it more freely than they are able to at other sites. The contestation of the site is not visible for package tour visitors unless their tour guides refer to the boundaries that exist.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, when tourism stopped, several Indonesian travel agencies asked local Jerusalemite tour guides to take them to the holy sites via Zoom. When joining an Indonesian groups’ Zoom visit to Mount Zion, I realized that the moments of curiosity and the encounters were gone, and the groups’ impressions of Mount Zion became more strongly affected by their tour guides’ explanations. Furthermore, via Zoom, the in-group dynamics and the togetherness of the group were obviously more exciting to the virtual pilgrims than what was actually happening on Mount Zion at the time, and the weak internet connection at the site added to the focus on oneself.

Nabi Musa

A similarly peaceful atmosphere as on Mount Zion can be found at Nabi Musa (النبي موسى), despite the different geopolitical local. Nabi Musa is a shrine to Moses that dates from the Mamluk period and was expanded in Ottoman times (ARIJ 2012). It is located in Area C of the West Bank, in the midst of desert hills between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. Only the mosque that contains the shrine is classified as Area A and is thus under control of the Palestinian Authority. This is probably the reason why Jewish and Christian package tourists do not visit the site, but they could theoretically access it since there are no military posts or barriers erected in this part of Area C West Bank territory.

According to Jewish tradition, the Tomb of Moses is located on Mount Nebo, and the Nabi Musa shrine is considered a lookout to Mount Nebo (Luz Reference Luz2014). Also in Islam, the site itself is not considered as an actual burial site but rather a memorial site (Arabic: maqam/ مقام), and it has become a symbol of Palestinian nationalism (Friedland and Hecht Reference Friedland, Richard and Le Beau1996; Zilberman Reference Zilberman, Breger, Reiter and Hammer2012). The Arabic term ‘maqam’ happens to mean ‘grave’ in its Indonesianized version, ‘makam’. As with other cenotaphs, Indonesian pilgrims are mostly unaware of whether the site is an actual burial site or not, and according to Israeli and Palestinian tour guides, historical proof or actuality matter little to their Indonesian clients.

Indonesian pilgrims describe the shrine's location—in the middle of desert hills with camels, palm trees, and Bedouin administers—as exotic. Moreover, they feel at ease in the Muslim-only area without an army or police presence—they know where to carry out their ritual washing and feel at home in the mosque. The Ottoman heritage of a graveyard near Nabi Musa also draws many Turkish pilgrims to the site. Muslim Indonesians explain that there are only a few places where they can experience the unity of the Muslim ummah in Palestine, such as al-Aqsa Mosque and Nabi Musa. Similar to the brief encounters they experience on Mount Zion, Indonesian pilgrims like to take pictures with Turkish fellow Muslims and the Bedouin administrators of the site, slightly blurring boundaries between different Muslim groups. Moreover, a significant difference between this site and other stops on the itinerary is that there are no time constraints at Nabi Musa. Many Indonesian groups stay for group prayers or even take an afternoon nap in the mosque.

Hebron

Visiting the Shrine of Abraham/Ibrahim in Hebron is a less peaceful experience than visiting Nabi Musa or Mount Zion. Like visits to Rachel's Tomb, the tourist coaches must cross several army checkpoints and walls. Muslim Indonesians visit the Muslim section of the shrine, known as Ibrahimi Mosque, while Christian Indonesians visit the Jewish section of the shrine, known as Cave of the Patriarchs.

Upon their realization of the separation of the site, the question of whose tomb can be found in which section becomes a matter of discussion among the pilgrims. When Indonesians inquire about this, their Israeli or Palestinian tour guides often speak in a competitive and divisive manner about the separation, using terminology like “we have the Tomb of Sarah” and “they do not have…”. The symbolic boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ are also appropriated by the Indonesian pilgrims who see the site through the Israeli or Palestinian lens, respectively.

Inside the mosque in Hebron, the pilgrims are often excited about the importance of the gravesites—they touch and kiss the iron and stone constructions covering the graves, put scarves on them, and take pictures. I noticed a group of women becoming especially curious when their tour guide told them about the underground cave below the graves into which a thirteen-year-old girl descended after the Jewish-Israeli conquest of the shrine during the Six-Day War in 1967. The story goes that the girl, who was small enough to enter the cave to inspect it, must have experienced something otherworldly. This story about a potential trace of supernatural powers fascinated the women as they stood near a hole and tried to peak into the cave.

In addition to touring the site individually, Muslim groups usually perform group prayers and participate in one of the five daily prayers. Outside the Ibrahimi Mosque, the presence of soldiers and the segregation of the Jewish and Muslim sections of the gravesite is obvious to the pilgrims. Even though most of them have stronger spiritual rather than political motivations for their travels, when visiting Hebron, Muslim participants talk about the occupation and express standing in solidarity with Palestinian people. In some cases, Indonesian tourists even experience settler violence, hear tear gas explosions, and see how Palestinian residents are interrogated, humiliated and searched at checkpoints—indeed, sometimes they are searched and interrogated themselves, which increases their identification with the Palestinian people. A group that I met in February 2020, one of the last groups before the country's closure for tourists because of the Covid19 pandemic, had stones thrown at their bus by settlers, which left the group members shocked. In an interview, one of the group members said that “Palestine must be freed” and that Muslim people all over the world should unite against oppression.

In some cases, the route to Hebron is closed due to clashes or it is closed on Jewish holidays. On these occasions, pilgrims have expressed their disappointment and argued that the closure increased their desire to visit Ibrahim's grave. Due to a lack of knowledge about the arrangements during holidays or because of their tour guides’ statements, assumptions have spread that the Israeli army restricts Muslim entry to the site.

On the Christian-Indonesian itineraries, Hebron is not a typical destination but it is becoming of increasing interest for Zionist Christians and Pentecostals. They enter through the Jewish section of the Cave of the Patriarchs and are usually accompanied by Jewish tour guides. They are similarly exposed to the segregation, but they see it from a different perspective—from the Israeli one—as they consider the soldiers to be “on their side”. Nevertheless, violence, including verbal violence, does affect them. For instance, some Jewish tour guides claim that “the Arabs” have never taken care of the site and it has only been well-maintained since Israel gained control over it.

Indeed, the role of the tour guide turns out to be quite influential in Indonesians’ perceptions of Hebron. As Salazar has argued, the tourist guides represent authentic local culture (Salazar Reference Salazar2010: 112–16) and are often skilled in their ability to meet their customers’ expectations and create a “credible illusion of authenticity” (Salazar Reference Salazar2010: 80). Here, however, the guides do not only want to please their customers; they also have strong sentiments about the site and want to their point of view to be heard.