(Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

By Yuval Weiss

Last Updated 1/24/2018 at 4:30 PM

Jerusalem, the German Colony: Israel’s capital (Yeah, we said it.) experienced quite a scare today as a clearly agitated man was taken into custody for his own safety. At approximately 10 AM this morning, an older gentleman wearing a disheveled suit wandered into traffic and attempted to enter a private vehicle that he described as “my town car“.  At this point the driver’s owner got into an altercation with the gentleman, who insisted that he had “an important message for Abu Mazen” [Momentary Real World Buzzkill: Yes he DID actually say this today]. After the vehicle’s irate driver pushed him away, the pensioner walked over to a local convenience store, where he patiently discussed with a confused Dati woman the best places to park your yacht on Martha’s Vineyard during the winter months. After several minutes, the gentleman exited the shop and jumped onto the Jerusalem light rail, describing the movement of the train as being “not unlike windsurfing” before  exiting at the Machane Yehuda Market. As the retiree wandered the Shuk’s confusing alleys, he told a man selling cactus fruit that “this place is more confusing than Dizengoff Center“. The man then stopped at a pastry shop, where he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper and told customers that within a year there was a good chance that Trump would not be in the White House  and that he was “seriously considering running for president in 2020.” [Real World Alert: Yes he really said this]. It was at this point that concerned bystanders feared that the man was suffering from the delusions of grandeur symptomatic of  “Jerusalem Syndrome” and stepped in to help. As one man distracted the pensioner by entering into a drawn out negotiation over a carpet, a woman slipped away to call for medical help. Magen David Adom personnel quickly arrived on the scene and gently escorted the confused man into a waiting ambulance that they described as his “personal limousine” that would bring him to meet “the important people“.

UPDATE: An American Embassy spokesperson described the man’s current condition as “Good” and that he was “quite busy” perusing the care package he had received from the Embassy’s Consular Section, consisting of some nautical charts of Cape Cod, Season Three of the West Wing, and a Thomas Friedman book.