Botanical Gardens

According to a plaque, the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens were founded in 1953, long before I arrived in Jerusalem. Yet I had never been. All around is greenery, here trees from Australia, there plants from southern Africa, but the sound of traffic on Herzog below never stops. On Jerusalem streets, only one block from any main street, traffic noise fades to nothing. But on the hillsides of the Botanical Gardens are no buildings to muffle the sound. I hope that Jerusalem's rapacious builders are kept at bay, leaving botanical refreshment to contrast with the noise. Within the garden is a monument to a man in Japan, who in the mid=1970s, had been praying for peace for 20 years.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox