Private Guides

• If you've done a guided tour of Israel and discovered that your choices for the next guided tour cover much the same ground, you can go around on your own, or hire a guide.
• Many sites offer English tours: for example, Ir Daveed (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/city-of-david.html ), the Israel Museum (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/model.html ), the Municipality (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/valley-street.html ). Egged's Line 99 around Jerusalem (http://www.egged.co.il/Eng/main.asp?lngCategoryID=2773 ) provides commentary in English as do the other tours run by Egged and United Tours (http://www.unitedtours.co.il/map.html ).These tours let you come to Israel on your own and pick where you want to go.
• Although you can find licensed guides on the Internet, I recommend contacting Beit Shmuel and asking to be put in contact with one of their English-speaking guides.
  972 2-620 3461 or Doron_yosha@wupj.org.il
• Yad Ben Tzvi has excellent guides, but I don't know whether the organizaiton will set up private tours. You can try them at 972 2 539 8855 or had@ybz.org.il
• Tell them what interests you: architecture, art, bakeries, crusaders, literary references, neighborhoods, nineteenth-century history, prophets, travelers to Jerusalem ...; or list things you want to see and learn about. Tell them how much you want to walk or climb and how sure-footed you are or are not.

Copyright 2007 Jane S. Fox

Bread

• Thursday evening I went on a walking tour called "Not by Bread Alone." The more apt "Mainly Bread" would have lacked Biblical resonance.
• We started across Agrippas from the Shouk, the area described in http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/one-block-from-agripas.html and named Mazkeret Moshe, although I did not know that when I first wandered into it. Here was an unsuccessful 19th century wheat field. Jerusalem has not had a climate for wheat -- probably since before wheat was domesticated. On to Ohel Moshe (both undoubtedly named for Sir Moses Montefiore) where we heard tales of bread-related customs of the Jews of Yanina (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ioannina ; Yanina is mentioned in the Count of Monte Cristo). From there to the shouk, because it is an experience not to be missed on a Thursday night and there are plenty of bakery stands, with stories to be told of their history.
• At a Kabbalist center across Yafo and down Takhimoni, a jolly young rabbi told us about mystical meanings of bread and then called his father up the long flights of stairs to tell us a little more and bless us. Whatever else they spend contributions on, it is not on beautifying their bare, but very clean, building.
• At the Avihail Bakery (Rehov Pri Khadash 8; find it on emap http://www3.emap.co.il/eng_index.asp ; the number 4 bus has a stop on Straus, not far from the intersection. I bought some of the best bread rolls I've had this year -- and that is saying a lot. Now that the neighborhood has gone Khareidi, women might feel more comfortable walking to this bakery wearing a knee-covering skirt and a blouse with sleeves (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/between-meah-shearim-and-zichron-moshe.html ). Commandments of hospitality are not well-observed by haredim except to people who dress the way they do. The bakery owner and his employees, however, not being haredim, are very hospitable and nice whatever you are wearing.
• We paused for tales of bread-related customs of Jews whose families lived for centuries in Gyorgia.
• We went to two more bakeries, one tiny operation with a blowtorch-heated brick oven and the other a Persian bakery, both deep in Meah She'arim, where men dress either like early ninteenth-century Christians in Polish cities or wear zebra-striped coats patterned after the style of Jerusalem Arabs, also of the 19th century. Strange place.
• See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/bakery.html

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Brunch

• Brunch (pronounced brahnsh) is a buffet in the style of an Israeli hotel breakfast served, on Fridays, in restaurants and hotels. Anyone who has stayed at an Israeli hotel (except the most basic) knows how good that is.
• The cheap-hotel version includes two or more kinds of yellow cheese, two kinds of white cheese (usually salt and bulgarian), spreadable white cheese, two kinds of olives, cucumber and tomato salad (with bell peppers and green onions) , sliced tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, sliced peppers, leben, fruit juice, breakfast cereal, omelets, fruit salad, fresh fruit, pickled fish, fresh bread and rolls with butter and jam, juice, coffee, and tea.
• The best and most expansive breakfast I've had was at the King David. It added more cheeses, various quiches, fried potatoes, various smoked fish, several additional salads, roasted eggplant, a table of luscious pastries, waffles, and more -- every single item (over three days I tried to sample everything but the cereal) delicious.
• The Inbal hotel opens its dining room to nonguests at 10 am on Friday. For 79 NIS (about 18 dollars) you get a first-class hotel brunch including several hot dishes. It is not up to King David standards. The juice is not fresh-squeezed and the pastires are ordinary.
• At the Cafe Rimon, for 49 NIS (about $11.50), you get a better brunch, including roasted zucchini, roasted eggplant, several kinds of fish, an excellent brocolli quiche, mizrakhi savory pastries (sort of like various sorts of vegetarian eggroll), and many items I could not manage to even taste. I'll go back.
• Do not eat breakfast first.
• I didn't want anything more until a late dinner.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Walking

• I have an hour. The air sparkles, cool and bright. I’ll walk from the top of the hill, down, down to the mall (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/driving-distracts.html ).
• Above the top of Derekh Aza , where ben Maimon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maimonides) St. feeds into Agron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gershon_Agron), is the Terra Santa building. After the Mt. Scopus campus became inaccessible, the Hebrew University held classes here. Here also were the British Council Library amd offices of Magnes Press. Now all have moved out; the huge building is refurbished and dedicated once more to the purposes of the Franciscans, who own it. For the first time, after years of walking on one side of the building or another, I notice the statue on the roof.
• Keeping it on my left, I walk down past the Prime Minister’s Office’s sentry box. If no self-important politicians or foreign visitors are scheduled to drive in or out, you can walk on Balfour (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/balfour.htm ) St.
• Across the street, ben Maimon veers right. With a slight zig, I continue on Derekh Aza, along an ancient route to the sea. Between the two streets is a restaurant's a table-filled triangular patio. Below that is a hole-in-the-wall pizza place where they squeeze fresh fruit for juice.
• A little farther down I once saw two mounted police, exercising or training their horses ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/two-horses.html ). But only once.
• Past the electrical supply shop (open at odd hours) and a dark shop selling candy, wine, soft drinks, and liquor is a florist that sells Brenner’s magnificent chocolates. You can also buy these near the top of the escalator at the mall.
• At right angles to the sidewalk, a dressmaker’s display case shows a witty shirt. Opposite that one dressmaker's form wears a beautifully draped jersey dress and another a top and skirt. The shop (Meshi, but the sign is in Hebrew only) is set far back from the street at the end of a narrow walk. I have never gotten up the nerve to go in. Just beyond is a tailor.
• A tiny restaurant on the corner of Radak (http://www.ou.org/about/judaism/rabbis/radak.html) St. offers sahndveetch tuneesayit (but only when the owner's grandmother pickles lemons). A Tunisian sandwich contains boiled potato, tuna, hard-boiled egg, spicy red sauce (harissa), and other ingredients (http://www.balagan.org.uk/food/tunisian_sandwich.html ). I’ve tried that at home and never come up with anything as good.
• Trees and shrubs spill from gardens over the stone walls that mark the sidewalk’s inner edge. The facets of the limestone facing (each building has a different style) and the subtle color variations break the monotony of the three and four-story structures (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/my-jerusalem-neighborhood.html ).
• To the right and to the left I notice two buildings where curves add interest. It is as if a tower climbs, embedded, up the side, but stops at the roof line.
• Cafes and sports bars are on both sides of the street. (See the end of http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/performing-arts-in-jerusalem.html ) In the evening this stretch is almost as lively as Emek Refaim ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/emek-refaim.html ).
• The fruit stand on the left is said to have the most expensive fruit in Jerusalem. People from the American Midwest don’t think it’s expensive.
• A bookstore across the street puts out bins of used books in several languages.
• I stop at the traffic light. In four minutes I’ve also passed three hairdressers, a copy and print shop, a pen shop, two banks, a convenience store that sells home-style takeout, a waffle shop, a pharmacy, another convenience store with a video automat, a real estate agent, a travel agent, and Lekhem Tooshia (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/shifon.html ), which, in addition to bread and cake, sells good, if idiosyncratic, bouraykas.
• On the sidewalks are women pushing baby carriages, an old man with a walker, middle-aged women in sequined cotton-blend shirts and slacks, here a young woman with arms bare to the shoulder blades and her midsection taking in the sun, there a girl her age in long sleeves and a denim skirt almost to the ground -- only their long straight hair is the same (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/comfort-relativity.html ), a middle-aged woman in hijab, men in short-sleeved shirts, others in black suits and black hats, at least one third of all of them talking on cell phones -- I count six languages in three blocks.
• The neighborhood is proud and clean. Signs on the garbage cans (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/frogs.html ) say the days of the week when they are emptied. Any trash that falls outside them is quickly tidied. In every block there is a bench or two. (In contrast see http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/love-and-darkness.html
• I am one twelfth of the way.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Shifon

• "Lekhem chiffon," I thought when I first read the term, "must be light and fluffy." Had Wonder Bread snuck into Israel, where bread has always been delightful bites of reality?
• Nope. Shifon is rye. (See http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/learning.html for correction. In unpointed text, p and f are indistinguishale in Hebrew, although I should have expected p after a short vowel. I thought I heard customers say shifon, but I suspectpect expectation altered perception.)
• The Lekhem Tushia bakery chain makes a 100% shifon that is dark, chewy, tasty, and satisfying. It defeats our bread knife. I buy it sliced. The 70% and 50% are heavy and brown, but nothing special. Don’t expect seeds.
• Lekhem Tushia also makes a decadently delicious chocolate mousse cake.
• Branches are on ben Yehuda between Histadrut and King George ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/george-v.html ), on Azza ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/two-horses.html ) near Binyamin MiTudela (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/lanes.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/view.html ), and elsewhere.
• On competely different, also excellent bread, see also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/bakery.html

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Bakery

• At Yafo 119 a sign says "Bakery" (in Hebrew, with equal simplicity, "ma’afiya"). Its ovens produce fragrant, tasty Bukharian bread. When the shop is open, the glass case and counter form the wall along the sidewalk. Point at a small flat loaf, puffed up around the rim, snips of green onions on the crinkled surface.
• At any nearby dairy counter buy labaneh. Check that your water bottle is full, or buy fresh juice (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/juice.html ). Turn right at the first street back towards town and then right again to find a place to sit (or http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/stupid-question.html or http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/one-block-from-agripas.html ).
• Spread the labeneh on the warm bread. (It's always useful to carry a spoon.)
• Lunch to savor! http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/abundance.html

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox