Cobbler

Sandal strap's torn? Handle on your tote's come loose from the stitching? The cobbler in the tiny hut on Keren Kayemet, outside the post office, will do the repair.

I brought him my carry-all tote. One leather strap had come out from the stitching. I asked if he could repair that and reinforce the other three points of attachement. He asked if I wanted to wait.

While I sat on the lastic chair outside, he gave me tea and biscuits. Very hot tea. More than I thought I could drink. But I did. And my tote can once more carry netbook, cheese, apples, carrots, cucumbers, figs. . .

Just about everyone who walked past said hello to him.

If you don't speak Hebrew, gesture will tell him what repair you want.

Copyright 2009 jane S. Fox

Prima Kings Hotel

The Prima Kings Hotel, where King George meets Ben Maimon (and Agron and changes its name to Keren HaYesod (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/watershed.html ) is good value for the money. If they have a room ready, they’ll let you check in at noon (three hours early). Check out time is noon, but the fee for late check out is quite reasonable -- great if you’re taking one of those midnight flights. The rooms are very nice and a reasonable size. There are luxury touches a clothesline across the bathtub and a hairdryer to get those slacks that last bit dr. You can use an iron on the 6th floor. The TV is a bit tricky because it has extraa features like radio reception. Lots of channels. The breakfast is wonderful, better, in my opinion than at the Inbal, a more expensive hotel (though the Kings is not exactly cheap). The lobby is very pleasant. The staff is very friendly and helpful. Tell reception if you want late check out. Also if you want them to order a shutte (sheroot) to the airport.

But, like most (maybe all) hotels they give a bad currency exchange rate. Well, that's a courtesy service, not their business. Convert your money at any of the no-comission store-fronts instead.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

Jerusalem Inn Hotel

The room was neat and clean but cramped and unfortunately so near the reception desk (whose clerk was very sociable) and so poorly soundproofed (not at all) that it was very noisy until 11 PM, when the desk closed. Bathroom was actually largish. Breakfast was meagre. Only the forlorn cheese triangles and scant chopped salad were reminiscent of an Israeli hotel breakfast. They did have cold cereal, so if you only like the familiar, you might be happy enough with that. Other guests were several Europeans who looked travel savvy and an American family with kids. Price is low, but if you're staying for more than a day or two, I think you're better off renting a small flat.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

Hats

The storefront that housed hat shop at the corner (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/on-down.html )of Mitudella and Aza is now an ice cream shop with outdoor seating. In addition to tables and chairs, they’ve put cushions on the low wall the Municipality build as part of the marker for David Siton Square.

On the one hand, can I sit thereon if I'm not eating their ice cream? On the other, pleasant to see people using the wall.

Lots of people around is one reason I feel safe walking alone in the area late at night.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

Birds Fly Free

After you deplane at TLV (aka Ben Gurion airport or nahtbahg) you walk along the long corridor that tells international arrivals "You're not there yet." The grace of this one is soothing. At one point the glass wall to your right gives you a view down at the fountain in the central departures hall. To your left you can see outside, but no vistas. Soon outside wall to your right you can see another wall. High on it, metal birds soar as their real models do when migrating through Israeli airspace. In your own corridor, on the low wall of the moving walkway, they've painted birds, these bright and colorful. Welcome to Israel.

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