One Block from Agripas

• Agrippas Street (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/trompe-loeil.html ) runs up from King George V (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/george-v.html ) and then (with a name change) down towards Shderot Ben Tsvi. To the northeast is Shouk Mahaneh Yehuda (see http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/unexpected-february-entertainment.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/shesek.html ).
• A turn into one of the alleys on the other side of the street takes you into a quiet neighborhood from a hundred years in the past. Here you can see the fantastic doors of the synagog established in one of the old buildings by the Sefardi community from the Old City. At one house, purple flowers pour over the wall like a silent waterfall; at another, red blossoms. The dark shade of a small, square park beckons. Here a family has renovated with Jerusalem stone that the air has not yet aged. There someone closed a balcony, illegally, with beaten tin.
• The stone buildings ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/stone-houses.html) block off the city’s noise.
• See http://www.e-map.co.il/eng_index.asp for maps. Give each screen time to come up completely!
• Throughout the neighborhood, note the slightly raised paving that marks rectangular areas over now-dry rain-water cisterns. On most, a cement-sealed well-hear marks the old access point. Collecting rainwater for irrigation seems like such a good idea until you think of mosquitoes. (See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/cistern.html )

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox