Buskers and Beggars

• On the ben Yehuda St. Pedestrian mall you’ll often hear violinists, accordionists, vocalists, and Andean pipers playing, many of them making quite lovely music. These are buskers I’m happy to drop money in open violin cases or other receptacles in return for their concerts, and I hope the musicians earn something approaching the pleasure they give.
• But there are also beggars.
• A woman in her thirties approached me at the top of Agron St (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/watershed.html ) at the end of the latitude’s brief dusk. She told me her story in English. A lost wallet. A need to get to Haifa. The story sounded highly unlikely but I gave her money. She asked for my address, “So I can return your money.” I laughed. “Give it to someone else who needs it, or to a charity.” In the faint light I could not read her expression. “Charity?” she said. “Magen David Adom,” I suggested and walked away with the tiniest of not-quite-hopes that she might think about helping someone else with her deceitfully-gotten gains.
• I was sure such beggars approached only tourists with their tales until an Israeli friend said the same woman, or another with the same idea, had told her a similar story on ben Yehuda St. “Did you give her money?” I asked. “Yes, and the next day I saw her buying shoes at” and she named a shoe store not known for bargains. “I went in and yelled at her and she just laughed.”
• My friend’s mother, also born in Jerusalem, then told me that such beggars now also infest the Malha Mall. “I was having coffee with a friend,” she said, “when an elderly man came to the table with a talk about a grandchild who was dying in England and he needed money to go to her. It was a beautiful tale, told in the shaky voice of the very old. I gave him 100 shekels and my friend gave him more and we wished him and his granddaughter well and promised to pray for them. A few weeks later the same man approached me at the mall. His memory for faces was not as good as his acting ability and creativity.”
• I’m not happy to give such people money. And yet I think of the tiny chance that the story might be true. As the beggars well know.
  
  Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

Living near the PM

For the visitor, even for a visitor staying in Jerusalem for a month or two, or a year, living near the prime minister's house is a plus. A walk past the casual sentry puts you where history is being made.

A long car arrives, windows curtained. You recall news stories to mind to guess who's inside.

But the longtime neighbors dislike the disruption. Often a side street is closed because the PM will be driving in or out. For some well-known visitors all vehicular traffic is stopped and even pedestrians are restricted.

Owners of neighboring apartments want the PM's official residence moved. Everyone else says NIMBY. And so a hugely expensive residence is planned on open ground.

But perhaps those who live within a block or two of the current residence only wish to demonstrate blase sophistication. Surely they'll miss the excitement when only historical walking tours clog the sidewalks.

Copyright 1009 Jane S. Fox

Archives

I had the pleasure (and honor) of a "guided tour" by the director of the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People( http://sites.huji.ac.il/archives/ ). Convinced me that I should have been taught in high school to keep good records. The only direction on the subject that I remember was on the importance of lab notebooks. In the corridor are displays of facsimiles of minutes of community meetings from Morocco to Ireland, plus other registers and ledgers, but the importance of the archives is in the catalogued collection of records that mention Jews: copies of a letter, in Yiddish, to the Czar kept in the archives of Czar Nicholai I's secret police; a report from Barcelona, in Latin, signed in Hebrew; private documents and public from wherever anyone can find anything.

The organization would particularly like letters, or copies of letters, from Europe before World War II.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. fox

Tiffany Lampshade

I've heard it called "the mushroom," but it looks more like a tiffany lampshade above a huge kiosk.

The name of the little restaurant on the corner of Haari and Aza, opposite Binyamin Mitudela, appears, AFAIK, only on the kashrut certificate.

The soups are wonderful. Crepes not special. You can sit as long as you like.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

Montefiore Restaurant

The Lion Fountain is flowing again. Magnificent! Be assured that the water is recycled.

The path from the fountain, through the center of the garden, in the direction of the windmill, leads to the Montefiore restaurant. Eat there!

The entrees are good and the bread outstanding, but the appetizers are luscious. Today we shared an eggplant and vegetable wrap and figs stuffed with walnuts and a little cheese. Next time I want to skip the entrees and order three or four appetizers instead.

The view can't be beat; food presentation is beautiful; coffee is excellent; the atmosphere is luxurious without being intimidating; and the prices are very reasonable. Appetizer and fish entree at lunchtime was 78 NIS. Appetizer with pasta entree is 10 NIS less. A previous meal at Cafit cost the same for an uninspired entree alone.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox


See also familyhonor.blogspot.com

Movie: Out of the Blue

Yesterday being cloudy and damp, as it has been too rarely for the last few winters in Jerusalem, I went to a movie at the Malh.a Mall. "It's in Hebrew," warned the woman selling tickets. "Zeh bseder," I answered. There were English subtitles so I wonder how anyone could complain that an Israeli movie, showing in a theater in Israel, was in Hebrew. The English title of the comedy was "Out of the Blue," not a bad translation except for having frothy, almost sophisticated, overtones unsuitable to the characters. It was a well made movie, light and funny. It's a shame it'll never make any money. I was one of three in the theater. To be sure it was in the middle of the afternoon.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox


See also familyhonor.blogspot.com

Costumes

The Jerusalem Theater hosts free concerts in the lobby from time to time -- anything from a lone pianist to a complete jazz band or rock group. You can see the art displays in the Jerusalem Theater for free, but right now they also have a very extensive exhibit of theatrical costumes, that costs 10NIS and well worth the cost. Thursday I tagged along with the guided tour. The guide greatly enriched the experience.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

See also familyhonor.blogspot.com