Jerusalem Blog

Homayun Shushtar Bidad

2012-02-09T14:42:00.001+02:00

After the third maqam concert I have musical notation of these three forms, three sets of treble clef scales I can play on the piano, with an arrow from D to C above middle C (Homayun), from G to middle C (Shushtar or Chakovak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mugham), and from G to D (Bidad of Hijaz Misri http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R3Z5QdOJ7M). And I still do not understand. I'm guessing that the indicated notes show resolution. Not even Wikipedia can get my mind out of its stubborn Western set.

Bu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UPhlmO1FI0 is clear to my ears.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Calatrava Bridge from the Light Rail

2012-01-31T12:15:00.003+02:00

Looking out the window of a light rail car gave me the second view of the Calatrava bridge that was not ridiculous. From the street level it is so out of place that it either makes you laugh or (especially if you are local) makes you angry. From the train the harp's strings unfold, rather dizzying.

Also dizzying for some people is the screen that announces the stops, because the direction reverses as the languages cycle through Hebrew, English and Arabic. I am going to try to learn to sound out written Arabic, practicing by listening to the spoken announcements.

The other satisfying view of the Calatrava bridge is reflected in Anish Kapoor's sculpture at the Israel Museum.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Page Turner

2012-01-30T21:00:00.000+02:00

At the Etnakhta concert intermission, when the radio mike had been turned off, the presenter said, "There are about 300 music lovers in the hall. Surely one of you can turn pages for the pianist in the next selection." I'm guessing about half those 300 understood Hebrew too poorly to know what she was saying, but there was a volunteer.

Why do pianists get pages turned for them while all the other musicians manage their own music?

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Loose bow

2012-01-30T12:22:00.000+02:00

I've watched violinists tighten their bows, rosin them, test the tension. I expect violists, cellists, and players of the huge contra-bass do the same.

At the second maqam concert I noticed that the fiddler used a loose bow. He pulled the horsehair (if that's what it is) tight as he worked the bow back and forth. The original bows were probably taut, like a bow that shoots arrows. I wonder what the advantage is of a loose bow.

Copyright Jane S. Fox

Mameluk Buildings in Jerusalem

2012-01-29T14:39:00.000+02:00

Saturday's walking tour took us to Mameluk buildings within the Jerusalem walls. What is it like to live in a 700 year old building whose walls are adorned with gorgeous stone carvings and whose ground floor holds old graves?

We had a guide both knowledgeable and articulate. "I'm not a babysitter," she declared when participants fell behind in the straight but narrow alleys of the souk, but she went back to find seven or eight who missed one sharp turn into a quieter alley when a hard rain obscured the view of her multicolored umbrella among all the other umbrellas.

In and out of the oldest souk we went, through a dark, covered passage to a quiet lane where the householder came out to say hello to a very wet group. We ended up at the "Kotel Katan," a short stretch of the same retaining wall that is the "Western Wall." Later I looked on a map. It's not hard to find at all if you walk straight through the souk for the Jaffa gate and then turn left.

Returning on our own and not at all sure at the time of which way to turn) we passed three other groups taking walking tours in the rain. These seemed to be short-term tourists. If they stayed out of the rain, they'd miss their only opportunity for such a tour.

But the citizens of Jerusalem are hardy, and are willing to follow a guide through cold rain to admire old beauties of the city.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Organization Outweighs Provenance

2012-01-26T16:09:00.003+02:00

What the collection at Jerusalem's Bible Lands Museum lacks in provenance it makes up for with coherence. Maps, groupings, and explanatory material make cultural interaction possible to understand.

Each time I've taken the tour (three times in Hebrew and once in English) it's been led by a different docent, and each time I've learned something new. Yesterday one new bit was that leap months go back to Sumer.

Both at this museum and at the Israel Museum across the street, I'm always amazed by how far back so much goes.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Maimonides' Kiosk

2012-01-24T06:53:00.002+02:00

Some time during the last ten months the kiosk in the park strip along the center of Ben Maimon st opened as a coffee bar. Nice amenity.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Photographs from Yemen

2012-01-22T14:45:00.002+02:00

Somewhere in the depths of the L. A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem( http://www.islamicart.co.il/en/ ) is a curator with a wonderful eye for photographic exhibits. The current one on Yemen is superb, managing to dazzle with images of people and architecture both. I no longer wonder why tourists go to Yemen.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Archaeology and the Bar Kokhba Rebellion

2012-01-19T11:13:00.002+02:00

Tuesday's lecture at Beit Shmuel on the contribution of archaeology to to research into the Bar Kokhba rebellion, reminded me both of the contribution of coins to our knowledge of the past and of the difficulty of interpreting the meaning of the presence of any artifact in a particular place.

For dates after the invention of coins, they can be better than pottery for dating a location. That coin showing Hadrian's likeness didn't get there before Hadrian became emperor.

But coins are easier than pottery to carry from place to place. The presence of a Bar Kokhba coin in Hungary does not make anyone think that the rebellion spread that far. I suppose you could write an article about the likelihood of a Roman soldier carrying the coin there versus the possibility that a string of itinerant traders brought it there. Or even that a refugee carried it as a reminder of the hope that faded in so few years.

This makes it difficult to interpret the four Bar Kikhba coins found in the north of Israel as a sign that the rebellion spread that far.

Here in Jerusalem, even in a popular lecture on archaeology you hear of very new findings. Tuesday we heard about a village in the north that showed the same signs of destruction at about the same date as the places the Romans definitely destroyed farther south as they put down the rebellion.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Last minute tickets

2012-01-18T12:54:00.003+02:00

For Sunday night's Andalusian Orchestra of Ashdod ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HidnXlZbooQ&feature=related ) concert we bought last=minute tickets at about a third of the published price.

Wonderful energizing concert with a guest singer ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H9e1lnsdOg -- go about 50 seconds in ) as well

Our seats were at the top of the Henry Crowne auditorium in the Jersualem Theater -- up above the control booth. We heard everything but were a bit too far away to see the words projected behind the players. We had a great view of the musician playing the zither-like instrument, though. The only real drawback to the seats was not feeling part of the audience when they joined in with rhythmic clapping and sometimes singing along at the invitation of the vocalists.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. fox

Woodwinds

2012-01-17T10:55:00.003+02:00

Yesterday's Etnakhta concert featured the Tel Aviv Woodwind Quintet. I am trying to figure out how a horn is a woodwind.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Rain Tour

2012-01-15T07:42:00.002+02:00

Rain paused while Saturday morning's walking tour started. Returned in a drizzle, paused, turned to sleet. A sliver of blue sky appeared. Now wind, not thunder, so we heard our hardy guide and continued to walk and look.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Outside the PM's

2012-01-15T07:39:00.004+02:00

How empty the sidewalk looks when first seen after the Shalits removed their tent, mission accomplished. The turn of the wall and the widening of the pavement soon seems normal once more.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Makam

2012-01-13T13:32:00.004+02:00

Yesterday's concert at Beit Avikhai was enjoyable in everything but the seats. From remarkably uncomfortable chairs in a small room seven levels down in the parking garage, we heard an introduction to makam ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makam ), a musical system of ACAentral Asia and the Near East. The particular makam of last night's performance was the nava, played on the tar, kamancha, and sez, with Neeman Kihan on the santur; and also sung. Rabbi David Menahem explained the place of this melodic system in Jewish Iraqi music.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Cheese emporium renovation

2012-01-08T15:35:00.002+02:00

Bashar's is now easier to get in and out of and has added a second floor. Somehow it seems narrower, though the cheese selection seems as wide.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Museum for Islamic Art

2011-10-17T13:23:00.000+02:00

The Museum for Islamic Art (http://www.islamicart.co.il/english/visitor.asp ) is one of those gems that guided tours mostly miss. The Hebrew Website is worth surfing for pictures. At the museum, everything has complete English explanations.
Its permanent collection includes exhibits of interest to kids as well as adults.
The temporary exhibits have included music, magic, and now leisure activities throughout history. Each one I've been to has been beautifully unlike what I've seen elsewhere.

Sad Day for Andalusian Orchestra

2011-10-05T14:48:00.002+02:00

I was very sorry to hear that the Andalusian Orchestra will not present female singers except as a "special option." (See http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israeli-orchestra-drops-female-singer-after-pressure-from-orthodox-subscribers-1.388195 ) I enjoyed their concerts so much. I don't remember any female singer at the last concert, but there's a difference between not happening to have one and refusing to have one. They did have female musicians. Since there are "religious" people who object to female instrumentalists playing where men can hear them, will the female musicians be the next to be refused work?

Shameful!

And I'm sad because on principle I won't buy tickets to Andalusian Orchestra concerts as long as they continue this policy.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Cans

2011-03-20T03:29:00.001+02:00

Tuna, corn -- most, perhaps all, cans (tins) sold in Israel have pull-open toms, sort of like American sardine tins. Bemusement is likely to be the reaction of an Israeli reading about the forgotten can opener in Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat (http://www.authorama.com/three-men-in-a-boat-1.html ).

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Free Lecture, Inexpensive Concert

2011-03-03T07:31:00.003+02:00

At the start of the intermission of Monday afternoon free concerts, the radio announcer often announces a large to huge discount on tickets for the Wednesday evening concert of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. If you don't understand Hebrew, you won't understand, but someone on one side or the other of you will translate if you ask. The Jerualem Symphony's ticket office is in the lower lobby of the concert hall. During intermission or immediately after the concert you can buy the discounted ticket there.

My discounted ticket for Wednesday's concert cost less than $10.

Wednesday concerts start at 8. At 7 there is a free lecture. The current conductor lectures in English. Very interesting and he takes questions about anythign to do with the program, orchestra, and music in gerenral at the end of the lecture. There's no ticket taker for the lecture, so you can go to that even if you are not going to the concert.

Someone asked about the transparent baffles behind some of the second violinists. They are to protect their hearing. The brasses are right behind. Rachmaninoff's seldom played symphony uses brasses at full volume.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

English Surtitles

2011-03-01T14:34:00.002+02:00

Ocassionally the Jerusalem theater projects surtitles over a play, as they did Suday night with "Thrill My Heart." If you don't understand Hevrew but want a taste of Hebrew theater, see one of these.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Strawberries

2011-02-28T12:08:00.001+02:00

Strawberries down to less than $1 a pound (NIS 7 for a kilo). Huge but good.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Abu Tor Tour

2011-02-27T14:24:00.002+02:00

Saturday's Municipality walking tour was to Abu Tor, with an excellent guide who told me things I didn't know even about sights I'd often seen.

I learned that the Peel Commission (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peel_Commission ) met at the Palace Hotel, now being rebuilt inside the old facade.

Behind the King David Hotel we stopped at the 2000-year-old tombs which may have belonged to Herod's family. (The tomb of the best-known Herod was recently found at Herodion, out in the desert but visile on a clear day.

In Abu Tor I learned, among other things, that the large black rooftop water tanks are generally Arab. Water tanks on Jewish rooftops are generally slightly smaller and white or silver-metal colored. In Jersualem even water storage tells you something political.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Brunch at Mansfield

2011-02-25T15:15:00.002+02:00

Brunch at the restaurant (Mansfield) at the entrance to the Israel Museum was delightful. The food is excellent -- a fresh, varied, beautifully presented, tasty buffet. If you are not staying at a hotel -- or are at a cheap hotel where breakfast isn't much more than toast, cheese, cucumbers, and fruit -- Try this Friday brunch. The view is beautiful and the music live, this week played by a harpist, guitarist, and violinist. When we saw the harp, we asked for Celtic and got it.

You don't need a museum entry ticket to eat at this one of the several museum restaurants. At other times they serve the excellent usual.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Sufi Music

2011-02-24T17:10:00.003+02:00

The Ottoman History lecture series at the Museum of Islamic Art ( http://www.islamicart.co.il/en/ )was capped by a concert of Sufi and other Turkish music. Once again Yinom Muallem (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/yinon-muallem.html ) on percussion fascinated me though Eyal Sela's commentary was very interesting. The music that he, Muallem, and Ariel Kassis made together was entrancing. Sela played two unfamiliar wind instruments. Kassis played the kanoune (a kind of dulcimer). Orit Sukari danced gracefully, including demonstrating Dervish turns.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Modern Music Sandwich

2011-02-22T17:50:00.002+02:00

Yesterday's free etnachta concert sandiched two odern peices between Shubert and Mendlessohn. The first was Debussy, who has stayed on concert programs for a hundred years. The second, a piece by an Israeli composer, was farther from the classical but not aggressively clashy. One problem I have with modern music is there's nothing I can remember in a piece, no bits of meoldy or rhythm that I have mental hooks for.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Wild Flowers

2011-02-21T11:20:00.002+02:00

On the hills and in the valleys outside the city, and here and there within, wild flowers are blooming -- red, purple, yellow and white.

Copyright Jane S. Fox

Excavating Acncient Debris

2011-02-20T14:03:00.002+02:00

Friday we sifted dirt from the Temple Mount, finding small pieces of pottery, bone, shell, metal, glass, mosaic tiles, and one silver coin.

A huge mound of debris awaits volunteers to sift it. After the amteurs wash and pick through each bucketful, an advanced archeological student or trained archaeologist looks throught it again, usually finding one or more tiny bits -- a piece of pottery or a bit of corrosion encrusted metal. Later all the volunteers' finds will be carefully examined and some will be rejected as ordinary stones. Yet the archaeologist who welcomed our family group said that without volunteers the work would never be done. He gave us an overview of the project. When our two hours were over, we looked at some of the already-catalogued finds and talked a little about what they told us.

When the Waqf sent its Jordanian archaeologist away on vacation, bulldozed deep into the hill, and trucked the dirt a few miles downt he Kidron Valley, they were diggin in an area that Herod filled in when extending the Temple and its grounds more than 2000 years ago. The area was disturbed again by Crudader builders. None of these had any idea of preserving the past. So while what was moved and dumped a few years back definitely came from the Temple Mount, it would have been impossible to say where on the hill the earlier items came from, even if the Waqf had not moved them.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Clong

2011-02-17T12:06:00.002+02:00

A light rail train went past me on a practice run this morning. There is a bell. Sound like metal hitting a thick metal pipe. The driver wasn't using it much, but I expect to hear the sound more when there are more trains, and they take on passengers who will be tempted to run across the road.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Entertainment

2011-02-16T13:46:00.002+02:00

Sunday night's theater production pf Plufenbach and Zufenheim (I may have spelled that wrong, but it doesn't matter) was done in "german" doubletalk (see Sid Caesar explaining and doing this at http://www.sidcaesar.com/vidclips.html ) with a few humorous translations into Hebrew. I didn't know i was lost until 15 minutes before the end.

Monday afternoon's free concert was in complete contrast to the previous week's presentation of modern Israeli music. Last week it was interesting to hear the composers explain what they were trying to do, and once or twice i had the feeling of understanding they had done it -- rather like Sunday's play. This week's concert was the sort of classical music that seems very clear, though I expect the composers could have explained depths I miss on an intellectual level.

Two hours after the concert ended we were back at the Jerusalem Theater for a dance performance, Srul. First time I'd seen a bucyle and multiple walkers used in a dance performance. There were program notes, but I could have used supertitles explaining each scene. Nevertheless pleasurable.

Row 9A may be the best in the Sherover Theater.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Psalms Museum and Rav Kook's House

2011-02-14T14:16:00.003+02:00

On our way from Beit Ticho we turned into the courtyard of the Psalms Museum. As we noted the paving covering a rainwater cistern, typical of its day, a woman asked if we had come forthe NaturePreservation Society tour. "We're members," we said, and we attached ourselves to her and the one person who had heard about the tour. The nature Preservations Society (http://aspni.org/ ) does good work but indifferent publicity for their Jerusalem tours in English. This tour covered the Psalm Museum and other buildings around the courtyard including Rav Kook's House, and Beit Ticho, down the lane.

The Psalm Museum (http://www.gojerusalem.com/discover/item_192/Museum-of-Psalms ) is and unusual place worth a visit. It is the work of one dedicated man. The display of his paintings extends behind the building, around the back and side of Rav Kook's house. I don't know of many tours that go here. It's in a part of the city where the walking is easy, so if you have a free hour, take it in.

Nearby Beit Ticho (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/beit-ticho.html ) where the admission is also free, often has interesting exhibits. Not yesterday, though, but I did see the video about Anna Ticho's life, interesting if you fill in between what's said.

Rav Kook's house does have an entry free. We arrived when their guide was giving a tour. They also have a video of the man's life and plan a modernized exhibit this summer.

If you walk back out Ticho Lane and cross HaRavKook Street you'll see a gorgeoud building, built to be the Italian Consulate, now a Franciscan Institution. Down the street a little is an "Art and Antiquities" store with the stranges objects in its display windows. Sherut's (shuttles) still pick up passengers on HaRav Kook, though they can no longer turn into Jaffa Road (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/jerusalem-light-rail.html ).

A lovely walk now connects HaRav Kook Street to HaHavatselet. One thing the Jerusalem Municipality does well is benches.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Finding Artifacts from the Temple Mount

2011-02-12T19:47:00.003+02:00

http://templemount.wordpress.com/volunteer-information/ has informaiton about volunteering to help sift the dirt that the Waqf ordered scraped off of and excavated out of the Temple Mount a few years back. All archaeologiests can tell now is that the artifacts you'll find came from the Temple Mount, not their exact location. Makes this a slightly different kid of archaelogy. But because of where the dirt came from it's so rich in artifacts from thousands of years ago that you're sure to find lots.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Turkish Guest Towels

2011-02-11T09:44:00.004+02:00

Not what you'd call "turkish towels" at all, the towels in the exhibit of Ottoman embroidery at the Museumfor Islamic Art (http://www.islamicart.co.il/en/ ) are large but delicate. The Ottoman Empire lasted a little under 500 years, if you count from the fall of Constantinople in 1453, longer if you count from Osman I's reign over Anatolia. Osman's people were Turkic, from Central Asia. (The Ottoman Empire ruled the Land of Israel for hundreds of years.)

These towels, from the royal palace are the finest cotton batiste with silk, silver, and gold embroidery in broad bands. They were probably the work of royal wives and concubines who had little es lese to keep them busy. An explanatory video shows some of these women, looking remarkably western. I suspect those pictures were the work of the wived of English diplomats. In the 18th and 19th centuries "taking a likeness" was an "accomplishment" taught any gentlewomen who had the talent to learn.

In conjunction with the exhibit, which includes large and small rugs, and pottery of similar motifs, the museum is presenting a series of lectures by Rafi Yisraeli on the history of the Ottoman Empire. Last night he taked a bit about the young teenaged boys who were drafted, mostly from Christian areas, and brought to Istanbul to be converted to Islam and educated in complete isolation from their families They grew up to be immensely loyal to the empire, entering the top levels of its administraiton. So I've read and so Professor Yisraeli said. A remarkable triumph of education.

COpyright 2011

Young Jerusalem Drivers

2011-02-11T07:36:00.002+02:00

Headline in the local paper: It's Official. Young Jerusalem Drivers Worst in Country.

Aqueducts

2011-02-10T06:53:00.003+02:00

Guides can be a bit vague about how the bits of aqueduct in and around Jerusalem are connected to each, though I'll bet there's a book or at least an article diagramming that.

I'm pretty sure there was only one aqueduct leading into the city, the one from the high hills a little south of Bethlehem. Romans had the first parts of this built to supplement the water supplied by local springs. I started to say, "The Romans built," but I highly doubt any Romans did the labor of building. Roman engineers did do the equally important design work. Guided tours sometimes get permission to take tourists through the tunnel (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/haas-and-goldman-promenades.html )that brought the water through the last hill before crossing the last valley.

Near Yemin Moshe (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/montefiores-windmill.html ) you can see another bit of the water system from the Roman period. To the left of the path from Yemin Moshe to the Cable Car Museum (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/jerusalem-cable-car.html ) runs a rectangular-cross-section stone channel on a level with the path and in places slightly lower. Some of the thin slabs that topped the aqueduct are gone. I'm surprised they weren't all taken for building material long ago. But there's so much re-useable building stone around.

One guide, who spent much of her childhood in Australia, said, "In Australia they'd build national park around a find like this." Well, if they found a 2000-year-old Roman aqueduct in Australia, I should think they'd pay a lot of attention to it ;=)

The Talpiyot water tunnel was used through much of the period between Roman control and British control. I don't know about this channel, but it doesn't look as if it had to be excavated. A lot of archaeology in Israel is done by noticing what's clearly visible and figuring out what it is and when it was built.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

First Car Train Accident

2011-02-08T13:40:00.001+02:00

The accident between a light rail (trolley/tram) train and a car in Jerusalem was reported today.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Fire-fighting Plane

2011-02-03T20:43:00.003+02:00

Not a Jerusalem story (I hope) but (shere in Jerusalem) I just saw on TV a test of a Russian forest-fire fighting plane that was really amazing. The plane "lands" on its belly on the sea and scoops water into its belly as jets continue to move the plane forward. Up moves the plane to drop its water on any nearby fire.

Not any use for a fire in Colorado but I suppose they've got similar planes in California.

I'd never seen the like. Imagine piloting that!

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Bridge and Hourglass

2011-02-02T09:28:00.003+02:00

Santiago Calatrava's Jerusalem Chords light rail bridge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chords_Bridge )looks odd and out of place when you approach the western entrance to the city, when you look at it from the Central bus station or indeed from anywhere else close up. You wonder whether there's a master plan to rebuild the city in glass and stainless steel (sign to avert the evil eye).

But seen reflected in Anish Kapoor's hourglass sculpture at the top of the Israel Museum's hill (http://www.sculptsite.com/sculpture-headlines-Anish-Kapoor-08-15-10.html ) the bridge sails towards the buildings, not playing their music perhaps but eager to reach them.

Upside down.

Turn around and see the bridge's distant beauty right side up. Turn back and walk around the sculpture on days clear, cloudy, and overcast.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Housecall

2011-02-01T10:52:00.003+02:00

A friend in her 70s did not get a flu shot and did get the flu. She phoned her HMO and told her doctor how she felt. After listening to her answers to his quuestions, he made a housecall to check out her lungs.

This sensibly kept her away from the hospital and from the clinic waiting room. Last time I heard of a doctor's housecall was in England, years ago, when a National Health Service doctor came to the house to check on a newly-arrived visitor whose symptoms could have indicated one of those tropical diseases public health services want contained at once.

Israelis have mandatory health care under a multi-provider, single-payer system. An agency similar to the US Social Security payes HMOs the same fee for each person they insure. Citizens pay a health tax to the National Insurance, a tax proportional to their income. People on welfare pay the same percent of their welfare checks as high-tech employees pay of their paychecks.

It seems to work.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Miniature Village on Aza near Tikho Park

2011-01-31T10:52:00.005+02:00

At first I thought it was an elaborate birdhouse. By the entrance to the crescent in front of Aza 44-58 (even), just below the little Dr. Tikho Park, someone has built a minature wooden village with mirrored windows. The only sign I saw on it said only, "Don't touch." There are square towers like those on a wild wist fort and small buildings, all connected together. What does this represent?

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Talbiyeh

2011-01-31T07:46:00.006+02:00

This week's municiality walking tour covered familiar territory, but I always learn something new with a guide. Why is the Jerusalem theater where it is? Mrs. Sherover, who donated the money for the original building, wanted it across the street from her house. Unfortunately the neighbors have managed to keep public transportation at a distance. The guide insisted that a municipal theater needs access by public transportation, but the theater seems to be doing very well with the nearest bus stop three blocks away.

The plaza in front of the theater has a lovely view -- and lots of benches, which are comfortable unless wet, which they too seldom are this year. Spring,m summer, and fall festivals, fairs, and happenings enliven this plaza. Inside, all year, concerts, movies, dance performances, plays, comedy acts, art exhibits, lectures, concerts in the lobby, and a restaurant with very good salads and tasty soups attract crowds age 5 and younger to at 90 and older.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Jerusalem Light Rail

2011-01-29T20:46:00.005+02:00

Word now is that the light rail will not be transporting passengers until August at the earliest. According to Yediot Akhronot, the city has budgeted over a two million dollars to teach people, from school children to the elderly, how not to be run over by the train. Since they insist they will allow no other traffic on Yafo from west of the shouk all the way to City Hall, they worry, justifiably, that people will be crossing the street wherever the want to. And since the train is close to silent, pedestrians will have to be very alert."'clang, clang, clang,' went the trolley in St. Louis, but the Jerusalem light rail is close to silent. "'Ding, ding, ding,' went the bell'" but I gather the Jerusalem trains won't bother. Meanwhile getting through the city is slow and I expect the merchants in the shouk are hurting.

Allowing taxis and buses along the part of the right of way now totally closed to all other traffic would keep pedestrians alert, and be a lot more convenient for people who want to go where the train won't. Between the old Shaareu Tzedek building ant City Hall (Safra Square) the train won't be able to go fast anyway because the stops are close together.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Israel Museum Reopened

2011-01-28T14:44:00.003+02:00

Went to the finally-reopened Israel Museum this morning. Lovely and frustrating. I hope they don't think they've finished labeling the artifacts in the archaeology section. I'm willing to think they have a reason for placing benches where people seated on them can't see anything of interest. Maybe it has something to do with traffic patterns. One is opposite a freight elevator.

We took a Hebrew tour. Good guides always add to my enjoyment. I caught part of one of the English tours. Also good. The tours are free. Ask at the information desk. Several people had fold-up stools I want to try. Because these were identical, I'm pretty sure they rented them at the museum. Next time we go, I'll check that out.

The museum now includes several small restaurants and at least one snack bar. There was live music in the entrance building restaurant, for which you do not need a museum ticket.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

From Flamenco to Balkan

2011-01-26T07:25:00.005+02:00

On our walk home after a Flamenco performance dedicated to Cameron (http://www.andalucia.com/flamenco/musicians/camarondelaisla.htm ) we saw a crowd outside Sigimund's. Two were dancing, others swaying. From inside we heard Balkan music. As we crossed Ha'ari, we could see the violinist and percussionist through the glass sides of the tiny building (really an oversized kiosk). In a taxi we'd have missed that.

This Flamenco concert had less dancing (and fewer dancers) than the last and more singing (and musicians and singers). Except for a headless man a few short riffs by the musicians and singers, including the very pregnant one, all the dancing was by Sharon Sagi, the woman who starred in the previous concert.

The program including filmclips of Cameron (de La Isla) who rose "from the streets" in his words, to be the idol of flamenco lovers.

The music and dance were wonderful, but we would have liked program notes with lyrics. Tantalizing to catch only those few Spanish words I know like girl, tomorrow, and heart.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

New Year for Trees

2011-01-23T13:22:00.002+02:00

This year's celebration of the trees' new year (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/tu-bshvat-in-jerusalem.html ) came a day late but not a grush short. The celebration was Friday morning on the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall. The brass band featured a washboard. Where do you buy a washboard nowadays? I suppose in a music store. My old favorites the stilt-walking trees and dryads were back, one orange tree pushing a stroller that cradled a flowering shrub. The prize goes to the giant dragon puppet, moving like a sinuous serpent -- a credit to its three human controllers. At Kikar Tsion an orchestra played. At the top of the midrakhov an Israeli pop group played and the crowd sang along. In between another bandstand provided space for more musicians. One wonderful violinist played what sounded sometimes Celtic and at other times Slavic, making me wonder about the possible influence of the Wild Geese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_of_the_Wild_Geese ).

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Directions

2011-01-20T15:03:00.002+02:00

I often get asked directions -- today twice in three blocks. I'm fine helping pedestrians. I know what I know and what I don't. Drivers are more difficult because of one-way streets and prohibited turns.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

From Baroque to Iraq

2011-01-19T09:43:00.003+02:00

Monday's Etnachta concert was beautifully played Tellemann, Vivaldi, and Buxtehude. From that we walked briskly to Beit Shmuel for an evening of Iraqi nostalgia, anecdotes, and popular music from the 1930s through the 1950s.

An accomplished singer and six wonderful musicians started the music at 8, when the scheduled start time -- which is to say before about half the audience was seated. The evening's MC and narrator also sang tunefully, and so did the audience -- except for us to whom all those Arabic songs were new.

At least 2/3s of the audience had come from Iraq in 1950-1951. They sang along, which is always fun, and vocally remembered the scenes and experiences. "Paradise," the narrator called it. Hindsight remembers 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) but surely not the intensity of the discomfort. They'd brought children and grandchildren. The atmosphere was rather like a high school reunion.

The Jewish community lived in Iraq 2,500 years, having followed the prophet Jeremiah's admonition to build houses and plant trees in their exile, for return to the land of Israel would take many years. By many years he probably meant 70, but you know how quickly time passes when you're busy.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Hafetz Haim school

2011-01-17T11:55:00.001+02:00

The century-old building of the Khafetz Khaim school on Jaffa Road (across from the sundial, next to the Ottoman police post) is being gutted. About a decade ago the shops along the road were torn down, preserving only the arches. I expect a new building will go up behind the school's facade.

The way they taught at this school was considered overly modern in its early years. The methods are now those of people who fear the modern world and who, without knowledge of history, look back to 17th century Poland as ideal.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Jerusalem Light Rail hahahahaha

2011-01-16T13:29:00.003+02:00

A friend who has not been in Israel for a year asked whether the light rail system was running. Hahahahaha.

There has been progress, or at least change. Tracks are laid. Station shelters are in place with electronic signboards ready to show when the next train will arrive.

Some time in mid April.

Meanwhile Jaffa Road is closed to all vehicular traffic. For three months there will be no transportation, public or private on Jaffa Road. Of the first time in at least 3,000 years.

The light rail project is 13 years old. http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/transportation-mural.html described the warning mural.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

New mural

2011-01-14T11:31:00.001+02:00

Past the top of the steps to Shiloh Street you can see a new mural by Mayan Fogel. I picture the artist as one of the many American students, with long hair and long skirts, who live along the old alleys. The artist has pictured a woman wearing a shvis (a tied-back scarf, which tells us she is married, Jewish, observant, and probably Misrkhi), a long jacket and skirt, and sneakers. She is reaching for two birds perched just out of her reach. The strange perspective, muted colors, and signature say, "I'm not graffiti."

In the shouk (market), within the appendix between Mahaneh Yehuda Way and Hafetz Hayyim (near the Jaffa Road end), new benches provide a welcome amenity. Near them a man sells food grinders. Does he make a living from that?

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra

2011-01-12T22:27:00.007+02:00

Tonight's concert (30 NIS for people who were at the Etnakhta concert Monday) -- early 20th century French music.

The soloist, a Russian pianist, played an encore by Brahms. I'm told Russian soloists expect to play encores.

The walls of the lobby outside the auditorium are bare -- first time I've seen them without art. In other lobbies the current paintings are not anything that holds my interest. Sculptures to the right of the main entrance are worth looking at though.

If you ever lose something at the Jerusalem Theater, ask the receptionist just inside the door to the offices (the entrance in between the ticket office and the main entrance). I left my pocket diary at the etnakhta concert and got it back before the Jerusalem Symphony concert. It's full of names for which I have no faces, times with no indication of related events, and odd notes. Also has both Israel and US phone number, plus one each from England and France.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Israel Flamenco

2011-01-12T08:50:00.009+02:00

At last night's flamenco ( http://www.flamenconatural.co.il ) concert at Beit Shmuel we sat in the center of the seventh row of an auditorium with just the right slope. Nine women tapped and stamped, legs mostly hidden beneath long skirts. Their bodies said, "You don't need to see the mechanics of the artistry." Arms, and hands, and stance are always visible, and the lone male dancer provided contrast.

One barefoot for some, ballet slippers for others, so not-flamenco dance, demonstrated the dancers' wider training.

The male singer had and authentic your-voice-won't-last-if-you-go-on-like-that sound.

Beit Shmuel's Hirsch Theater is a popular, smaller venue. Last week we saw Ruddigore there.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

Saadia Gaon 14

2011-01-09T10:36:00.003+02:00

The front yard of the apartment building at Saadia Gaon 14 (on the other side of the valley from the Israel Museum) displays either an art installation or a creative way to get plastic containers out of the house. Large opaque plastic jugs -- the kind that hold bleach, fabric softener, detergent, and the like -- are arranged around the space. Lots of them. Yellow, green, red, blue, and gold. Abobe six or seven of them are miniature windmills -- not the picturesque Dutch kind like the Rehavia and Yemin Moshe wind mills, but the thin bladed modern kind. Under two or three of these jugs lie on their sides, set with electric clocks, perhaps run from batteries charged by wind power. If this weren't art, neighbors would complain. I'll make a note of the name prominently displayed -- probably the name of a well=known artists whose art I can't say I exactly appreciate, but I did stop and look and smile.

Two signs say "Medad (Yisrael) Daniel." Can't find him on the Web.

Copyright 2010 Jane Schulzinger Fox

Basher remains

2011-01-05T12:01:00.003+02:00

At the center of Khafetz Khaim Way in the shouk, Basher continues to delight with cheeses. The counter that once presented an array of salads most varied, specialty pastas look very up to date but not as ready to eat.

My favorite bourekas place (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/bourekas.html ) has not compromised quality. They've added more "ice" (sort of slurpee) machines near the sakhlev urn. You'd think ice'd be for summer, leaving sakhlev for winter the way ice cream was for summer and krembow for winter. But today is so hot, and I wore so many layers, that passiflora (passionflower) ice was refreshing.

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox

The birds have flown away

2011-01-05T11:58:00.003+02:00

The birds that decorated the Ben Gurion airport are gone. The Lekhem Tushia outlet on Azza Road has moved across the street and up the hill.

Bus Map

2010-10-12T20:51:00.002+02:00

http://web.me.com/jerubus/English_Site/Jerusalem_Bus_Map.html shows the major Egged routes in Jerusalem. It's very helpful, especially for plotting transfers, once you get used to the projection. Once you know what route you want, go to http://egged.co.il/Eng/ and click Find a Bus Route. You'll need to allow pop ups for this site.

Copyright 2010 Jane S. Fox

Monster Bribe

2010-04-15T00:20:00.004+03:00

Was the ugliness, or incongruity of that's your viewpoint, of "monster" opposite the largest mall one reason the bribery investigation went to far? The Holyland development (See
http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/destination.html and
http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/number-4-bus.html is such an eyesore that it couldn't be ignored. Now they're arresting folks for taking bribes to allow it to be built. People spent huge amounts for apartments inside the complex. Do they, perhaps, think their home beautiful?

Copyright 2010 Jane S. Fox

Encounter On the Stairs

2010-01-25T12:44:00.002+02:00

Saturday mornings at 10, the Jerusalem Municipality offers free walking tours, one in Hebrew and one in English. Hebrew speakers, some surer of their English than is realistic, go one whichever tour will cover what they want to see.

Israeli moment on last weeks tour: We started down a broad staircase towards the Western Wall. A police officer stopped us. “There’s a gas leak,” she said. “You have to go back.”

Our guide replied, “We’re at the end of the tour” and led us a little farther down and a little left to a wide landing..

“There’s a gas leak,” the policewoman repeated.

Word passed through the group, with translations for those few who only understood English. They started to turn back, commenting that indeed they had noticed the smell. “Tear gas?” asked one. “No, no. Cooking and heating gas. Natural gas,” another of the walkers said. The first man seemed disappointed at missing an Israeli experience, but he was witnessing one, though he may not have understood.

Our guide beckoned us towards him and began to speak of the Mt. Of Olives as the border between desert and fertility. “Jerusalem has no other geographic features to attract aw,” he said. “But to the ancients this stark boundary between where the rain falls and where it does not – this was awe inspiring.” (The sudden change between green and grey-brown is indeed remarkable, but I’d never read of ancient awe in that regard.)

Another uniformed guard came up the stairs and began to argue with the guide. “You have to take them back up the stairs. There’s a gas leak. We haven’t found it yet.”

“Just a minute,” replied the guide. “I’ve only a few more things to say.”

“Go back up!”

“Here’s where the view is. They can’t see everything from farther up the stairs.”

“What’s to see? Tell them ‘That’s the Wall, that’s the Mount of Olives,’ and go!”

The guide turned back to us and finished everything he had to say, with all the details.

Then, when he had wuite finished, we went back up the stairs.

Copyright 2010 Jane S. Fox

beit Avi Chai

2010-01-24T15:40:00.003+02:00

Beit Avi Khai (http://www.bac.org.il/ ) has (among other amenities) a little theater in which Nurit Hirsh (http://212.68.147.44/NuritHirshNew/index.html ) presented the songs of Yair Rosenblum (http://www.activemusician.com/music--yair_rosenblum ) in a delightful program featuring Or Ilan (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC2GtJvLUbY&feature=youtube_gdata ) and HaAkhim Tzankhani (http://www.mitchatnim.co.il/members/knahanim/pro.asp ).

Rosenblum wrote catchy tunes, ofen sychopating a repeated word.

Projected lyrics helped the audience sing along. Thear voices felt pleasantly friendly, except when Or Ilan set her voice free. Then the audience was a distraction until Ilan's soaring sound flooded my ears and mind.

Copyright 2010 Jane S. Fox

Bus Transfers

2010-01-21T12:13:00.003+02:00

Your ticket is now your transfer on Egged buses in Jerusalem. For 75 minutes after you get on the first bus, you can use your ticket to board another

This changes trip planning. From Dereckh Azza to rhe Malkha Mall, no need to await a 17 or 17 alef, which make their round about way through Givat Mordekhai -- scenic but not quick. To be sure the 31 no longer goes down Azza and straight on to the mall, and past it to stop near the train station, but you can now take a 32 or 19 to Tsomet Pat and there transfer to 6 or 17 or 17 alef, whichever comes first.

And I know at least one man who takes the bus from Bayit veGan to Mahaneh Yehida, does the weekly produce shopping, and gets on the bus home without having to pay a second fare. If you see a man with a toddler shopping very efficiently, don't distract him. He has a bus to catch.

Copyright 2010 Jane S. Fox

Refreshing the Murals

2010-01-19T15:09:00.004+02:00

When CiteCreation (http://www.cite-creation.com/ ) refreshed the colors of the Jerusalem murals, they also carefully aged the picture of the man in the red shirt, standing near the "front" of the mural on Agrippas
( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/trompe-loeil.html ). People with good memories may notice a new shirt on a small boy. Nope, my visual memory's nowhere near that good. The guide on Bet Shmuel's excellent walking tour point out the changes.

And why does the mural, which goes right down to street level, remain unvandalized? "The neighbors like it," the guide explained.

Copyright 2010 Jane S. Fox

Oil

2010-01-14T07:28:00.004+02:00

In the Adullam National Park near Jerusalem, a tower marks a drill. They've found signs of oil shale. Good for Israel? Nope.

What the company hopes to find is oil shale rich enough for exploitation. What they plan to do is a pilot project using steam preasure for months or years to cook the oil out.

But steam is water, and water is more essential than oil. Besides using Israel's scarce water for the process, the pilot runs the risk of polluting the ground water.

And what else will that steam be cooking? Any underground antiquities.

The exploratory drill is in the valley where Judah is said to have gone to the sheep sheering, in Adullam, near the cave where David hid, at the edge of the Ela Valley where we hear of David fighting Goliath. They hope to heat all that area, underground, for years. Meanwhile truck traffic is already injuring the park.

See http://saveadullam.org/english/index.html for more information.

And remember that people who live in oil-rich countries generally, except for a few at the top, have a lower standard of living than Israelis do today.

Copyright 2010 Jane S. Fox

Oil Near Jerusalem

2010-01-07T21:05:00.003+02:00

They're drilling for oil not far from Jerusalem. Good? Nope.

What the company hopes to find is oil shale. What they plan to do is a pilot project using steam preasure for months or years to cook the oil out.

But water is more essential than oil. Besides using Israel's scarce water for the process, the pilot runs the risk of polluting the ground water.

And what else will be cooking? Any underground antiquities.

The exploratory drill is in the valley where Judah is said to have gone to the sheep sheering, in Adullam, near the cave where David hid, at the edge of the Ela Valley where we hear of David fighting Goliath. All to be heated for years. Meanwhile truck traffic is already injuring the national park.

See http://saveadullam.org/english/index.html for more information.

Copyright 2010 Jane S. Fox

Cobbler

2009-11-13T16:00:00.003+02:00

Sandal strap's torn? Handle on your tote's come loose from the stitching? The cobbler in the tiny hut on Keren Kayemet, outside the post office, will do the repair.

I brought him my carry-all tote. One leather strap had come out from the stitching. I asked if he could repair that and reinforce the other three points of attachement. He asked if I wanted to wait.

While I sat on the lastic chair outside, he gave me tea and biscuits. Very hot tea. More than I thought I could drink. But I did. And my tote can once more carry netbook, cheese, apples, carrots, cucumbers, figs. . .

Just about everyone who walked past said hello to him.

If you don't speak Hebrew, gesture will tell him what repair you want.

Copyright 2009 jane S. Fox

Prima Kings Hotel

2009-11-11T22:08:00.004+02:00

The Prima Kings Hotel, where King George meets Ben Maimon (and Agron and changes its name to Keren HaYesod (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/watershed.html ) is good value for the money. If they have a room ready, they’ll let you check in at noon (three hours early). Check out time is noon, but the fee for late check out is quite reasonable -- great if you’re taking one of those midnight flights. The rooms are very nice and a reasonable size. There are luxury touches a clothesline across the bathtub and a hairdryer to get those slacks that last bit dr. You can use an iron on the 6th floor. The TV is a bit tricky because it has extraa features like radio reception. Lots of channels. The breakfast is wonderful, better, in my opinion than at the Inbal, a more expensive hotel (though the Kings is not exactly cheap). The lobby is very pleasant. The staff is very friendly and helpful. Tell reception if you want late check out. Also if you want them to order a shutte (sheroot) to the airport.

But, like most (maybe all) hotels they give a bad currency exchange rate. Well, that's a courtesy service, not their business. Convert your money at any of the no-comission store-fronts instead.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

Jerusalem Inn Hotel

2009-11-10T22:39:00.003+02:00

The room was neat and clean but cramped and unfortunately so near the reception desk (whose clerk was very sociable) and so poorly soundproofed (not at all) that it was very noisy until 11 PM, when the desk closed. Bathroom was actually largish. Breakfast was meagre. Only the forlorn cheese triangles and scant chopped salad were reminiscent of an Israeli hotel breakfast. They did have cold cereal, so if you only like the familiar, you might be happy enough with that. Other guests were several Europeans who looked travel savvy and an American family with kids. Price is low, but if you're staying for more than a day or two, I think you're better off renting a small flat.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

Hats

2009-11-09T22:44:00.004+02:00

The storefront that housed hat shop at the corner (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/on-down.html )of Mitudella and Aza is now an ice cream shop with outdoor seating. In addition to tables and chairs, they’ve put cushions on the low wall the Municipality build as part of the marker for David Siton Square.

On the one hand, can I sit thereon if I'm not eating their ice cream? On the other, pleasant to see people using the wall.

Lots of people around is one reason I feel safe walking alone in the area late at night.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

Birds Fly Free

2009-11-09T12:48:00.004+02:00

After you deplane at TLV (aka Ben Gurion airport or nahtbahg) you walk along the long corridor that tells international arrivals "You're not there yet." The grace of this one is soothing. At one point the glass wall to your right gives you a view down at the fountain in the central departures hall. To your left you can see outside, but no vistas. Soon outside wall to your right you can see another wall. High on it, metal birds soar as their real models do when migrating through Israeli airspace. In your own corridor, on the low wall of the moving walkway, they've painted birds, these bright and colorful. Welcome to Israel.

Buskers and Beggars

2009-07-06T20:56:00.003+03:00

On the ben Yehuda St. Pedestrian mall you’ll often hear violinists, accordionists, vocalists, and Andean pipers playing, many of them making quite lovely music. These are buskers I’m happy to drop money in open violin cases or other receptacles in return for their concerts, and I hope the musicians earn something approaching the pleasure they give.
But there are also beggars.
A woman in her thirties approached me at the top of Agron St (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/watershed.html ) at the end of the latitude’s brief dusk. She told me her story in English. A lost wallet. A need to get to Haifa. The story sounded highly unlikely but I gave her money. She asked for my address, “So I can return your money.” I laughed. “Give it to someone else who needs it, or to a charity.” In the faint light I could not read her expression. “Charity?” she said. “Magen David Adom,” I suggested and walked away with the tiniest of not-quite-hopes that she might think about helping someone else with her deceitfully-gotten gains.
I was sure such beggars approached only tourists with their tales until an Israeli friend said the same woman, or another with the same idea, had told her a similar story on ben Yehuda St. “Did you give her money?” I asked. “Yes, and the next day I saw her buying shoes at” and she named a shoe store not known for bargains. “I went in and yelled at her and she just laughed.”
My friend’s mother, also born in Jerusalem, then told me that such beggars now also infest the Malha Mall. “I was having coffee with a friend,” she said, “when an elderly man came to the table with a talk about a grandchild who was dying in England and he needed money to go to her. It was a beautiful tale, told in the shaky voice of the very old. I gave him 100 shekels and my friend gave him more and we wished him and his granddaughter well and promised to pray for them. A few weeks later the same man approached me at the mall. His memory for faces was not as good as his acting ability and creativity.”
I’m not happy to give such people money. And yet I think of the tiny chance that the story might be true. As the beggars well know.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

Living near the PM

2009-04-30T00:26:00.003+03:00

For the visitor, even for a visitor staying in Jerusalem for a month or two, or a year, living near the prime minister's house is a plus. A walk past the casual sentry puts you where history is being made.

A long car arrives, windows curtained. You recall news stories to mind to guess who's inside.

But the longtime neighbors dislike the disruption. Often a side street is closed because the PM will be driving in or out. For some well-known visitors all vehicular traffic is stopped and even pedestrians are restricted.

Owners of neighboring apartments want the PM's official residence moved. Everyone else says NIMBY. And so a hugely expensive residence is planned on open ground.

But perhaps those who live within a block or two of the current residence only wish to demonstrate blase sophistication. Surely they'll miss the excitement when only historical walking tours clog the sidewalks.

Copyright 1009 Jane S. Fox

Tiffany Lampshade

2009-03-03T00:10:00.002+02:00

I've heard it called "the mushroom," but it looks more like a tiffany lampshade above a huge kiosk.

The name of the little restaurant on the corner of Haari and Aza, opposite Binyamin Mitudela, appears, AFAIK, only on the kashrut certificate.

The soups are wonderful. Crepes not special. You can sit as long as you like.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

Montefiore Restaurant

2009-02-04T17:10:00.002+02:00

The Lion Fountain is flowing again. Magnificent! Be assured that the water is recycled.

The path from the fountain, through the center of the garden, in the direction of the windmill, leads to the Montefiore restaurant. Eat there!

The entrees are good and the bread outstanding, but the appetizers are luscious. Today we shared an eggplant and vegetable wrap and figs stuffed with walnuts and a little cheese. Next time I want to skip the entrees and order three or four appetizers instead.

The view can't be beat; food presentation is beautiful; coffee is excellent; the atmosphere is luxurious without being intimidating; and the prices are very reasonable. Appetizer and fish entree at lunchtime was 78 NIS. Appetizer with pasta entree is 10 NIS less. A previous meal at Cafit cost the same for an uninspired entree alone.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

See also familyhonor.blogspot.com

Ethiopean Performance

2009-02-03T09:35:00.003+02:00

Yad Ben Tzvi hosted a one-man show by actor/playwright Shai Ferdu who takes the audience on the Journey of Ethiopean Jews to Israel. The presentation gives as good a grasp of the experience as you can get if you don't live it.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

Movie: Out of the Blue

2009-02-02T13:20:00.001+02:00

Yesterday being cloudy and damp, as it has been too rarely for the last few winters in Jerusalem, I went to a movie at the Malh.a Mall. "It's in Hebrew," warned the woman selling tickets. "Zeh bseder," I answered. There were English subtitles so I wonder how anyone could complain that an Israeli movie, showing in a theater in Israel, was in Hebrew. The English title of the comedy was "Out of the Blue," not a bad translation except for having frothy, almost sophisticated, overtones unsuitable to the characters. It was a well made movie, light and funny. It's a shame it'll never make any money. I was one of three in the theater. To be sure it was in the middle of the afternoon.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

See also familyhonor.blogspot.com

Costumes

2009-02-01T17:54:00.002+02:00

The Jerusalem Theater hosts free concerts in the lobby from time to time -- anything from a lone pianist to a complete jazz band or rock group. You can see the art displays in the Jerusalem Theater for free, but right now they also have a very extensive exhibit of theatrical costumes, that costs 10NIS and well worth the cost. Thursday I tagged along with the guided tour. The guide greatly enriched the experience.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

See also familyhonor.blogspot.com

Lecture

2009-01-29T14:29:00.004+02:00

In the basement of the Islamic Art Museum (http://www.islamicart.co.il/default-eng.asp ) is a long rectangular room not very well suited to concerts and lectures. Last year it was the venue for a wonderful concert (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/yinon-muallem.html ). The musicians were on a little platform in the center of the long wall. My seat in the middle of the second row of plastic chairs was great. The folks at the far ends may have felt out of it, though we were all an appreciative audience.

This year I've been attending a lecture series there. Rafael Yisraeli's explanations of the bases of fundamentalist Islam are a mixture of admiration and wariness. He lectures frojm along the short wall by the horse armor. From the seats I've had, I had trouble making out what he wrote on the whiteboard and people in the irregular rows ahead of be often block my view of the lecturer, but the content puts what I already know into a broader context, diluting my ignorance.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

Free Weekly Concerts

2009-01-28T08:36:00.004+02:00

Tickets for the Israel Broadcast Authority's free concerts are handed out in the small lobby inside the Jerusalem Theater's side door. Concerts are every Monday at 5 (except this coming week when it is on Tuesday) and tickets are available from 4 PM. You'll get a ticket marked "void" for some old concert indicating a seat that doesn't matter because seating is open. The IBA uses the tickets only to count the house.

While you're waiting for the auditorium doors to open, have a look at the art in the temporary exhibitions. Right now on display are gorgeous pictures that Ethiopean Jews embroidered in painstaking chainstitch. Wish I could afford to buy one.

Last week's concert featured a chorus that proved its ability singing plain song and a Monteverdi mass, then wailed a modern setting of a sixth century Arab poet's lament on her brother's death. After the first few notes we were very sorry he had died and by the end those who remained in the concert hall felt her pain sharply.

In contrast, this week's concert was a joy of percussion. I doubt I'd download this music. The exileration and delight came from sight as well as sound. Nor does a video enchant me as PercaDu ( http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=garu-eGN14I and http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=146495540 ) did in person. I'll buy a ticket to their next concert. They play with the Philharmonic, as you can se and hear on the Youtube, but on Monday I liked them best when the piece was pure percussion.

Anyone know the name of that strange instrument they play? The announcer said it looks like a lying saucer, but I thought it looked as much like a covered, circular, Weber grill. As the announcer commented it sounds a bit like a steel drum.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

See also www,familyhonor.blogspot.com

Botanical Gardens

2009-01-27T07:16:00.004+02:00

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

Andalusian Orchestra

2009-01-26T13:31:00.003+02:00

The musicians of the Andalusian Orchestra having gone on strike for higher pay, their concert was cancelled. My sympathies are with them. They are indeed underpaid. But I did want to go to that concert!

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

Water

2009-01-22T16:02:00.005+02:00

The feeling of virtue from using solar power to heat the water for my shower is washed out by the amount of water that must run until what comes from the tap is hot.

I fill the kettle and a pan to boil an egg, but the water's still running cold.

The washing machine, built on the European model, is filled from the cold water tap. The machine then heats the water to the temperature you indicate. True much laundry is washed in cold water, but there ought to be a way to fill the machine from the cold water in the hot-water pipe.

A note: if you rent a flat, ask whether there's a solar water heater, but don't say "solar," which means diesel fuel in Hebrew. Ask if there is a "dood shemesh." If there is, don't turn on the supplementary water heater on any day that has four hours or more of sunshine, or you'll get water that's way too hot and waste electricity as well as water.

Unfortunately this winter far too many days have hours and hours of sunshine. That rain is needed. Water is scarce. I do hate running that tap till the water flows hot.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

Stop Lights

2009-01-14T14:15:00.003+02:00

The municipality has placed stoplights at the corner of Rav Berlin and Aza and a little way down at the corner of HaTibonim. Getting to the bus just became safer.

When the sirens went off, rising and falling, I though it unlikely that rockets were on the way to Jerusalem. In any case it's hard enough for the sun to get to the windows of this flat. I turned on radio and TV. After a few minutes they announced that a "technical problem" had set off the warning.

If I'd been walking down the street would I have felt different? If people around me had seemed disturbed? I wonder how the cellphone lines held up. I don't have a service that surfs the Web, but many people do, and even I might have phoned to ask someone to turn on the radio.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox.

Carriages

2009-01-12T14:09:00.005+02:00

Carriages (or cars) for Jerusalem's light rail wait not far from the Hebrew University's Mt Scopus campus and Hadassah Har HaTsofim.

I'm told the new mayor suggests the light rail system is an overly expensive boondoggle. Throwing good money after bad is not an action to be undertaken lightly, but the inconvenience of laying the tracks is so great that Jerusalemites feel they deserve some increase in convenience sometime.

Today the bus ride from the central bus station to the shouk (about a 7 minute walk if you don't hurry) took 35 minutes. In Jerusalem a severe jam makes you wonder if there's been an attack, but no sirens were heard, vehicular traffic flowed from the other direction (much of it coming from a feeder road), and the sidewalks were full of pedestrians walking normally towards the bus station and towards the shouk. Jaffa Road's constriction to two lanes was the culprit.

Abandoning light rail would require paying to fill in excavations. I suppose the rails would bring a good price for scrap. The decorative bridge, with its abstract David's-harp-flying buttress, which the last mayor insisted would be as symbolic of Jerusalem as the Eiffel Tower is of Paris, would be Israel's bridge if not to nowhere at least to no purpose.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

Rain

2009-01-11T15:42:00.004+02:00

The rain waited until I was settled in the flat I've taken for a month oh H.arlap -- gotten leben, salt, lemons, cucumbers, onions, garlic, olive oil, butter, a whole-wheat roll, and laundry detergent at the makolet across the street; walked to the shouk (changing money on King George St on the way) and found a bus back (roadwork has moved bus stops); and walked up to get frozen trout from the supermarket. Buying fresh fish on a Sunday seems iffy. In such a dry year I rejoice in the rain, which is not quite the same as enjoying it.

Renting a flat is always chancy. Our sunny apartment on ben Labrat in 2006-7 spoiled me. This one is much pokier but just as convenient and should do fine for a month. In 2008 I rented a flat on Aza for a month. Cheerier than this one, but we were burgled. Police said a previous tenant probably copied the supposedly uncopiable key. Landlord replaced the lock with one whose key was supposed to be harder yet to copy. Next year, when we expect to stay longer and so will have more with us, I plan to change the lock myself.

Friends email for inside info on the current war. All I know is what I read in the newspaper and hear on the radio. Since Ha'aretz, Yediot, Reshet Bet and Galei Tzahal are all available on the Web, that gives me no info I couldn't get anywhere with an Internet connection. I also eavesdrop on busses, but heard no one saying anything about the situation (ha-matzav) today.

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

Vanishing Amenity

2008-08-19T15:36:00.003+03:00

The makolet (rather like a New York City bodega) was one of the greatest amenities (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/snow.html) of Jerusalem city life.
A makolet was close at hand, offered excellent fresh bread, sublime fresh dairy, a widening array of essentials, a small selection of excellent fresh fruits and vegetables, and people who knew you and your preferences. Prices were about the same as at the supermarkets.
Two years ago Shlomi at the local makolet told me that many apartments were being sold to people who only lived in them a few months of the year. I knew that was more and more true in Jerusalem, but Rehavia didn't feel empty. "It's affecting business," he said.
By June the local Makolet had shrunk to half its size. No more could I be sure of finding exactly the white cheese I wanted. No longer did they have space for the particular kind of salad or or the red grapefruit juice preferred by too few customers.

Mt. Zion Hotel

2008-07-13T19:38:00.002+03:00

The Cable-Car Museum (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/jerusalem-cable-car.html ) is generally open Sunday through Thursday from 9 to 4 and Friday 9 to 2, but to get to it you must go through the Mt. Zion Hotel.
The Mt. Zion Hotel is little known and lovely. I have not seen the guest rooms, but the lobby is very pretty, with a good view across the valley to "Mt. Zion."
To get to the museum, turn left as soon as you enter the hotel's door. Keep walking straight along the corridor and through the restaurant. (If there's a party or reception going on, smile and keep going, with proper avoidance of photographers.) Go straight through the doors to the terrace and down the steps. At your left on the bottom is the locked gate on Hebron Rd. Go up the next steps and across the small patio to the museum.
Entrance is free.
The outer room is devoted to the eye clinic that filled the space earlier. Its doctor was husband to the Beit Ticho artist (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/beit-ticho.html ).
The inner room quietly reminds you not just of ingenuity and courage but also that those Palestinian volunteers to the British army were learning as much from supply sergeants and engineers as rifle-range instructors.
Go back out through the Mt. Zion Hotel,and consider staying there someday.

Clip-on Sunglasses

2008-07-11T08:55:00.001+03:00

At least one optition (towards the top of the Ben Yehuda Midrakhov) carries these, though they do not display them.
If you want them, ask.

Children Visiting Jerusalem

2008-06-18T23:52:00.004+03:00

Children like many of the same Jerusalem sites that adults do, thogh often for different reasons.
Kids into role-playng games will like both tunnels from Rehavia to the Valley of the Cross, especially (until about age 12) if you call them mysterious. These tunnels are wide and short enough that claustrophobes do not mind them. The monastery(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastery_of_the_Cross and http://members.bib-http//www.md.huji.ac.il/vjt/98.html http://www.md.huji.ac.il/vjt/98.html ) is not only a monastery, but it looks like one -- tall walls, banners flying. You can climb the hill and walk behind it with the kids making up their own adventure stories, or with you telling them about Queen Helena (http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/helena/Helena_Mother_of_Constantine.htm ) and about the building's history, which is full of intrigue.
Up toward the Israel Museum you will come upon one of the fantastic animals (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/fantastic-animals.html ).
Of course they will like the cable-car museum http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/jerusalem-cable-car.html ) and the windmills (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/windmills.html ).
If you can play recordings of songs that relate to what you are seeing, and tell them what the words mean, even better. One of the shops selling CDs can, for example, sell you a copy of the wonderful song about Montefiore (sung by Yehoram Gaon, lyrics by Chaim Chefer, music by Dov Seltzer), and there are several songs about Jerusalem's walls (though they refer to walls built 1500 to 2500 years before the current walls) suitable for playing if you gather courage to take well-behaved children onto the walls (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/on-walls.html ).
See http://www.hebrewsongs.com/ for links to songs about Jerusalem with words and where to buy them on the Internet. But I think it is more fun to go into the little CD shop near Agripas on Mahaneh Yehuda in the Shouk and, by sign language and key words, sample music.
The Davidson Archaeological Garden has much to delight cildren and adults, including the movie (which alternates a Hebrew version with and English version). In the garden you can go up onto a short section of the wall. Plan on spending at least two hours. The audio tour has some excellent sections, and can really get you into being on a Herodian street or in an Ummaid palace.
At Ir Daveed (http://www.cityofdavid.org.il/index.html is a beautiful but frustrating website), the City of David (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/city-of-david.html ), you can arrange a tour specially for children. This manages to be interesting for adults, too. In summer, you can go through the water tunnel with kids who are tall enough. All year you can go through the dry tunnel. Do not go through the tunnel if the child dislikes enclosed spaces, or if you do!
Children like the energy-saving lights in Jerusalem stairwells. They push the button to trun on the light, wait on the landing until the light goes out, push the button again. One races ahead to push the button o,n a higher landing. That extends the time the light is on.
For a child used to the family car riding a bus is an adventure -- a city bus where you give the driver money and get change and the printer prints out your ticket. You can keep the ticket as a souvenir. The bus starts moving before you get to a seat. It winds back and forth through narrow streets, up hill and down. Who needs Disneyland?
Taxis. Another treat! "Good thing I'm a city kid and I can hail a cab" goes the song. (Google has failed to identify the source.) It's magic for a midwestern kid. I wave my hand and a car stops, ready to take us anywhere.
The shouk (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/abundance.html )can be almost too exciting. "What are those men shouting?" asks an eight-year old. He stands very close to me. "Bananas two and a half shekels a kilo," I tell him "Clementines three shekels a kilo." He moves a little away from me and listens. "Yes," he says. "I hear 'bananas' and 'kilo.'"
For kids who don't like strange food, there's pizza.
If you're traveling with kids, and staying for a week or more, a funished flat may be just what you want for a Jerusalem experience. Tsimmer -- from the German Zimmer -- is the Hebrew near-equivalent of B&B. The plural is tsimerim. Some come with breakfast, others without.
http://www.zimmeril.com/sSearch_EN.asp?Stype=1&Sreg=8 Also see flathunting.com where you can post your needs.
HaMifletzet in Kiryat Hayovel (http://www.israelfamily.org/photogallery/Israel6-7-8/slides/HaMifletzet-The%20Monster.html ) is a nonarchitectural monster, well enough known to be featured in the small, excellent, and rarely-seen pamphlet published by the Jerusalem Municipality Tourist Division. In a shady park (a project of the Jerusalem Foundation.), HaMifletset is a tall, piebald monster, whose three tongues are slides.
The 18, 20, and 24Alef (from the Israel and Biblelands Museums) bus stop nearby. Ask a fellow-passenger where to get off for hah-meef-let-set. In your question, use as few words as possible. When you get off the 18, go right. It is about a block from the bus stop. You can ask anyone "HaMeeletset?"and get directions.
If you walk back to the bus stop, continue a block, cross at the T-junction, and turn right, you will see to your left a good, kid-friendly, little restaurant with tables outside and inside. Childrens will notice the dancing cows on the pillar outside. The restaurabt will also package for you you a freshly-cooked take-out meal (the common Hebrew expression sounds very like take out, and the owner and staff speak enough English to explain what's available) for a very reasonable price. You can get shawarma or regular food.
Farther along the street, next to the supermarket (Hebrew: "soopehr") is a pizzaria.

Wash cloths

2008-06-10T16:29:00.002+03:00

I've not been able to find wash cloths in Jerusalem.
I'm sure they can be bought somewhere, but I haven't seen them where they sell towels.

Grey Hair

2008-05-13T17:07:00.003+03:00

If you want your hair cut carefully and professionally in Jerusalem by a native American, call Eric of Alaska at 02 652 1267.
He made my hair beautiful -- just by the cut.
Eric's shop is upstairs at Kikar Dania ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/beit-hakerem.html ). Lots of buses go there. When you phone, ask him which one to take from wherever you are.
Eric doesn't expect every grey-haired woman to color her hair. Mrs. Ohlmert is either his customer or gets her hair cut by the only other expert in the country with this viewpoint.\
I've never found grey-hair shampoo in Jerusalem.

Free Concerts

2008-02-05T09:45:00.000+02:00

On Monday afternoons, Kol HaMusica (a service of the Israel Broadcast Authority http://www.iba.org.il/ ) invites the public to a free concert at the Jerusalem theater.
Tickets are handed out at 4. The concert is at 5.
Yesterday the program was part of a Schubert festival -- lieder interspersed with string quartet and string quintet. Last week a Japanese violist played solo and ensemble.
You could listen on the radio, or have the experience of wonderful music with an appreciative audience.
The cafe in the lobby serves excellent coffees and the tasty salads usual in Israel with some of the best bread.
Beneath the theater (entry from outside) Yan's Coffee House offers atmosphere so thick that the staff provides flashlights. Because of the 35NIS minimum per person, we left without ordering.

Light Rail

2008-02-04T14:55:00.000+02:00

On Sderot Herzl -- which runs from near Jerusalem's central bus station, past Kiryat Moshe and Beit HaKerem (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/beit-hakerem.html ) -- to Har Hertzl) they have laid tracks for the promised light-rail system.
To my eyes the gauge seems to be the standard for regular trains.

Yinon Muallem

2008-01-30T08:14:00.001+02:00

The room in the basement of the Islamic Art Museum was about the right size for chamber music, though not quite the right shape. We arrived early enough to sit close to the musicians. Their music encompassed us. Greece, Iran, Bulgaria, Iraq beat through us into the hall. You had to be there. I bought CDs, but to be in the presence of the musicians to see them and feel the crowd listening, t hat cannot be recorded. Check the notice board in the wall outside the Islamic Art Museum or their website ( http://www.islamicart.co.il/default.htm ) for events.

Yinon Muallem - vocals, percussion (http://www.yinon-muallem.com/live/ -- but this doesn't capture his percussion virtuosity)

Nissim Lugasi - vocals, tar

Eyal Sela - clarinet, flutes

Yankele Segal - bass guitar

Yaniv Raba - `ud

Copyright 2009 Jane S. Fox

Arbor Day

2008-01-22T15:35:00.000+02:00

Four different new years are referenced in the Bible. Ancient Jews decided that the onr on the 15th of Av is the new year for trees.
At noon in Jerusalem the rain paused . The sun even shone briefly. The entertainers in the Maheneh Yehuda shouk drew crowds.
When the Kurdish dancers walked up the street with drummer, horn, and shofar (which I did not hear sounded) the Klezmer band played a marching tune until they passed. Then the clarinetist took fire.
A marching klzmer band, heavy on the brass, made the rounds.
Elsewhere, a woman sang in Ladino and her musicians played eastern melodies, old and new.
Alround the corner, two older men with glorious young voices sang songs that passersby foxtrotted to, though the Artie Shaw never played such eastern modes.
A mime in the best tree costume I have ever seen grew slowly. Another mime was draped in white, like the blossoms of the almond tree, which blooms at this season. A stilt walker appeared in more white drapery and another as a more colorful tree. Clowns tossed roses from balconies. Line dancers debkaed. Jugglers juggled. A candy maker rolled mashed dates in oatmeal and ground almonds.
Camera phones were held high, but you really want to be there.

Tu bShvat in Jerusalem

2008-01-20T09:45:00.000+02:00

This year, Tu bShvat, falls on Tuesday, January 21.
The Municipality has announced that entertainers will be in the Mahaneh Yehuda shouk from noon to 4.
So the entertainment won't be unexpected ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/unexpected-february-entertainment.html ).
Though if it rains, the expected entertainment may be cancelled.

Frozen Rainwater

2008-01-18T14:02:00.000+02:00

Today, a week after the last rain, we found ruts full of water on a dirt road just outside Jerusalem. This was on the Nahal Soreq hiking and biking trail, just west of the entrance to the Hubert Humphrey Park.
In shaded spots of water was ice, not a thin sheet but two or three centimeters thick.
I have been repeating, "No ice on the sidewalks" with glee, even on the coldest days.

The Mikado

2008-01-10T22:02:00.000+02:00

Enough groups in Jerusalem produce Gilbert and Sullivan that you can go to one of their operettas once or more each year. Today, The Mikado was presented at Beit Shmuel (http://www.beitshmuel.com/english/ ), about two blocks from the King David Hotel, where George W. Bush was staying.
The production was professional-quality (and some performers were, indeed, professionals) and enjoyable.
On nearby streets what seemed to be the entire Israeli police force was arrayed. They had set up barriers to block traffic and put on down-filled ski suits as protection from the projected freezing temperature.
Keren HaYesod Street was blocked, I supose because it is on the path from the hotel to the Prime Minister's office. At one intersection the police told us we could not cross. Two blocks down, police ignored us when we crossed.
Nobody drove past. One in our party said, "Bush comes to Jerusalem and it is Yom Kippur" (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/yom-kippur.html ).

Plastic Bags

2008-01-02T21:03:00.000+02:00

Who remembers string bags?
Into these, Israeli shoppers, like European housewives, put the produce they bought at the market.
Fifteen or so years ago, Mahaneh Yehuda vendors laughed when presented with string bag or other reuseable carrier. "Yesh nylon!" the stallkeeper would say, pointing to the plantic bags with some indignation, as if the shopper had called him too primitive to do things the modern way.
Now the Knesset is trying to pass a law requiring a charge (of more than 25 US cents at the current rate of exchange) for each plastic bag, "to encourage the use of reuseable bags."
My string bags are long gone. No doubt I will soon find something similar in the shops. And, if we are fortunate, the vendors will expect me to have one, if I don't want to look like a primitive person who fills the landfills with disposables.

Hannukah

2007-12-04T00:34:00.000+02:00

Hannuka (or Channuka, or H.annuka, or other spellings for the Festival of Lights) is said to be an occasion when people who don't look like they bought their clothes there can go into haredi neighborhoods like Meah She'arim in Jerusalem without being harrassed. This is true wherever Jews follow the commandment to publicize the miracle. (No one follows all the commandments and those who violate this one, and the commandment to provide hospitality, do not welcome outsiders at any time.)
You can see the lights in many other Jerusalem neighborhoods. Try Nahalaot.
All along the street, oil lamps flicker in glass enclosures. Some buildings have a glass-doored niche built into the wall along the sidewalk. Elsewhere families put the lights on a kitchen chair or small table beside their gate.
If you are in Jerusalem during Hanuka (minimalist spelling), go out between 5:30 and 6 and stroll around any neighborhood where people put their hanukiot (eight branches plus one candlelabra) outside. Elsewhere you will see the lights in windows and on balconies.
Ha'Shla St. in the Sha'arei Khesed neighborhood is a good place to start. See eMap (http://www3.emap.co.il/eng_index.asp) for directions. Keep turning corners to see more and more of the lights, tiny but lovely.
In windows, candles burn in greeting-card "menorahs." (A misnomer. Th menora was the seven branched candelabra in the Temple. But, since the holiday commenmorates the relighting of lights in the Temple, why not call its candlelabra a menora?)
In the shouk, wait till a batch of soufganiot comes out of the oven. Buy some hot. The traditional red jelly ones are still best. The bakery on Yafo, between Mahaneh Yehuda Street (the widest in the shouk) and Eitz H.ayim (Chaim) (the narrower alley with Bashar's cheese store in the middle) has some of the best. The soofganiot at the more modern bakeries get lower ratings in newspaper polls.