Walking Past Windmills

• Afodi Street runs one block from MiTudela straight to Alfasi Street (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/lanes.html ). A little way along, on my right, above a hidden garden, I saw a miniature windmill, on a tower somewhat taller than an NBA player. Its vanes turned. I could not tell if they were catching a breeze or making one.
• At the top of Afodi, I turned right on Alfasi and followed it as it curved up and around to crintersect with ben Maimon. On the other side, the street name changes to ibn Ezra (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/IbnEzra.html ) Street.
• Shaded benches line the walkway in ben Maimon’s boulevard strip. Where the strip ends, I turned left on Arlosorof (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haim_Arlosoroff ), then right on Ramban where Arlosorof becomes ibn Gavirol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_ibn_Gabirol ). Just before the (Prima) Kings Hotel, on the left, is another windmill, the size of a small house, its vanes ever stationary (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/rehavia-windmill.html ). The Greek Orthodox Curch built this windmill and for many years ran it, until bankruptcy after the First World War caused the Patriarchate to sell the property. (The Patriarchate spent millions supporting church members who were displaced and impoverished by theat war.)
• The Windmill Hotel (a quiet, friendly place now known as the Prima Royale) on Mendele Street is three blocks from the nearest windmill, but its name is in the spirit of the neighborhood. The closest windmill to the Prima Royale is the most famous of Jerusalem's windmill's, "Montefiori's," near the King David Hotel. http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/montefiores-windmill.html is about that windmill, which most tourists associate with Jerusalem. Rumors that it never worked are false.

Copyright 2007 Jane S. Fox

Street Signs

• Jerusalem street signs come in several varieties. I have not yet seen one from the Ottoman era, but some may exist.
• At the intersection of Yafo (Jaffa) and Strauss (which changes to King George V on the other side of Yafo http://jerusalmblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/street-of-prophets.html ) is a street sign from the British Mandate period(http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/palmanda.htm ), on the building as is the European custom. English is the first language. Under it is Arabic. Hebrew is at the bottom. Be on the lookout for more of these.
• Throughout the city stree names appear on the building at the corder. They are in Hebrew, English, Arabic, and English. The English transliteration may not be what you expect.
• You can also see two types of signs on posts at corners. One is large, internally lit, and easy to see. The other sort is smaller and metal. (More recent ones may be plastic.) These are the most interesting if you read Hebrew, for in addition to the street name in three scripts, they display a brief explanation of the name.
• Recently thieves have been stealing the metal signs to sell to scrap dealers.
• In Jerusalem even street signs are political. On some the Arabic has been vandalized by ultra-nationalist Jews. On others the names have been vandalized by ultra-nationalist non-Jewish Arabs. In ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, vandals have crossed out the family names of secular Zionists.

Copyright 2007 Jane S. Fox

Streets of Jerusalem

• Ronald Eisenberg's "The Streets of Jerusalem" (http://www.amazon.com/Streets-Jerusalem-Who-What-Why/dp/1932687548 ) explains almost every Jerusalem street name. Who knew Afodi was an acronym? (See http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/lanes.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/windmills.html) )
• Now if I could just find a book that tells what the names used to be. Shlomtsion HaMalka used to be Princess Mary and Heleneh Malka was Queen Melisandeh (I wish they'd left that Armenian princess with a street honoring her), but what was Palmakh?

Copyright 2007 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

Landing Strip

• During the siege of Jerusalem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(1948) ) SacherPark (Gahn Sahker), or perhaps what is now the road next to it, was an air strip.
• One of the pilots was Zohara Levyatov (http://www.ybz.org.il/?ArticleID=1215). A Zohara Lane between HaPalmach (in which she served) and HaTayassim ("the pilots") is named for her.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Bus 4 names

• On the 4 ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/number-4-bus.html ) from Paht to Emek Refaim, street names are from the Bible (Yoshua ben Noon, Ruth , Rachel Imenu, Hizkiyaho HaMelekh) or the Talmud. Along Emek Refaim you see reminders of the British Mandate -- Josiah Wedgewood ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/pump.html ) , Wydham Deedes, and Lloyd George.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Navigating Street Names

• In Chicago a street runs for miles and miles without changing it names. It stops for a park and picks up on the other side, with the same name on street signs. Oh, Crawford was long ago changed to Pulaski within the city limits, but there are few examples like that. To anyone who has navigated Chicago, it is confusing to walk down Strauss and have it change to King George, which becomes Keren HaYesohd ten-minutes’ walk farther along (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/not-jaywalking.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/george-v.html ). Arlozoroff (http://www.blogger.com/(http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/PEOPLE/BIOS/arloz.html ) of the 20th century becomes Ibn Gvirol (http://www.blogger.com/(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_ibn_Gabirol) of the 11th -- the poet is at home among other writers of his era ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/dunash-ben-labrat.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/view.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/jerusalem-street-poetry.html ), while the Zionist has Diskin and Ussishkin nearby.
• To Dubliners it is all quite natural.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

George V

• When General Allenby (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Allenby,_1st_Viscount_Allenby ) rolled into Jerusalem, taking the city from the Ottoman Turks, George V was King of England (and much else and Emperor of India and so on).
• The City named a street after the British king. (For location, see http://www2.emap.co.il/eng_index.asp )
• Princess Mary got the honor of another street, but that name was later changed to Shlomtzion HaMalka, leaving behind a British royal, about whom almost no one knew anything, for a Jewish royal, about whom almost no one knows anything.
• See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/not-jaywalking.html

COpyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Jerusalem Street Poetry

• Poems appeared inside bus shelters and on light poles up and down the streets of Rehavia. The city posted them, not for foreign tourists (except those few who can read Hebrew well enough to appreciate a poem) but for the people of Jerusalem, the people of the neighborhood. Hebrew poetry throughout the ages has been allusive, and modern Hebrew poetry alludes to three thousands years of written words.
• Yesterday a guide from the Ben Tsvi Institute led a group from poem to poem, reading each aloud, recalling the echoes, and evoking connections with Jerusalem and Rehavia. Poems danced images of bright Indan fabrics, stones, and staircases where the light lasts only for a minute.
• Each time I walk with a guide, I learn a little more about the city. Why is Ussishkin St in the middle of poets and other thinkers from Spain’s Jewish Golden Age? And why is Yehuda Halevi not honored in Rechavia by a street among his contemporaries? The story goes that Ussishkin, then head of the Jewish Agency for Israel, pulled enough strings to have the street where he lived should be named after himself. As he lived on Yehuda Halevi Street, that poet no longer has a street to his name. They say that Ussishkin used to dust off the street signs.
• In Madison, US presidents are near Vilas Park while Universitypresidents stretch to the west. In Jerusalem writers from the Golden Age are in Rehavia.
• Israelis rarely give credit to the British for anything they did during the Mandate, but Britain does get credit for the best city planning of modern Jerusalem. They decreed no development in the valleys. They also declared that buildings in Rehavia (almost all of them apartment buildings) should have gardens around them. Because of that, Rehavia streets are lined with green, at no taxpayer expense.
• See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/unexpected-february-entertainment.html

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox