Focacia

Ate lunch at focacia on Emek Refaim. Good, fresh food. Awfully large portions.

Copyright 2016 Jane Fox

Urban Planning

• The Jerusalem Municipality has a plan to widen Rehov HaNeviim ((http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/street-of-prophets.html ). This would mean tearing down beautiful walls and buildings, some a century and a half old. Perhaps facades would be preserved as the are on Rehov Yafo near the shouk.
• The Jerusalem Municipality has a plan to build a parking ramp on the hill overlooking the Valley of the Cross ((http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/view.html ) from the east. This would require destroying the park.
• The Jerusalem Municipality has a plan to allow two high-rise hotels in the Moshava ((http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/german-colony.html ). One would be built over the German Templar meeting house, an architectural gem at the apex of the triangle.
• I think that the streets division of the transportation department considers only transportation and the parking division only cares about meeting parking goals. What the building-permit people have in mind is murky.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Book Mark

• Derekh Beit Lekhem (Bethlehem Road) is one of the three streets marking the original boundaries of HaMoshavah Ha Germanit (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/german-colony.html http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/emek-refaim.html http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/iccy.html ).
• It continues into Baka, where streets are named after Bible personages. The feel is quite different from in the Moshava, and I have been trying to figure out why. The buildings have a similar 1930's look -- faceted stone, two stories. Here is a buture shop, on the corner is a greengrocer. Perhaps it is the upholstered chairs on the sidewalk outside a coffee shop near Ester HaMalkah Street. Perhaps that the coffee shop is not part of a chain.
• It is a pleasant and interesting to walk along a street less frequented by tourists. When you get to Yehuda Street, you can turn right to get back to Emek Refaim or left to go to the Tayellet (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/sherover-promenade.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/haas-and-goldman-promenades.html ).
• Check http://www3.emap.co.il/eng_index.asp or your Carta street map. BTW, Carta makes a spiral-bound version. This avoids unfulding and refolding. If you don't find it confusing to jump from page to page, it is handy.
• At Book Mark, a crowded used-book store on Ester HaMalkah, I found the cartoon books I wanted.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

German Colony

• Jerusalem's German Colony is in the triangle formed by the streets Emek Refaim, Derekh Beit Lekhem (Bethlehem Road), and Emile Zola, including both sides of those streets.
• The founders were a sect of "Pietists" who broke away from the Lutheran Church in Germany and, in the 19th century, moved to "the Holy Land" to live a holy life.
• They were craftsmen and innkeepers and good builders. Much of their iron work survives, ad do those buildings that have, so far, excaped developers. Hoffman's large house remains, tall and imposing.
• The stone building at the point of the triangle (near the Ottoman railway station) was their meeting house. I'm told they did not believe in churgh buildings. After the founding of the State Of Israel, Armenians used the building as a church until 1967, when they regained access to the Old City.
• In 1917, when the British conquered Jerusalem, they interned the Germans and sent them to Cairo. After that war, the colonists returned. In 1941, the British, citing pro-Nazi activity in the Colony, interned the Germans and shipped them to Australia and New Zealand.
• Later, when the State of Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany were discussing reparations, Germany transferred ownership to Israel and took over liability for the confiscated property. Israel had already settled refugees in the buildings. Eventually, tenants bought their flats -- or didn't and kicked themselves later.
• Many tourists walk along Emek Refaim (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/emek-refaim.html ). Few explore the small streets within the triangle. In places you might imagine yourself in a German village -- or at least in a Wisconsin version of one.
• In one house a vintner made wine, and beer was brewed in another. Across Emek Refaim, a restaurant promised local wine as well as wine from the Jewish wineries of the north. In one place an enterprising man filled his cistern ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/cistern.html ) with whitewash for sale.
• It is the small meeting house that is slated for encapsulation in a multi-story hotel.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Pump

• Watch the map for street names. Soon after the 4 turns left on Emek Refaim, where the last bit of HaMagid (closed to vehivles and considered beneath the mapmakers’ notice) opposite Wedgewood, you can see (on the left) a pump above a rainwater cistern – now of historical interest only. If you miss it in this direction, you can see it on the right on your way back.
• See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/cistern.html Walking through the various neighborhoods of Nakhalaot, I see many "well heads" (leading not to ground-water wells but to rain-water cisterns) but no pumps. Scrap metal is valuable.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Ice Cream

• The Italian Ice Cream man sets up his machine at fairs and festivals (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/art-and-pasta.html ). He opens the mechanism, takes a small cup from the freezer, affixes it inside and clicks the nozzle back in place. A press of the button produces true-tasting chocolate and vanilla soft serve. This sign offers melon, rum, and whiskey flavors, but I have not tasted these.
• On Tuesday he was in schoolyard on Emek Refaim along with seven sellers of costume jewelry; a potter; a maker of glass plates and pitchers; two used-book stalls; sellers of Indian silk skirts, blouses and tunics (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/daughter-of-salwar-kameez.html ); racks of cloth handbags and t-shirts; a table with limoncello, mulberry jam, and hand-cured olives; a fresh fruitshake stand and another selling South American derserts; more stalls; and a bandstand for a jazz combo.
• Outside the traffic was bumper to bumper along Emek Refaim (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/emek-refaim.html ), but moving. Cars stopped their crawl for pedestrians who stepped into any of the crosswalks ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/not-jaywalking.html ). And there were crowds of pedestrians. When the sun set, sidewalk tables filled at restaurant after restaurant, café after café. Bookstore,natural foods store, and ice cream and chocolate shop stay open till 11. The restaurants (which stay open later than I've been up) continue past Rahel Imenu, and the first block of that street continue the restaurants.
• The fair happens every summer Tuesday afternoon and evening. The strollers and restaurant crowds ebb and flow throughout the week and year.
• If you are staying at the King David, the Inbal (formerly the LaRomme), or anywhere in between, walk down the hill on King David St, past the Bell Park, and bear right on Emek Refaim. Three more short blocks gets you into the feel of things. David’s Citadel (walk up King David Street and continue down the hill); the Windmill (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/windmills_19.html now the Prima Royal); Dan Panorama (formerly Moriah); and other hotels, B&Bs, self-catering apartments, and zimmerim (http://www.bnb.co.il/ and flathunting.com) are all in easy walking distance of a true Jerusalem experience.
• The 4, 4 alef (on older digital displays, alef looks like H), 14 and 18 all run along Emek Refaim. Tell a taxi driver "Emek Refa'eem" or "Ha-Moshava" (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/taxis.html ).There are always empty taxis cruising on Emek Refaim to take you back.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

ICCY

• About a quarter of the way along Emek Refaim http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/emek-refaim.html from Liberty Bell Park, a pentagonal sign points to the International Cultural Center for Youth. Classes from Yoga to Karate, for infants to pensioners, meet inside. Upstairs there is folk dancing on Tuesday evening, and a melodious minyan (http://www.geocities.com/shira_hadasha/) on Shabbat and holidays.
• On alternate Friday mornings in the summer, vendors set up tables under blue awnings in the large courtyard. Near the entrance, artists sell graceful handmade glassware. Farther along it’s t-shirts and colorful carry bags. I found deeply dyed silk skirts from India, flirty and knee-length or layered and full length, interspersed with gold-threaded mini wraps to wear over jeans (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/daughter-of-salwar-kameez.html ) or to delight a four-year old who likes to dress up as "a princess like Cinderella." Rose-patterned glass pitchers and plates from Turkey and Roumania (thick and thin) are ridiculously cheap. Lemon liqueur is deliciously smooth.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Emek Refaim

• Emek Refaim Street, with the neighborhoods around it, is a Jerusalem gem. Plans are to ruin it.
• The area includes HaMoshava HaGermani, also known as the German Colony or HaMoshava ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/bus-4-names.html ), which German Protestant pilgrims built in the late 1800s. The cafes and restaurants are so lively that foot traffic keeps the local bookstore open far into the evening. (See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/performing-arts-in-jerusalem.html )
• The city plans to allow a giant hotel to go up around a Templar building protected as historic. If you book a room, don’t expect to walk out of the lobby onto the colorful street of today. Progress will have faded it.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox