Bread

• Thursday evening I went on a walking tour called "Not by Bread Alone." The more apt "Mainly Bread" would have lacked Biblical resonance.
• We started across Agrippas from the Shouk, the area described in http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/one-block-from-agripas.html and named Mazkeret Moshe, although I did not know that when I first wandered into it. Here was an unsuccessful 19th century wheat field. Jerusalem has not had a climate for wheat -- probably since before wheat was domesticated. On to Ohel Moshe (both undoubtedly named for Sir Moses Montefiore) where we heard tales of bread-related customs of the Jews of Yanina (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ioannina ; Yanina is mentioned in the Count of Monte Cristo). From there to the shouk, because it is an experience not to be missed on a Thursday night and there are plenty of bakery stands, with stories to be told of their history.
• At a Kabbalist center across Yafo and down Takhimoni, a jolly young rabbi told us about mystical meanings of bread and then called his father up the long flights of stairs to tell us a little more and bless us. Whatever else they spend contributions on, it is not on beautifying their bare, but very clean, building.
• At the Avihail Bakery (Rehov Pri Khadash 8; find it on emap http://www3.emap.co.il/eng_index.asp ; the number 4 bus has a stop on Straus, not far from the intersection. I bought some of the best bread rolls I've had this year -- and that is saying a lot. Now that the neighborhood has gone Khareidi, women might feel more comfortable walking to this bakery wearing a knee-covering skirt and a blouse with sleeves (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/between-meah-shearim-and-zichron-moshe.html ). Commandments of hospitality are not well-observed by haredim except to people who dress the way they do. The bakery owner and his employees, however, not being haredim, are very hospitable and nice whatever you are wearing.
• We paused for tales of bread-related customs of Jews whose families lived for centuries in Gyorgia.
• We went to two more bakeries, one tiny operation with a blowtorch-heated brick oven and the other a Persian bakery, both deep in Meah She'arim, where men dress either like early ninteenth-century Christians in Polish cities or wear zebra-striped coats patterned after the style of Jerusalem Arabs, also of the 19th century. Strange place.
• See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/bakery.html

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox