Model

• Tuesday we had a 2.5 hour guided tour of the Jerusalem model (photo at http://www.israelimages.com/files/11879.htm ) designed by Michael Avi-Yonah for outside the Holyland Hotel and now outside the Israel Museum. There's lots more to learn about it (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/time-well-spent.html ).
• Miniatures have been built in various places (for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madurodam and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-Europe ), but building a model of something that existed, but of which we have only partial descrptions poses difficulties.
• Our guide, who had been a student of Avi-Yonah's, described how the archaelogist decided what to put in the city and where to place each building. Avi-Yonah, he said, made changes in response to archaeological discoveries, but there is still controversy over whether to change the model as more is discovered.
• The neighborhood with red-tile roofs, the guide said, represents the homes of the wealthy, above the flat-roofed houses of the poor. But, he added, further research indicates that there were no tile roofs in Jerusalem at the time. Making tile requires heat,and heat required trees. Until the Romans entirely took over the country entirely, the government conserved trees. And until someone decided to bring tiles eastward as balast on ships sent to bring grain back from Egypt, there were few imported tiles.
• So the guide said (but http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/even-licensed-guides.html ).

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Book Mark

• Derekh Beit Lekhem (Bethlehem Road) is one of the three streets marking the original boundaries of HaMoshavah Ha Germanit (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/german-colony.html http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/emek-refaim.html http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/iccy.html ).
• It continues into Baka, where streets are named after Bible personages. The feel is quite different from in the Moshava, and I have been trying to figure out why. The buildings have a similar 1930's look -- faceted stone, two stories. Here is a buture shop, on the corner is a greengrocer. Perhaps it is the upholstered chairs on the sidewalk outside a coffee shop near Ester HaMalkah Street. Perhaps that the coffee shop is not part of a chain.
• It is a pleasant and interesting to walk along a street less frequented by tourists. When you get to Yehuda Street, you can turn right to get back to Emek Refaim or left to go to the Tayellet (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/sherover-promenade.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/haas-and-goldman-promenades.html ).
• Check http://www3.emap.co.il/eng_index.asp or your Carta street map. BTW, Carta makes a spiral-bound version. This avoids unfulding and refolding. If you don't find it confusing to jump from page to page, it is handy.
• At Book Mark, a crowded used-book store on Ester HaMalkah, I found the cartoon books I wanted.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Sunset

• Hotels may charge more for a room with a view of the Old City.
• In complete contrast to history and architecture are the beauties of a Jerusalem sunset.
• From almost anywhere you can glimpse hills between buildings, and in many places the view west is unobstructed.
• Except in spring and summer, Israel is on daylight losing time, far to the east of its time zone. The sun rises and sets early. During the day, the sun is hot. At four, the rays can no longer warm after their long trip through the atmosphere.
• The dry air holds no heat, but soon the edge of the sky begins to glow. From our livingroom I see the horizon far, hill-mounded, rose-banded.
• The landlords want to sell the apartment. I think no apartment selling for a mllion dollars and more in Jerusalem's strange real-estate market has a better view or location (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/my-jerusalem-neighborhood.html ). The grow lingers, fades. In the darkening sky stars blink, one, two three, a sky full.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Transportation Mural

• Above the Maayan Stub (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/retail.html )treasure house is another trompe l'oeil mural (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/fooled-my-eye.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/trompe-loeil.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/mural.html describe three others ).
• Its subject is transportation in Jerusalem, past and present.
• Look up and to the right as you walk west on Yafo from Ben Yehuda.
• (Note added 21 January 07) Then look again. The mural shows the picture as stage dressing.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Landing Strip

• During the siege of Jerusalem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(1948) ) SacherPark (Gahn Sahker), or perhaps what is now the road next to it, was an air strip.
• One of the pilots was Zohara Levyatov (http://www.ybz.org.il/?ArticleID=1215). A Zohara Lane between HaPalmach (in which she served) and HaTayassim ("the pilots") is named for her.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Dairy Products

• At the large grocery stores (Sentry and Copps) in Wisconsin ("TheDairy State") the dairy shelves stock the usual varieties of milk (various flavors and levels of fat), cream, yogurt, and cheese. Very few of the products are from Wisconsin.
• At the tiny grocery near here(http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/my-jerusalem-neighborhood.html ), the refrigerator case offers all the "white" (as opposed to yellow cheese) and blue products I get in a large WI grocery. These are all produced in Israel and very fresh. In addition they sell local, fresh
• leben (the texture of yogurt, but a different culture and flavor)
• eshel (Kefir is sort of like eshel, but is that Wisconsin?)
• labaneh (sold at Trader Joe’s, not from Wisconsin) cows, goats, sheep and buffalo milk varieties; with olive oil and zatar or without; also sold as small (melon-ball sized) balls
• “white cheese”(http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/cheesecake.html ) in 3, 5, and 9 percent (like the Vermont Cheese and Butter Company’s Fromage Blanc and their Quark)
• really fresh cottage cheese in 1.5, 3, 5, and 9 percent (I can get one kind of fresh local cottage cheese at distant speicalty stores)
• solid Bulgarian cheese - cow’s, goats, sheep, and buffalo milk varieties in 0, 5, and 9 percent
• spreadable Bulgararian, 0, 5, and 9 percent fat, plain or with zatar and olive oil
• buffalo-milk yogurt (also goats and sheep, but I have seen that in WI)
• “salt cheese” in various forms (looks like farmer’s cheese but taste is milder).
• Jerusalem supermarkets offer a greater selection.
• Although the selection of local yellow cheese is limited, cheese stores like Bashar's in the shouk (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/abundance.html ) sell hundreds of varieties of imported yellow cheeses -- more than I have ever seen in Wisconsin specialty stores.
• I've written the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture to give them ideas for products new to them. No answer.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Persian Oud

• Wednesday's oud concert, concluding the Oud Festival, featured a Persian quartet from Los Angeles. The US Cultural Attache introduced them in English, saying they showed American influence. Aside from the lead singer's possibly American accent, I couldn't sense any.
• Words to the poetry by Attar (http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/A/AttarFaridud/ ), Rumi (http://www.khamush.com/), and Nurbakhsh. For the concert of Asher Mizrahi's work (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/oud.html), they projected the words on a screen behind the musicians. For this one they projected views of the musicians, which gave us closeups of nimble fingers on oud, psaltery (played with qwo tiny hammers shaped like spoons or miniature skis), and drums.
• This oud was shaped like a figure 8.
• The music took us east, reminding me of India or even China.
• (Note the comment below. Now I'll try to discover whether "oud" and "psaltery" are general enough terms to include the instruments at this concert.)

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

birds

• Tucked away near the Knesset, Israel Museum, and Bible Lands Museum (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/free-lectures.html ) is a bird observation and banding station overlooking a small pond. "The site is one of the few traditional birdwatching areas in Jerusalem that has not been harmed by development, and is centrally located."
• In addition to local birds, migratory birds land here.
• At http://www.jbo.org.il/Eng%20index.htm note that the scroll bar is on the left. Of all people, Jimmy Carter is pictured watching birds.
• The same group also organizes bird watching at Mamilla, which is quite close to hotels. Check http://groups.yahoo.com/group/janglo/messages for announcements.
• http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/fantastic-animals.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/frogs.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/cats.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/gazelles.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/two-horses.html for more about Jerusalem animals, real and fantastic.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Free Lectures

• The Bible Lands Museum (http://www.blmj.org/Info/Info.html across from the Israel Museum in one direction and the Knesset building in another) offers free lectures by first-class scholars.
• The same series is given in English as in Hebrew.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Tiles

• In neighborhoods built between 1860 and 1950, look at the courtyard paving (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/love-and-darkness.html http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/my-jerusalem-neighborhood.html ). Sometimes you'll see lovely colored tiles.
• One guide said that these were moved from inside buildings when owners remodeled.
• Someone's going to offer to buy them up for very expensive American houses.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Oud

• And if you can't come for Succot (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/all-together-now.html ) come in November for the annual Festival of the Oud (http://www.gojerusalem.com/SitePage.aspx?SiteID=175 and http://www.confederationhouse.org/english/festivals/oud/ ). For Midwestern Americans it is a different form of music. I think that if you are even a little bit open, the sound will captivate you.
• Oud, tabla (drum), and another stringed instrument like a small harp held flat on the musician's lap, plus a very thready Arab "recorder" (the kind you blow into). Two male singers. One female. Oh, she was so good! She came pnto the stage bulgy in her black lace top (over a gold lamee skirt) showed every bulge. No glamor. Just voice. Heavenly voice.
• It was mostly music and lyrics by one man, Jewish, born in Jerusalem in 1890, who wrote Arabic, Hebrew, and Ladino (http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Spanish-Ladino/ old Spanish dialect spoken by descendents of Jews exiled from Spain) poems in Jerusalem, Tunisia and Egypt. He also wrote music, although his poems are also sung to mudic from Arabic movies of the 1930s. (See http://www.confederationhouse.org/english/festivals/oud/schedule/?date=12-11-2006 )
• A lot of the audience knew the songs and sometimes sang along to complicated rhythms and scales and melodic patterns very, very foreign to western ears.
• If the musicians came to Madison, even there listeners might be entranced, even with ears conditioned to different scales. ButI sat among people whose music it is.
• You may feel a little lost. The patterns you expect in music don't form. But the energy grows. By the end, after the third or fourth repitition, I could join (in a diffident undertone) the chorus of Ya Khabibi.
• Last night Michael went to a concert of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim music oud music. Also spectactularly good. I also managed to get a ticket for the concluding concert of Persian music.
• Why didn't we notice the Festival in time to buy tickets to every singel concert (except maybe the hard rock opera)? We did but thought,"Oud. One concert will be enough of that." Wrong!
• If you're coming to Israel in November, buy tickets ahead of time for the Oud Festival.
• See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/performing-arts-in-jerusalem.html because three or four of the Festival artists also appeared with The Tizmoret http://cdbaby.com/cd/tizmoret )

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Book Stores

• Wherever you are in Jerusalem, you'll easily find a bookstore. Except for the chains and the ones in upscale malls, they all seem to carry used books.
• For Judaica and related subjects, try the shop on Keren Kayemet LeYisrael ("Kakal") across from the Gymnasia (hard G). Kuzari (http://www.khazaria.com/korobkin.html ) walk, the nearest Yehuda HaLevi gets to having a street named for him among the writers of the Golden Age (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/jerusalem-street-poetry.html ) , is just to the west.
• But probably you are looking for Engllish books, maybe something to read on an airplane. Like Sefer V'Sefel (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/yabetz.html ), the large Dani Books store on Even Yisrael (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/even-yisrael.html ), the pedestrian street between Yafo and Agrippas just west of King George, has a wide selection of used English-language books from philosophy and science through history and biography to mysteries and science fiction. In both stores, whoever is by the cash register knows the merchandise.
• In fact, you'll see a "new and used" sign in many book store windows. Outside book shops on King George from where it starts at the end of Keren HaYesod and until Hillel, are tables and boxes of used books, many in English. On Aza and other less central streets you'll also see the bargain books out by the sidewalk.
• For directions see http://www2.emap.co.il/eng_index.asp , now offering satellite views as well as abstract maps.
• Don't wait for the airport. Explore. Enjoy.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Green Grass

• In the Moon Forest the grass under the trees is green from the early rains(http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/rain.html ).
• In parks and gardens, drip irrigation (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/cistern.html ), is turned off until late spring.
• The unbuilt valleys ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/gazelles.html ), the distant hillsides (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/view.html ), turn from brown and grey to green.
• Grey comes to the winter skies to bring the green.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Brunch

• Brunch (pronounced brahnsh) is a buffet in the style of an Israeli hotel breakfast served, on Fridays, in restaurants and hotels. Anyone who has stayed at an Israeli hotel (except the most basic) knows how good that is.
• The cheap-hotel version includes two or more kinds of yellow cheese, two kinds of white cheese (usually salt and bulgarian), spreadable white cheese, two kinds of olives, cucumber and tomato salad (with bell peppers and green onions) , sliced tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, sliced peppers, leben, fruit juice, breakfast cereal, omelets, fruit salad, fresh fruit, pickled fish, fresh bread and rolls with butter and jam, juice, coffee, and tea.
• The best and most expansive breakfast I've had was at the King David. It added more cheeses, various quiches, fried potatoes, various smoked fish, several additional salads, roasted eggplant, a table of luscious pastries, waffles, and more -- every single item (over three days I tried to sample everything but the cereal) delicious.
• The Inbal hotel opens its dining room to nonguests at 10 am on Friday. For 79 NIS (about 18 dollars) you get a first-class hotel brunch including several hot dishes. It is not up to King David standards. The juice is not fresh-squeezed and the pastires are ordinary.
• At the Cafe Rimon, for 49 NIS (about $11.50), you get a better brunch, including roasted zucchini, roasted eggplant, several kinds of fish, an excellent brocolli quiche, mizrakhi savory pastries (sort of like various sorts of vegetarian eggroll), and many items I could not manage to even taste. I'll go back.
• Do not eat breakfast first.
• I didn't want anything more until a late dinner.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Crembo

• To Israelis of a certain age, crembo means cooling weather, rain, and going to the macolet by yourself to buy a foil-wrapped ball of chocolate-covered fluff.
• In the summer, pocket money went for artikim (ice cream on a stick) or kartiv (popsicles) or, if you had a little extra change, cassata.
• Before widespread air conditioning, crembo had to wait for winter, or be transported in rare refrigerated trucks. On the counter of the local grocery store, the chocolate coating would melt. Even today, once out of the air conditioned supermarket or candy store, the chocolate would quickly squish over fingers. What do crembo factories make in the summer?
• The internal fluff now comes in strawberry, chocolate, and mocha as well as the original white, but crembo still waits for November and grows scarce towards the end of February, when hamentashen appear.
• From November through December, crembo shares counter space with soufganiot (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/soufganiot.html ), trucked in from bakeries and displayed open to the air beside the foil-wrapped winter treats.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Theater

• In the past nine months in Jerusalem, we have been to a concert by "The Tismoret," musicians who play klexmer, gypsy, and Arabic music (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/performing-arts-in-jerusalem.html ) ; a David Broza extravaganza of rhythm, song, and dance worth a long drive -- but only a ten-minute walk from home; Tango por Dos (http://www.ballet.co.uk/gallery/jr_tangopordos_peacock_0506 ); stand-up comedian Jacky Levi asking "Does God Have a Sense of Humor?" (Yes!); some other stand-up comedian who might amuse four-year olds; Jacky Levi again, this time with a thoughtful songwriter, working out material for their next show (on its way to being good); a string quartet; and songs by Italian women. Next week is the oud (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oud ) concert.
• All this is in addition to free klezmer, jazz, marching brass band (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/unexpected-february-entertainment.html ), Irish band, Moroccan band, percussionists on the City wall, drummers, Irish dancing, Moroccan dancing, Balkan dancing, stilt walking, jugglers, commedia dell' arte, and comic ballet (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/all-together-now.html ). (Not to mention the buskers on the Midrakhov.)
• Plus seven museums, three lectures, and nineteen guided walking tours (incuding three tunnels).
• All within Jerusalem.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

City of David

• Far older than the Roman water tunnel (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/haas-and-goldman-promenades.html ) is the tunnel Hezekiah had built to divert the Gihon Spring -- back when Rome was a recently-founded Italian town.
• Diversion of the spring denied the invading Assyrians a water source and ensued one for Jerusalem.
• This Jerusalem, The City of David (http://www.cityofdavid.org.il/index.html is a beautiful, but a bit annoying, Website), lies downhill from the current city and outside its walls ((http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/on-walls.html ) and is more than a thousand years older. It predates David, though its claim to fame is the connection with him and his descendents. That his descendents ruled there is clear from the inscription in Hezekiah's tunnel and from bulae -- the impresions of seals. Archaeologists date parts of the city to David's more ancient time, and parts to before that.
• A wood-on-metal-mesh walkway took me over the excavations of Phonecian style walls. Hiram, says the Bible, sent supplies and experts to build for David. Hiram was a Phoenecian -- not proof, but a bit of possibly supporting evidence.
• Down the stairways go, past courtiers' apartments, down to a tunnel the Jebusites used.
• That tunnel leads to Hezekiah's water tunnel (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-09/huoj-dok090903.php ). If you have a flashlight and water shoes, you can go through it to the Siloam Pool.
• The inscription that identified the engineering marvel is now in Istanbul.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Rain

• October brings the early rains (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/solar-water-heater.html ).
• Each summer day newspapers reported how many centimeters the surface of the Kinneret (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Kinneret ) had dropped. Now the level begins to rise. Though much of the water comes from artesian springs (http://home.att.net/~d.q.hall/tell_dan.htm ) fed thousands of years ago, rain has an immediate effect on the level of the world's lowest fresh-water lake. (Plus rain replenishes the groundwater for the future.)
• Jerusalem's water comes from springs tapping even older water, but we all bless these first rains.
• After downpours, drizzle, then sunshine. Clouds mass in glorious mounds from hill to hill. Light blazes through a gap, turning grey to gold-edged purple. Clouds disperse. The laundry dries. The first days of November are sunny and cloudless (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/beit-ticho.html), cool in the shade but hot after a long walk up Azza (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/on-down.html in the opposite direction) in the sun. At the first lookout on the Sherover Promenade, I take off my sweater.
• Six days later, rain again. Soon enough, Jerusalemites will forget agriculture, ecology, and the water cycle and hope for sunny days (though Jews who pray formally will continue prayes for rain until April, when the prescribe formula switches to a plea for dew).
• Today it is too warm for a waterproof coat. Rain drips and mists and drips again, fresh on my face like an imagined English May.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Beit Ticho

• The weather has been perfect for lunch on the terrace at Beit Ticho (http://www.imj.org.il/eng/branches/Ticho_house/index.html ). It is just down from Rehov Ha Neviim ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/street-of-prophets.html ) on Mevo Ticho, the first street of Rav Kook.
• The food is very good.
• The setting is perfect for a garden party where women wore pastel hats and gloves.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Solar Panels Mystery

• It is a mystery to me why the solar panels work so well in September.
• In the summer it does not rain. Dust collects on floors and tables, books and computer screens, blown in as yellow haze from the east or formed from the dry dirt around the thistles in uncultivated fields.
• Surely dust also covers the collector panels? And dust must block the photons whose energy converts to electricity (http://www.science.org.au/nova/005/005box03.htm ) to heat the water. Fewer photons, less electricity. Less electricity, cooler water.
• And yet the water gets hot each day until the Autumn rains fall (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/solar-water-heater.html ).
• A mystery with a solution no doubt, but still a mystery to me.
• http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/my-jerusalem-neighborhood.html describes the panels and water tanks as part of the view. Though not picturesque, they are beautiful in their meaning for the ecology (assuming that the negative effect of their manufacture, and disposal when theur usefulness has passed, does not outweigh the positive effect of decreased need for power plants and fossil fuel.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox.