Street Signs

• Jerusalem street signs come in several varieties. I have not yet seen one from the Ottoman era, but some may exist.
• At the intersection of Yafo (Jaffa) and Strauss (which changes to King George V on the other side of Yafo http://jerusalmblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/street-of-prophets.html ) is a street sign from the British Mandate period(http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/palmanda.htm ), on the building as is the European custom. English is the first language. Under it is Arabic. Hebrew is at the bottom. Be on the lookout for more of these.
• Throughout the city stree names appear on the building at the corder. They are in Hebrew, English, Arabic, and English. The English transliteration may not be what you expect.
• You can also see two types of signs on posts at corners. One is large, internally lit, and easy to see. The other sort is smaller and metal. (More recent ones may be plastic.) These are the most interesting if you read Hebrew, for in addition to the street name in three scripts, they display a brief explanation of the name.
• Recently thieves have been stealing the metal signs to sell to scrap dealers.
• In Jerusalem even street signs are political. On some the Arabic has been vandalized by ultra-nationalist Jews. On others the names have been vandalized by ultra-nationalist non-Jewish Arabs. In ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, vandals have crossed out the family names of secular Zionists.

Copyright 2007 Jane S. Fox