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