Crossing from the Central Bus Station after a day-trip to Beersheva and the Negev, I was surprised to see the number 9 bus. On the front it proclaimed Giv'at Mordehai as its destination. Good. That would take it through Rehavia. To be sure, when the man getting on after me asked whether the bus was going to Rehavia, the driver answered that it would take ong to get there. But I was already settled.
A turn left on Saei Yisrael, and I figured I'd get a tour of Sikhron Moshe on our way to Kiakh St. Instead we made a series of loops: around Romema, then Kiryat Bels, Kiyat Ganz, Ezrat Torah. I'd been to Romema, in jeans on a wet and cold winter day a few years back to retrieve a hat a tourist friend forgot in n apartment in one of the huge, many entried, apartment blocks. The other neighborhoods are similar. Eventually we reached Kerem Avraham through which I'd walked on a tour of Amos Oz's childhood sights.
Women and girls got on the bus and off at their destinations. "Did they sit in the back?" i was asked later. No, and no one hassled me.
Men and women got on, and off a few stops later. All the men were dressed in black, the women in black or dark grey, their mothers' and grandmothers' colors relegated to family photographs for now.
Eventually we turned on Strauss, continued to HaNeviim, and were on Kiakh. One black clad man remained. He got off on Ushishkin. Women and girls and men and boys in jeans got on. They have their own fashions.
The Kharedim ride the bus more than others do -- though their neighborhoods are now also full of parked cars. So each bus stop in their neighborhoods has long lists of buses, and no doubt when the number 9's ridership went down, someone, or a computer said, "We'll get lots of riders north of Derekh Yafo."
Copyright 2014 Jane S. Fox
Labels: bus, kerem avraham, Rehavia
