Who'll pay the upkeep?

Friday, to begin Tu B'shvat celebrations (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.co.il/2006/02/unexpected-february-entertainment.html ), the city hosted a sort of street fair at the "First Station," Jerusalem's Ottoman-built railway station (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.co.il/2015/01/walking-tracks.html ). Vendors sold organic fruit and vegetables, jewelry, Ethiopian food, and strange balloon creatures. A brass band competed with quieter musicians while an improv trio performed in a side room. Young kids played games at low tables and restaurants did well.

Outside walkers crowded the promenade along the old railway right of way, while bicycles, pedal cars, and segways thronged the parallel bike path.

I found the tree tour. The guide cared about trees and their politics. I learned that chopping down a tree requires a permit. Even topping a tree without a permit is now a criminal offense. Not that this prevents trees from being destroyed, with or without permits.

I asked how the park, which runs for miles, was paid for. "By contributions." And the maintenance? "The Municipality is now responsible but has not yet appropriated money."

Some time ago the City of Jerusalem decided not to accept land donated for parks unless money for upkeep was included in the donation. This park's origins are more complicated, but I hope they come up with the needed sum soon.


Copyright 2015 Jane S. Fox

Crowds

Yesterday, which was Purim for the rest of the country, the crowds on ben Ydhuda, King George (V; he was king of England when Allenby took Jerusalem from the Turks) and the part of Yafo Rd that connects them were larger than I remember seeing before. Many children and a few adults were in costume. Today, Purim in Jerusalem, they were huge there (buskers on ben Yehuda), at Kikar Safra (stages with flamenco and other dancers, a Chinese dragon, and various other entertainment) and the Mamilla Mall (fire dancers, a DJ, and stilt walkers). Most of the kids and lots of adults were in costume. Klaxons and bells sounding as loud as they could, tram-trains pushed through pedestrians.

Yesterday and today the above-windshield displays on buses alternated showing the destinations (as they usually do) and Happy Purim. Somehow this brought to mind the bit in Zacharia about inscriptions on horses' bells.

Copyright 2013 Jane Schulzinger Fox

Hannukah

• 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.
  

Copyright 2007 Jane S. Fox

Hannukah

• 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 places. 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.

Copyright 2007 Jane S. Fox

Local Entertainment

• If you can get away from your tour in the evening, enjoy a concert at Beit Shmuel (http://www.beitshmuel.com/index.htm), the Jerusalem Theater (http://www.jerusalem-theatre.co.il/default.asp), or Beit HaCohnfedehrahtsia (http://www.confederationhouse.org/english/ ). If the concierge at your hotel cannot tell you the schedule, phone any of these venues and ask in English, or email in English.
• Don't worry about feeling lost. Many people at each place speak English. Many of the concert goers are native speakers (called in Hebrew "anglosaxim"). All three places are in walking distance of the htels on Jabotinsky and King David Streets.
• At the Jerusalem theater and Beit HaConfederatzia you can have a good meal or a glass of wine before or after the concert. Beit Shmuel has a smaller cafe, which is not open as late.
• In my experience, Jerusalem concerts are scheduled for late and start later, but the lobbies in all three places are pleasant. At the theater there is a small book and music store and a changing art exhibit. Often there is also live music in the lobby.
• The Turkish music concert Tuesday at Beit HaConfederatiza was good but a bit academic. The explanations interfered with building excitement. The Oud Festival and the concert of Ethiopean music were hard to live up to.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Oud

• And if you can't come for Succot (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/all-together-now.html ) come in November for the annual Festival of the Oud (http://www.gojerusalem.com/SitePage.aspx?SiteID=175 and http://www.confederationhouse.org/english/festivals/oud/ ). For Midwestern Americans it is a different form of music. I think that if you are even a little bit open, the sound will captivate you.
• Oud, tabla (drum), and another stringed instrument like a small harp held flat on the musician's lap, plus a very thready Arab "recorder" (the kind you blow into). Two male singers. One female. Oh, she was so good! She came pnto the stage bulgy in her black lace top (over a gold lamee skirt) showed every bulge. No glamor. Just voice. Heavenly voice.
• It was mostly music and lyrics by one man, Jewish, born in Jerusalem in 1890, who wrote Arabic, Hebrew, and Ladino (http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Spanish-Ladino/ old Spanish dialect spoken by descendents of Jews exiled from Spain) poems in Jerusalem, Tunisia and Egypt. He also wrote music, although his poems are also sung to mudic from Arabic movies of the 1930s. (See http://www.confederationhouse.org/english/festivals/oud/schedule/?date=12-11-2006 )
• A lot of the audience knew the songs and sometimes sang along to complicated rhythms and scales and melodic patterns very, very foreign to western ears.
• If the musicians came to Madison, even there listeners might be entranced, even with ears conditioned to different scales. ButI sat among people whose music it is.
• You may feel a little lost. The patterns you expect in music don't form. But the energy grows. By the end, after the third or fourth repitition, I could join (in a diffident undertone) the chorus of Ya Khabibi.
• Last night Michael went to a concert of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim music oud music. Also spectactularly good. I also managed to get a ticket for the concluding concert of Persian music.
• Why didn't we notice the Festival in time to buy tickets to every singel concert (except maybe the hard rock opera)? We did but thought,"Oud. One concert will be enough of that." Wrong!
• If you're coming to Israel in November, buy tickets ahead of time for the Oud Festival.
• See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/performing-arts-in-jerusalem.html because three or four of the Festival artists also appeared with The Tizmoret http://cdbaby.com/cd/tizmoret )

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

All Together Now

• If you can only come to Israel once, come to Jerusalem during Succot.
• In the morning, dispatcher to taxi drivers, "More taxis to the train station, more, come as many of you as can."
• Where Shlomtsion HaMalka meets King David, families, couples, individuals – waiting for the walk sign, surging across the street, along Agron’s shaded sidewalk to merge with the stream along the Jaffa Road, they walk faster than the cars, the taxis, the buses, stuck in gridlock, all headed in one direction.
• Happy people, dads pushing kids in strollers, big sisters herding younger siblings, black coated men in belted silk coats and wearing shiny brown fur hats, women in their best long skirts and fine-tailored jackets, men in jeans holding their children’s hands, women in hip huggers, long-haired little girls in pinafores, others in sun dresses or shorts, boys running ahead, reined in with a shout, fai-skinned red heads, dark-skinned Ethiopeans, pesionairs, teenagers, cellphones, "We’re near Sha’ar Yafo," "We took the train," "We left the car in Rehavia, "I see you; we’re over here."
• Crowds and crowds, splitting to go down through the souk or round through the Armenian quarter, the religious holding long celluloid carriers with palm fronds and myrtle and willow, boxes protecting chosen citrons; the secular Jews surprised in their company, all towards the Kotel.
• Then masses go out the nearest Gate to the City of David, below the Old City walls, lining up for tours, numbers beyond expectations, beyond the guides’ capacity. "Come back tomorrow. Early." Good nature prevails. There’s plenty to see, walking round the excavations.
• At six, beside the Ottoman Railway station, ten shekels to enter where 30 restaurants, or 40, cook out. Eat in the Shouk sells "Persian Goulash," Yehezkeli" offers fried haloumi cheese, Pisces does things with salmon, there’s tamarind juice and limonana, a wine bar, shwaarma, felafel, kebabs and kubeh, dim sum, empanadas, gefilte fish, crepes, Belgian waffles, brownies, cotton candy. Booths sell crafts. Bands play.
• From 4 PM, families stream through the security checkpoints into Liberty Bell Park, met by jugglers and stilt walkers, a comic ballet duo on a small stage, Irish dancers from Ra’nana on a larger one.
• Hand-crafted glass for sale, and jewelry, and toys, and pottery, and drawings, and books. Hotdogs and hamburgers, juice and soda, and beer with few takers.
• A drummer has brought a dozen giant tablas for kids to sit on and help make joyous rhythms. In a circle o a large mat kids come and learn, and switch, and parents sometimes drum, and for four hours the white-robed man keeps drumming, sometimes singing, and the energy builds and ebbs and builds higher.
• In a tent a circus. In the "amphi," puppets.
• We stopped by the best Irish band I’ve ever heard. The leader played the Irish pipes sweetly but with vigor. A compelling percussionist. A woman fiddling with quick skill. Two guitarists. The leader switches to a long recorder. Back to the pipes. Familiar tunes with newer beats. We crowd around the barrier. They take a break. We pull up chairs from scattered tables.
• The band returns and shares its energy. Behind them teenage girls appear and disappear. Oblivious to all but music, they jump and dance.
• The band moves from tune to tune. Two girls, three or four years old, slip through the barriers onto the platform in front of the band, left hand in left they turn and turn the way kids can, around and around without out falling down. A toddler runs up and runs around them, and three more little girls, dancing like iron filing when a magnet is moved beneath a table.
• Then a man comes around the bandstand in khakis and a t-shirt, shod in proper Irish dancing shies. Still on the tarmac, his feet begin to tap. Up he goes onto the platform and does the Irish steps quick and riveting, and the children whirl, and he taps and clogs and leaps across the stage, always in the space where the children are not.
• Walking home, we pass the banners whereby the Inbal Hotel welcomes three tourist groups. How lucky they are to be in this city in these days! "I hope," I say, "that they got away from the package tour and went down into the park."
• From the hotel, they must have heard the music. "The entire universe is a very narrow bridge, and the essence, the essential principle, is not to be afraid, at all."
• See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/red-rock.html http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/unexpected-february-entertainment.html http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/06/prtforming-arts-in-jerusalem.html http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/20/succa.html

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Art and Pasta

• Each year, Jerusalem holds an Italian Festival, draped in Italian colors and bright with music, food, and good humor. They call it Art and Pasta.
• In the piazza next to the Italian Museum crowds sample the pasta of three Italian chefs or eat Mediterranean-but-not-Italian wraps from The Coffee Shop across Hillel Street. Commedia dell’Arte actors stroll and dance among baby strollers, children, young parents, grandparents, teenagers, tourists, locals, and everyone else.
• When night falls, slides of Italy illuminate the screen at the back of the small amphitheater in between concerts by a musician of strange instruments (funnels, saw, broom, balloon, and more). A boys’ group sings Italian lustily. A klezmer band performs on the balcony. Children make pasta crafts. (See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/unexpected-february-entertainment.html )
• Inside the small but excellent museum (http://www.jija.org/ENGLISH/JIJA/Museum/Museum.html ), along with permanent and changing exhibits, is the gorgeous Conegliano Synagogue (http://www.jija.org/ENGLISH/JIJA/Synago/synago.html ), transported from Italy in 1951. A sign on museum’s side reminds us that the Jews of Rome have their own version of the liturgy, developed in their community, which was hundreds of years old before Rome morphed from republic to empire. The synagogue has an active congregation and is sometimes also used for lectures., which is how I know that the pews are as uncomfortable as benches designed for human sitting can get.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Performing Arts in Jerusalem

• Sparse publicity for schedules of concerts, plays, and lectures adds spice to those we find (see also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/unexpected-february-entertainment.html ). Israel Festival events at the Jerusalem Theater weren’t on the Theater’s Website, but their box office did sell tickets to the energizing concert of Naor Carmi and The Tizmoret (see http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=21032 ).
• We arrived an hour early for the 21:45 concert to find large booths set up in the plaza outside the theater entrance. One sold bright, fantastic-flower lamps. Others displayed hand-made jewelry, art from Zimbabwe, Indian clothes . In the center of the space an open-sided pavilion provided a venue for a flaminco dancer, acrobat, shadow dancers, and a stilt walker ,who also ambled out among the spectators. The crowd was as sparse as the publicity.
• All this was free.
• Inside the Rebecca Crown Auditorium a fusion of klezmer, Gypsy, Balkan, and Arab music roused us out of comfortably roomy seats.
• Afterwards we came out to find another band playing loud dance music for appreciative dancers. The fair was still going outside. Customers for the Jerusalem Theater’s cinemas and from the auditoriums that had other events that night, filled the lobby and spilled outside.
• The day's heat had radiated out through the clear sky. We walked home at midnight. Outside each full cafe on Derekh Aza (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/two-horses.html ), a security guard sat waiting to look into bags and ask, "Yesh Neshek?"

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox