Solar Water Heater

• From April through mid September the sun heated our water so hot that we warned guests of the danger of scalding.
• Clouds cut off the amount of energy (http://www.science.org.au/nova/005/005box03.htm ) available to heat the water, but clouds in the summer are few and fleeting.
• In the autumn, on rainy days we turn on the electric water heater, the way we did last February and March. About an hour gives us water hot enough for showers, two hours on cold days.
• It only rains from October through April (with the occasional storm surprising people into May), for a week or two in late fall or early winter, now and then in January and February, and, if all goes well, for several days in March or April. In the depths of winter, though, the sun is too low in the sky to heat the water as we need it.
• As far as I can tell, both the solar panels and the supplementary electric heater heat water in the same boiler, the same container, and it is on the roof, where it gets cold in the winter -- not Wisconsin cold, but too cold for insulation to keep the water hot over night.
• A week ago at dawn, something exploded on the roof next door. Steam shot out from the cluster of boilers.
• If we leave the electric heater on all night, will our boiler explode?

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Retail

• At the corner of Strauss and Yafo, go into Maayan Stub (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/street-of-prophets.html ). Climb the stairs. Under the tile roof, there is another floor.
• Small, poorly-lit but well-staffed, this is retail as it was.
• It was the only place where Michael could find a light, zip-up, water repellent jacket -- utilitarian and no more trendy than the store itself.
• HaMashbir (HeKhadash) LaTsarkhan at the top of King George is a contemporary department store.
• Both are full of customers.
• Anchors.

Coyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Even Yisrael

• Even (rhymes with seven) Yisrael used to be named Valero after the banking family. When a committee decided to rename the street after the 19th century neighborhood, the Valeros were not happy, even though they got another street some blocks away. It is a block-long pedestrian street leading from Yafo to the beginning of Agripas.
• Across Yafo is Ezrat Yisrael.
• Abstruse calculations at the end of the 19th century convinced a group of Jews that the gate to heaven opened near the beginning of the Street of the Prophets - Rehov HaNeviim ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/street-of-prophets.html ).
• Managing to buy property between Derekh Yafo and Rehov HaNeviim, they built the EzratYisrael neighborhood, from which it would be a few steps to the portal.
• In the fading days of the Ottoman Empire, Christian groups -- Ethiopeans to Anglicans -- favored the Street of the Prophets to build schools, hospitals, and churches. The Anglicans, no doubt in ignorance, blocked the access from Esrat Yisrael to the computed site.
• So goes the story. I do know the number of believers; the neighborhood, like others of the period, was tiny. Nor do I know much they depended on their belief.
• Ezrat Yisrael Street is a cul-de-sac, accessible to pedestrians only, between King George and Raoul Wallenberg (http://www.raoulwallenberg.org/ ). It is worth a slow walk. On the right is a small book store specializing in used textbooks. When traffic half a block behind you stops, pretend you've gone back 100 years.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Sharei Tzedek

• I like to walk from the central bus station (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/bus-station.html ) to Mahaneh Yehuda (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/abundance.html ) . A well-travelled pedestrian tunnel goes under Derekh Yafo (one of the oldest roads in the world) and continues under the next street to the plaza in front of the convention center, Binyanei HaOuma, which also houses movie theaters. To go towards town, go up the first steps.
• The interesting things are on the right.
• There's the bus parking lot. The number 17 drives right through it on its way from Ein Kermem and Beit HaKerem(http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/beit-hakermem.html ), past the market and up King George (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/king-george-v).html, through Rehavia (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/my-jerusalem-neighborhood.html ), and out to the mall (kenyone) and up.
• Along here used to be the foreign-office prefabs.
• Next comes the Broadcast Authority building. It retains the facade (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/numbered-jerusalem-stones.html ) of Shaarei Tzedek Hospital. Since they've widened the road, the building lost much of its front garden, and I expect the inside is quite modern, but its face retains the design of its 19th century german templar (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/german-colony.html ) architect. Solid and symmetrical it holds its place.
• Craftsmen from the German Colony helped build it along with Jewish masons trained at the Kiakh (Alliance Francais) School.
• (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/mural.html ).
• The new Shaarei Tzedek Hospital is out in Bayit VeGan, where it has room to spread, as hospitals do.

Copyright 2006 Jane s. Fox

German Colony

• Jerusalem's German Colony is in the triangle formed by the streets Emek Refaim, Derekh Beit Lekhem (Bethlehem Road), and Emile Zola, including both sides of those streets.
• The founders were a sect of "Pietists" who broke away from the Lutheran Church in Germany and, in the 19th century, moved to "the Holy Land" to live a holy life.
• They were craftsmen and innkeepers and good builders. Much of their iron work survives, ad do those buildings that have, so far, excaped developers. Hoffman's large house remains, tall and imposing.
• The stone building at the point of the triangle (near the Ottoman railway station) was their meeting house. I'm told they did not believe in churgh buildings. After the founding of the State Of Israel, Armenians used the building as a church until 1967, when they regained access to the Old City.
• In 1917, when the British conquered Jerusalem, they interned the Germans and sent them to Cairo. After that war, the colonists returned. In 1941, the British, citing pro-Nazi activity in the Colony, interned the Germans and shipped them to Australia and New Zealand.
• Later, when the State of Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany were discussing reparations, Germany transferred ownership to Israel and took over liability for the confiscated property. Israel had already settled refugees in the buildings. Eventually, tenants bought their flats -- or didn't and kicked themselves later.
• Many tourists walk along Emek Refaim (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/emek-refaim.html ). Few explore the small streets within the triangle. In places you might imagine yourself in a German village -- or at least in a Wisconsin version of one.
• In one house a vintner made wine, and beer was brewed in another. Across Emek Refaim, a restaurant promised local wine as well as wine from the Jewish wineries of the north. In one place an enterprising man filled his cistern ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/cistern.html ) with whitewash for sale.
• It is the small meeting house that is slated for encapsulation in a multi-story hotel.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Fooled My Eye

• Only when I walked up the ben Yehuda Midrahov after dark did I notice another Trompe l'Oeil mural. (See http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/mural.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/trompe-loeil.html both, like this one, creations of http://www.cite-creation.fr/ Lyon, France.)
• Look left.
• Trompe.

Copyright 2006 Jane S Fox

Learning

• The word for rye is properly pronounced "shipone." (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/shifon.html ) I shall listen more carefully in the bakery.
• Jerusalem events for the coming week are listed in the two Friday supplements: Akhbar Kol HaEer (a pamphlet included with Kol HaEer) and Yerushalayim. The Jerusalem Post lists only those events its editors think would interest English speakers who do not understand Hebrew. (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/performing-arts-in-jerusalem.html and possibly http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/unexpected-february-entertainment.html )
• Live and learn.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Soufganiot

• A soufgania is not exactly a jelly donut.
• The season's first appeared about a week ago.
• They are best bought hot from the oil at a bakery that makes its own.
• Can Crembo be far behind?

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

4 to the top

• When festivities are not blocking the street ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/course-check.html ), the 4 does continue along YeKhezkel. A pre-car alley caught my attention opposite Avinoam. Then a sign pointing left to the Bukharian Shouk. Its name marks its origins at the end of the nineteenth century.
• It is not until Eretz Khefetz that the bus turns left. It is soon among names related to battles since the founding of the State of Israel.
• The view opens up, and then we are in Ramat Eshkol (http://research.haifa.ac.il/~eshkol/ ). In the seventies, secular and "mdern orthodox" Jews bought apartments here. Now more and more residents ae kharedi, then men dressed in what Poles thought fashionable in the eighteenth (knee britches and stockings) or nineteenth (long black silk coats) centuries. Although many kharedi families are poor by choice and live on welfare, the economic range within these communities is broad. Several subgroups are very wealthy and have been buying real estate.
• The bus continues up the hill, giving you a beautiful view to the north. It passes under khaim Bar Lev (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Bar-Lev ) to HaHagana (http://www.zionism-israel.com/Haganah.htm ). If you get off the bus at the Mr. Zol supermarket (the sign is in Hebrew but the large red framed white on black logo is distingtive) cross the street and walk across the plaza, you'll see one of the best outward views in the city.
• See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/bus-4-names.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/number-4-bus.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/pump.html then http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/4-to-terra-sancta.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/4-on-king-george.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/beautiful-clothes.html and http://jerusalmblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/street-of-prophets.html
• I took the number 28 back to the central bus station( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/bus-station.html ). It passes the Tnuva dairy plant. Fresh dairy products are one of the joys of Jerusalem. (Madison, capital of the Dairy State, cannot match Jerusalem for the quality and variety of dairy products.) The land having been bought by kharedi interests for other purposes, Tnuvah has announced it will closd the plant.
• Emap (http://www3.emap.co.il/eng_index.asp ) uses the same transliteration for khet as I do.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Haas and Goldman Promenades

• The Peace Forest adds oxygen to Jerusalem below Armon HaNatziv (the UN headquarters in the building that once housed the British High Commissioner http://www.jerusalem.muni.il/jer_sys/picture/atarim/site_form_atar_eng.asp?site_id=16&pic_cat=4&icon_cat=6&york_cat=9 ) down to Gai ben Hinnom and the Kidron Valley.
• The Sherover (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/sherover-promenade.html )is the walled walk with a good view.
• Down from it to the left, the Haas continues as a path towards Aub Tor, a walk on my schedule for Sunday.
• The Goldman goes to the east of the Sherover, around Armon HaNatziv. The Goldman family gets my gratitude not only for the beautifully-landscaped promenade but also for pressuring the municipality not to allow develpers to build along the ridge. So far, the view belongs to everyone.
• It would fit the Bible story if it was somewhere along this ridge that Abraham saw the mountain on which he was to set up the sacrifice of Isaac.
• Across the street from Armon HaNatziv, stepped plazas provide an excellent view of Herodion (http://www.abu.nb.ca/courses/NTIntro/images/Herodifortress.htm ). It's the hill that looks like a volcano. The shape is Artificial. Herod wanted it to stand out.
• In the top plaza a modern mosaic depicts the water system built by the Romans. A guided tour took me here, down steps and more steps, and more and more to the locked entrance to a tunnel that is partof the system. I gather that the water came by aqueduct from near Gush Etsion. The drop is 20 meters over 20 kilometers through the Judean hills. Aqueducts meandered to this point, gravity moving the water along a 1:1000 slope.
• Here Roman engineers had their slaves (I assume) tunnel through. A guard saw us in. We walked the 200-meter distance, sometimes sideways, sometimes bent over a bitThe Ottomans did some maintenance on the tunnel and added a supplementary water channel, but eventually the system fell into disuse.
• You can only get in with a licensed guide. Women more than five-months pregnant would have a hard time getting through, and it is not for claustrophobes. An acrophobe on the city wall can find ways down at intervals (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/on-walls.html ), but once in this tunnel, you can go back only if everyone behind you does, and there are no other exits. There are regular signs saying how far to the end. The kids in the group liked it. One of the adults was not happy with another adult's questions about whether anyone had every been left in the tunnel. It'd have to have been the last in the group.
• At the other end, another guard sat in the shade. We climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed, back to the parking lot next to Armon HaNatsiv. The last natsiv left over 60 years ago, but in this part of the world that is a very short period of time indeed.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

All Together Now

• If you can only come to Israel once, come to Jerusalem during Succot.
• In the morning, dispatcher to taxi drivers, "More taxis to the train station, more, come as many of you as can."
• Where Shlomtsion HaMalka meets King David, families, couples, individuals – waiting for the walk sign, surging across the street, along Agron’s shaded sidewalk to merge with the stream along the Jaffa Road, they walk faster than the cars, the taxis, the buses, stuck in gridlock, all headed in one direction.
• Happy people, dads pushing kids in strollers, big sisters herding younger siblings, black coated men in belted silk coats and wearing shiny brown fur hats, women in their best long skirts and fine-tailored jackets, men in jeans holding their children’s hands, women in hip huggers, long-haired little girls in pinafores, others in sun dresses or shorts, boys running ahead, reined in with a shout, fai-skinned red heads, dark-skinned Ethiopeans, pesionairs, teenagers, cellphones, "We’re near Sha’ar Yafo," "We took the train," "We left the car in Rehavia, "I see you; we’re over here."
• Crowds and crowds, splitting to go down through the souk or round through the Armenian quarter, the religious holding long celluloid carriers with palm fronds and myrtle and willow, boxes protecting chosen citrons; the secular Jews surprised in their company, all towards the Kotel.
• Then masses go out the nearest Gate to the City of David, below the Old City walls, lining up for tours, numbers beyond expectations, beyond the guides’ capacity. "Come back tomorrow. Early." Good nature prevails. There’s plenty to see, walking round the excavations.
• At six, beside the Ottoman Railway station, ten shekels to enter where 30 restaurants, or 40, cook out. Eat in the Shouk sells "Persian Goulash," Yehezkeli" offers fried haloumi cheese, Pisces does things with salmon, there’s tamarind juice and limonana, a wine bar, shwaarma, felafel, kebabs and kubeh, dim sum, empanadas, gefilte fish, crepes, Belgian waffles, brownies, cotton candy. Booths sell crafts. Bands play.
• From 4 PM, families stream through the security checkpoints into Liberty Bell Park, met by jugglers and stilt walkers, a comic ballet duo on a small stage, Irish dancers from Ra’nana on a larger one.
• Hand-crafted glass for sale, and jewelry, and toys, and pottery, and drawings, and books. Hotdogs and hamburgers, juice and soda, and beer with few takers.
• A drummer has brought a dozen giant tablas for kids to sit on and help make joyous rhythms. In a circle o a large mat kids come and learn, and switch, and parents sometimes drum, and for four hours the white-robed man keeps drumming, sometimes singing, and the energy builds and ebbs and builds higher.
• In a tent a circus. In the "amphi," puppets.
• We stopped by the best Irish band I’ve ever heard. The leader played the Irish pipes sweetly but with vigor. A compelling percussionist. A woman fiddling with quick skill. Two guitarists. The leader switches to a long recorder. Back to the pipes. Familiar tunes with newer beats. We crowd around the barrier. They take a break. We pull up chairs from scattered tables.
• The band returns and shares its energy. Behind them teenage girls appear and disappear. Oblivious to all but music, they jump and dance.
• The band moves from tune to tune. Two girls, three or four years old, slip through the barriers onto the platform in front of the band, left hand in left they turn and turn the way kids can, around and around without out falling down. A toddler runs up and runs around them, and three more little girls, dancing like iron filing when a magnet is moved beneath a table.
• Then a man comes around the bandstand in khakis and a t-shirt, shod in proper Irish dancing shies. Still on the tarmac, his feet begin to tap. Up he goes onto the platform and does the Irish steps quick and riveting, and the children whirl, and he taps and clogs and leaps across the stage, always in the space where the children are not.
• Walking home, we pass the banners whereby the Inbal Hotel welcomes three tourist groups. How lucky they are to be in this city in these days! "I hope," I say, "that they got away from the package tour and went down into the park."
• From the hotel, they must have heard the music. "The entire universe is a very narrow bridge, and the essence, the essential principle, is not to be afraid, at all."
• See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/red-rock.html http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/unexpected-february-entertainment.html http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/06/prtforming-arts-in-jerusalem.html http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/20/succa.html

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Fresh Dates

• While I wait to check out the 4's route (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/course-check.html ), a deviation of my own back to my favorite place in all Jerusalem (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/abundance.html ). Fresh dates have been on the tables in Mahaneh Yehudah for a few weeks. Oblong and yellow, they are crisp and sweet. Put in the freezer, they quickly soften to taste like the familiar dried (raisinified) dates, but juice and not chewy.
• Fresh olives are poured out in mounds. I don’t know what you do with these unless you have a special curing recipe.
• Sweet tiny golden plums, looking like smooth, miniature apricots, contrast with the Santa Rosas.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Course Check

• On Sunday I got on the a number 4 (kahv arbah) bus on Keren HaYesohd to check my memory of its route ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/street-of-prophets.html ). Contrary to what I remembered it turned off Nathan Strauss at Yehezkayl, and I discovered we were skirting Kerem Avraham (see http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/love-and-darkness.html ) where James Finn (a British consul and an antiquarianon on the cusp of collector and archaeologist) set up a farm to employ poor people in the mid 19th century. The Jews he employed were so poor that he had to give them breakfast at the Jaffa Gate in order for them to have strength enough to walk the mile or so to his farm.
• The bus passed Shneller. (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Archaeology/jerott.html ) named for a German Lutheran missionary, Father Johann Ludwig Schneller, who bought land around 1850 from the village of Lifta for an orphanage and vocational school and orphanage for Christian Arab refugees from Syria. The nearby staff houses stell show the names of German towns over their lintels. The Ottomans (Turks) commandeered the property for and army base during World War I.
• The British took it over after they conquered the country and, with its French ally broke up the Ottoman Enpire into entities still trying to work thebselfes out today.
• The State of Israel in its turn put military administrative units and an armory on the Schneller campus.
• It has now been sold to an Ultra-Orthodox group which promises to preserve the buildings. People who think about it expect the Christian inscriptions to disappear some night, and perhaps the buildings as well. Next week I’ll take the bus again to see whether the unexpected route was a deviation caused bycelebrations of Succot ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/sherover-promenade.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/red-rock.html ).

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Red Rock

• Groups and individuals, striding across the city on the Jerusalem-Salute walk, passed along MiTudela(http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/view.html ). (See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/sherover-promenade.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/succa.html )
• One group was singing "HaSela HaAdom," which was banned from Israel radio during the yers when Israelis were banned from crossing into Jordan.
• Although the song tells the sad tale of three men who deid in the attempt to see Petra(http://images.google.com/images?q=petra+jordan&hl=en&lr=&sa=X&oi=images&ct=title ), it was thought to encourage others to try.
• A cautionary tale about cautionary tales.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Sherover Promenade

• Signs, on white cardboard the size of printer paper, appeared along the streets, pointing to the Tayellett (Promenade) in Talpiot and promising activities for the Succot holiday. Without a map, but with a vague recollection of the location and of a newspaper ad for the event (dates but no times) I set out on foot. Along the Hevron Road there were two or three small signs, and then a large brown arrow pointing in the direction of the Tayelet when I was about ready to give up.
• At a bus stop I saw a sign for the number 4. "The 4 doesn’t go here," I thought, even as I noticed that the sign for that line was in Arabic, while the list of destinations for the 7 and 8 were in Hebrew. Jerusalem has two bus lines, and this stop was one of the overlaps.
• I reached the Tayelet (http://www.blogger.com/(http://www.s-aronson.co.il/Gabriel-Sherover-Promenade.html ).
  I’d forgotten how beautiful the view is. I do not think memory is great enough for such beauty. Heartfelt thanks to the Sherover family. Breathtaking is not a strong enough description of the view.
• Go. See it. Take the number 8 bus southward, or hail a taxi and say, "AhTayellet Armohn AhNot-seev" or "Sherover Tayellet."
• There, before us, the [Old] City, surrounded by hills, with buildings, all-white at this distace, spread like robes around her.
• Today you could rent a pedal buggy (such as I’ve seen along the Chicago lakefront), and perhaps these are always available. You could also rent a Segway. (I don’t understand the appeal.) Kids on the grass were learning to drum, sitting on tablas (Miriam’s drums).
  Walking tours headed down into the Gehenna valley, others to nearby water sources. I bought a ticket for a tour on an open-sided "safari" vehicle.
• We drove along the old cease-fire line through Abu Tor, a village split between the Kingdom of Jordan and the State of Israel at the end of the War of Independence. Jews moved into the houses that the State of Israel controlled, Arabs stayed in the Jordanian-controlled homes, across the street from each other. The guide tells a sweet tale about a nun's false teeth dropped from a blacony across the border and returned to her through the cooperative efforts of the Jordanians and Israelis, but I have heard it told by another guide about Notre Dame, where it makes more sense (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/even-licensed-guides.html ).
• Then it was down into the Hinnom Valley, around "Mt. Zion" (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/jerusalem-cable-car.html ) to the Kidron Valley, and to the bottom of the Mount of Olives, where Jewish burials go back over two and a half millennia. It is a place of legends and stories about Absalom and Napoleon, Ovadia MiBartinura (who reported on the grinding poverty of Jerusalem Jews in the 14th century), and a family of cohanim (priests) whose name (mentioned twice in the Bible) is still barely visible on the mausoleum where generations of them were buried over 2000 years ago.
• On a Hebrew Jerusalem tour there are always people on who add their own experiences. "My grandmother lived in [the Arab village of] Silwan," said one woman, and we heard how Jews came from Yemen to Jerusalem and lived first in caves near the (then small) Arab village, staying among Arab neighbors until the War of Independence.
• On the 50 NIS note is the fourth paragraph of Agnon’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1966/agnon-speech.html ) about his relationship to Jerusalem. The guide read it to us. I don’t know who thought to put this on a banknote, but I thank that person, too.
• (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/haas-and-goldman-promenades.html describes the continuations of the Sherover in either direction.)

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Between Meah She'arim and Zichron Moshe

• You can get off the 4 on Nathan Strauss and explore one of the late 19th and early
  20th century neighborhoods. Between them imagine empty fields.
• Zikchron Moshe (built at the end of the nineteenth century for school teachers) is to the left and Meah She’arim to the right. (If you walk around here, women can tie an Indian silk skirt over their slacks. A shirt to the elbows will usually prevent rude shouts from boys with nothing better to do.)
• Jews have lived in Jerusalem since the time of King David, with a brief hiatus after Nebuchadnezzar conquered the city, another when the Romans destroyed the Second Temple, and a third when the Crusaders killed every Jew they could get their swords on. Living in Jerusalem meant living within the city walls.
• In the mid-nineteenth century the city got so crowded and disease was so deadly that Jews agreed to leave the safety of the walls and live wherever communities could buy land. Although some families here choose to live outside the economy, and for them charity provides a major source sustenance (see http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/love-and-darkness.html ), Straus is lined with shops for those who have joined the consumer culture of fashionable shoes, good-quality housewares, appliances, cellphones.
• See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/number-4-bus.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/bus-4-names.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/pump.html then http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/4-to-terra-sancta.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/4 and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/beautiful-clothes.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/street-of-prophets.html

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Succa

• In Jerusalem, the Burger King has a succa.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Hair Salons

• For a city in which at lwast half the grown women cover their hair (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/back-in-time.html http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/4-on-king-george.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/comfort-relativity.html ) , and girls tend to let theirs grow as long as it will, Jerusalem has an awful lot of hair salons (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/walking.html http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/on-down.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/my-jerusalem-neighborhood.html ).
• Most are one-chair operations.
• My hairdresser says that many of the women who cover their hair in public have it nicely styled under that pastel, Indian scarf.
• Any grey-haired woman under 80 is an "Anglo-Saxon" (native English speaker).

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Tank Tops

• Not that religious women don't wear tank tops (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/back-in-time.html ). Girls and youg women wear them over long-sleeved t-shirts.
• Spaghetti-strapped sundresses are also worn over t-shirts and pretty blouses (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/comfort-relativity.html ), but only south of Yafo.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Back in Time

• In the Katamonim ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/number-4-bus.html ), the architecture was from the third quarter of the 20th century and most of the people had ancestors who had moved from Spain to North Africa 514 years ago, or lived in Iraq for 2500 years, or in Persia for a little less, or who trace their lineage to the Queen of Sheba. Others came from Yemin after a couple of thousand years there, and a few from Geyorgia after 1600 or so years there.
• They wear skirts or slacks. Married women who cover their hair do so with a scarf tied under the hair at the nape of the neck ot crossed at the nape to tie or lap over the forehead. These women usually wear short sleeves in summer. About a quarter of the younger women wear very short sleeves or tank tops over tight jeans.
• In the Moshava ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/pump.html )some of the architecture is from the nineteenth century, but the people are dressedvery 21st.
• Across King George ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/street-of-prophets.html ) the architecture is late 19th and 20th century, but the people try to reach back to the 18th or early 19th. Men dress to pass in a Polish city under Tsarist rule. Most of the women dress in whatever modern fashions will cover them from wrist to collar bone and to ankle. They wear skirts not slacks.
• Some older women wear skirts to midcalf, and opaque stockings below, but younger women and girls insist on ankle-length skirts.
• Many are fashionably, if not seasonably dressed.
• Married women cover their hair with page-boy wigs or with hats, or with wigs and hats, or with varieties of turbans, which mark the particular group that expects their allegiance.
• Muslim Arab women in traditional dress are even more covered, for they drape their necks as well as their hair. They, however, may wear slacks, while the Jewish women north of Yafo don't.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Yom Kippur

• Yom Kippur in Jerusalem is a bit eeirie. Noise of the industrial age stops.
• Outside I heard only the noises of people and nature, a dog's bark, birds, the breeze through leaves, people.
• Every hour or so a police car drovealong King George -- often on the left side of the street. Once an ambulance, with its siren warning the people who were walking in the street and the kids riding bikes there. A kid with a bike has few safe places to ride in Jerusalem the rest of the year. A man in an electric wheelchair rode along the street. For him, too, it was a day of safety.
• Sunday night, Michael and I went to HUC. Services were in a huge, round "events" hall on the sixth floor. Its windows look out on the City walls, a moving sight as night was falling. The Classical Reform professors M studied under in the 1960s must be rolling over in their graves. Every man wore a kipa. Many put on a talit. Classical Reformers might accept the all-Hebrew service (from Gates of Repentence and Xeroxed supplements) on the grounds that Hebrew (although not quite the Hebrew ofthe prayer book) is the local language (although 75 percent of the congregation was English-speaking), but what would they say about traditional prayers and parts of prayers that got added back in? The cantor and choir were wonderful, and did not intimidate the rest of us.
• On the way home we flowed into the streams of peoplethronging out of synagogues. Many wore white. Also on the street were young secular couples in jeans. I doubt they had been to Kol Nidrei. They were out enjoying the fact that it was Yom Kippru. Anyway with everthing closed, what else was there to do? Israel radio stations and TV went off the air, but people could have played CDs or or played piano. I heard none of that. If they did it, they kept the windows closed. I understand that Jerusalem is unusual in this quiet. It was strange and rather nice.
• Monday M went back to HUC and I went to Yeshurun-- the large curved synagogue on King George a little beyond the JNF, Jewish Agency, and UJA bldgs. There they ran a traditional Orthodox service -- also with lots of Americans. Some women came in white slacks, others properly skirted with their hair covered. No one tried to enforce anything on anyone. The cantor and choir were very good, but the congregation usually kept quiet.
• I had bought a set of prayerbooks published by the newspaper Ha'aretz and the Jewish Agency. The prayers were completely the traditional ones (according to the official "Land of Israel" format), but the books also include lots and lots of readings. Most interesting to me were the bits of reminiscences and quotes from people's diaries. These were by no means all religious. Several were from a book about Yom Kippur on Kibbutz BeitHaShita. One was about the High Holidays for a group ofsoldiers in the Jewish Brigade of the British army in WW II in Lybia. Vey moving. And one was about a youngIsraeli woman interviewed on the radio. "Are you goingto fast?" "Of course." "And will you go to services?""Oh no. I'm going to ride my bike on the empty streets." The rabbi who wrote this was upset, until, he reports, he thought, "She is doing two things special for Yom Kippur -- things that she only does on that day. Who is to say that her observance of theholiday is less acceptable than mine?"
• Monday evening after the shofars blew, people walked home a little more carefully. Cars started to move along the streets. It took a few hours for the hum of traffic to get up to its usual decibel level.
• http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/all-together-now.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/unexpected-february-entertainment.html describe other holiday experiences in Jerusalem.

Copyright 2006, Jane S. Fox

Street of the Prophets

• At the very bottom of King George (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/4-on-king-george.html ) on the northwest corner of the ancient route to Jaffa (you can cross this street diagonally) opposite the venerable Maayan Shtube (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/retail.html ) clothing store (mentioned in Amos Oz's memoir), a building plaque proudly proclaims its Mandatory (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/palmanda.htm) pedigree. Up the Jaffa Road (Rehov Yafo) is an old Turkish guardpost (the building with two small lionsout front), now the police Lost and Found, and beyond that the Mahane Yehuda market ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/abundance.html ). In the other direction, the street ends at the Jaffa Gate (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/on-walls.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/lights-out.html
• The 4 ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/number-4-bus.html ) crosses Yafo. The large building looming to the weston the next corner is the only hospital left in downtown Jerusalem, Bikur Kholim.
• The next cross street, Neviim (http://www.sustainable-jerusalem.org/jerusaleme/envir35.html and http://www.jerusalem.muni.il/english/sys/tour/vir_tour/show/show_tour.asp?tour_id=100), is worth its own tour. Here Christian groups from Europe competed with each other to build the most impressive institutions in Jerusalem toward the end of the Ottoman rule. The Street of the Prophets runs from the Anglican School, past the Ethiopean church) to the property of the Russian Orthodox Church and beyond to the gates of the Old City.
• But the 4 continues straight ahead. Mind your map. King George has changed to Nathan Strauss, named for an American philanthropist who provided paseurized milk to poor American children and his name to the city of Netanya.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox