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