Saturday Walking Tour Change

Jerusalem's Saturday morning walking tours now have a small fee2018 Jane S. Fox (NIS15)and, more important, require preregistration (https://www.itraveljerusalem.com/free-saturday-tours/ ).

According to last week's guide, the change came about because of complaints tof too many participants per guide. It amazes me that people complain about what they get for free. I have heard Etnakhta concert goers complain about programs or other arrangements. As far as I can ascertain, this year there are no Etnakhta concerts.

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Junkyard

On many streets in Jerusalem, each apartment building (and almost all homes are individually-owned apartments) is set back a little bit with a low fieldstone wall between the sidewalk and the building. These small "gardens" and stone walls are similar to what you'll find in much of England, and, indeed the British set this plan by ordinance when they ruled Jerusalem.

Two or three years ago, along one length of the sidewalk appeared a wall faced in pinkinsh stone, such as I have only seen elsewhere used for pavers, and about two meters high. Soon after a notice from the municipality appered glued on said wall, ordering that it be demolished. I guessed someone had built a swimming pool in the front yeard. Ha!

In the wall was a tall metal gate, more than wide enough for a car. One day, on my morning walk to the grocery, I saw the gate was slightly open. Of course I looked inside. No pool. Some bits of machinery and metal I could not identify. An open area of packed dirt and stones.

The municipality's notice tayed on the outside of the wall.

This year the top of the wall has been removed, down to about a meter, easy to see over and anyway the gate is gone. The yard is full of metal beams, old furneture, other bits and pieces. a sign warns of demolition, though only the ground floor of the three story building seems empty. Pounding and shouts can be heard from behind a barrier blocking the side yard.

So what was here? A chop shop? Meth lab? Hoarder? I'll see if I can find out.

Coypright 2018 Jane S. Fox

Elevators

Any new building that rises more than three stories (or is it three?) above the ground has to include an elevator. The government provides incentives to add elevators to existing buildings. Almost all mulrtistory residential buildings are condos (although often the apartments are rented out), and the house committee has to arrange the retrofit. Even more difficult is placing the elevator shaft.

Jerusalem is home to lots of old people. We see them walking with their caretakers, canes, and walkers. They must have a hard time with the stairs home.

Starwells are too narrow to contain the tiny elevators that rise between stairs in European buildings. Owners are reluctant to have an elevator close off windows or shroten balonies.

But here and there you can see a tower, perhaps at a corner, of an older building. The style of the stonework facing indicates that this is an add-on.

In 2006 we lived in a building with an added elevator, buit it went only to the apartment that occupied the entire top floor. Thatflat's owners had paid the families below them to allow them to add the elevator. I'd guess those lower families could now pay the upper dwellers to add entries on the 2nd amd third )counting American) floors. There'd be no advantage to the ground floor flat, though.

The entrance to that building was tenn stairs or so above the street, so even with the elevator, the housing was not handicapped-accessible.

Copyright 2017 Jane S. Fox

Along Aza

Just because of the day's beauties, I walked to Aza and turned left. Beyond the hardware store and currency exchange, I passed a produce shop. New? Sushi restaurant that replaced Cafe Atara is still there. Never tried it. Past more condo apartment buildings I see a We Buy Everything store. Turned at Rav Berlin. From Azza to Berlin cafe is still there. First time I've noticed that in English it is Between Azza and Berlin. Along Berlin to Brody, up past the bookcase to Palmakh, and back to the apartment. No sweat. No shivers either.

Copyright 2016 Jane Fox

Previous Residence for PMs

On Molko Square, where Ushishkin morphs into Radak, there is finally a plaque outside the building where pirme Ministers lived and worked until the current residence was ready. From the street, you can scarcely see the building behind its privacy wall, but still, I felt history.

Copyright 2016 Jane Fox

The Proposal

At various places near Jerusalem's center are eye-level posters with chapters of a story in Arabic, English, and Hebrew. Each poster includes a map showing the location of each of the seven chapters. I meant to blog about these last week. Just as well I waited as Saturday morning (on the free municipality walking tour) I learned about the illustrations stretched on canvas on the sides of buildings near the posters. They are about the same size as the trompe l'oeil murals by the CiteCreation of Lyons (http://cite-creation.com/), but unlike them the illustrations (like the story posters) are not glued to the buildings and are not meant to last more than a year. If there's money at the end of their year, they are to be replaced with a new story.

Copyright 2016 Jane Fox

Old-City Churches

This morning's English-language walking tour took us to churches in the Old City. We started at the Roman Catholic Patriarchate with a clear explanation of the term in this context. Three minutes later one woman asked what patriarchate meant. I'd never have the patience to be a tour guide.

This one got the filioque clause right.

I had been to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This walk skipped it in favor of a Greek church to one side of it and Coptic and Ethiopian churches on the other -- all new to me.

The Old City, with its staircased streets, requires care for those expecting a smooth path, but that is not a common Jerusalem expectation.

Copyright 2016 Jane Fox

Clean Sidewalks

When we left Jerusalme Thursday night, the garbage cans along our Kiryat Shmuel sidewalkswere overflowing. Garbage made sidewalks, whose cleanliness is the Municipality's responsibility, impassible in places. Saturday night when we returned, dustbin lids were closed and most of the garbage was gone. Sunday morning sweepers were at work. Today, we're neat and tidy. Anyone who visited Jerusalem last week for the first time went away with the impression of a city dirty to the point of endangering health.

I have not read whether the mayor got the money from the central government to hire the sanitation workers back.

Copyright 2016 Jane Fox

Holy Trinity

At the large Russian Orthodox Holy Trinity Church in the Russian Compound, Saturday morning's walking tour guide tried to explain the difference between Eastern Orthodox churches and the Roman Catholic Church. Bemusement. The difference, as she explained it, is in theology -- belief -- and she stuck to one basic difference in the Credo. Bemusement reigned. As she said, Judaism has many divisions, but they are not about theology but about practice or whose authority to accept when deciding how to act.

Not that Christians find their differences any easier to understand. In a Byzantine History class we read about the differences between homoousios and homoiousios, between monophysites and dyophysites, between the Arians and and those who believe in consubstantiality. Wars were fought over these beliefs. Christians in the class found the subject arcane. As for me, I still have to look up the definitions. And the spelling.

In any case, I think she got it wrong. She did not mention the filioque clause, which seems to be at the basis of the difference. If I understand the difference. Which I probably do not.

Copyright 2015 Jane S. Fox

Off putting way in

Walking on Yafo, with Beit Yoel (housing the Village Green) on your left, cross Yosef Rivlin and continue the tiniest bit , not quite to Shlomtzion HaMalka. On your right will be an archway that doesn't look like it goes anywhere you'd want to. Enter anyway. Graffiti cover the walls of a short passage.

But you can already see the upscale restaurants on the way to Yoel Moshe Solomon Street.

Along with Yosef Rivlin, Yoel Moshe Solomon, before he made is way to Petakh Tikva, founded Nakhalat Shiv'a in 1868. Some of the buildings still stand. cross the street and you cam make your own way through courtyards and alleyways to Kikar HaMusika, a new project adding performance space inside and out to modern Jerusalem.

Saturday's municipality walking tours, both the Hebrew and the English, went through the center of the new city, from the Russian Compound to Zion Square (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.co.il/2007/01/handprint.html ) (named for the city's first cinema) and on to Nakhalat Shiv'a. I already knew most of the places and history, but not all. These walks always teach me something new and take me to at least one place I haven't been before, often to one I'd never discover on my own.

Copyright 2015 Jane S. Fox

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

Cross the bridge

Alongside the light-rail bridge at the western entrance to Jerusalem is a pedestrian walkway. It is separated from the tracts, sort of attached to the side. From the train, you cannot see it.

Given a lift to Jerusalem Saturday night, we were dropped off under the bridge. We found the walkway, and walked across to the tram stop at the Central Bus Station. The walkway's pavement is translucent and lit at night, while the street side is transparent, a bit disconcerting for an acrophobe. Still worth the walk.

From the stop across from the bus station, you can get to the bridge if you walk with the tracks and the station to your right. Once on the other side it is a bit of a walk to the Supreme Court building, the nearest attraction, so just walk to the next stop or turn around and walk back.

The bridge does not fit visually with anything around it. But it is beautiful, especially if you look at it while riding the train. And if you think of it as David's lyre, it belongs here.

Copyright Jane S. Fox 2015

Walking the tracks

Some years back, whoever decides such things decided thtat the railway line into Jerusalem, running through a highly populated area, was too dangerous to cars and pedestrians. They overbuilt a new railway station way out at the approaches to Jerusalem (near the Malha mall) and closed the last part of the century-old route. (A few weeks ago they stopped all trains into Jerusalem. Though the reason given was needed repairs, I thinkspect the company wants to get its customers out of any habit they might have in preparation for using the line now being built from near the Central Bus Station, via Modi'in, to the airport, and thence to Tel Aviv.)

A decade or so after they stopped running trains to the Ottoman-built station on the edge of the German Colony, the new light rail trams started running. In the city center they run along a Jaffa Road now closed to all other traffic, which encourages pedestrians to walk on and over the tracks, but so far no one has been killed, even on Independence Day, when the trams gently push through crowds.

On the train tracks through Baka, the city built a beautifully landscaped promenade and bike path from Talpiyot to the historic station, now known as The First Station, where dacnces, fairs, music, and occasional ice skating attract crowds. The old tracks support the walkway. Steel sleepers stick out at the sides. First I knew sleepers could be steel. Along the way are descriptions of the railway's history. Cafes and sellers of fresh fruit invite you to refresh yourself.


Copyright 2015 Jane S. Fox

Water and Guide Disagreement

Saturday's walking tour, thought mostly concerned with outdoor murals ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/fooled-my-eye.html ), paused at Micha Ullman's work "Water," the half of it in Kikar Tsion(http://jerusamelblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/handprint.html ).

This year's guide, a Bezalel grad, said the sculpture represents the union of the sewer systems in East and West Jerusalem, while the 2007 guide mentioned the unity of the water systems. Web sources quote Ullman on the common need for water.

Copyright 2014 Jane S. Fox

Crowds

Crowds in the shouk Monday -- more than I'd have expected on an odd Monday, but the weather was sunny and warm, and Yafo Rd sidewalks were also full of pedestrians all the way to Kikar Tsion. For a long time after they closed Yafo to traffic to build the light rail, few people walked this route. Now I have hope the crowds are buying more from the stores along the way.

Many of the shops sell shoes. "How many shoes can Jerusalem need?" my friend asks. to be sure, in spite of a more and more people owning cars, Jerusalemites still walk more than do the inhabitants of most US cities. Also, I've noticed relatively few cobblers' shops. Many of today's shoes cannot be repaired.

If you like Nayot or Beautifeel shoes, buy them here for less.

Copyright 2014 Jane S. Fox

Musrara

On Saturday, the Municipality's Hebrew walking tour was to Musrara. Somehow the closest I'd ever gotten to Musrara was the Italian hospital (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.co.il/2006/12/italian-hospital.html ), now Education Department offices.

Musrara is easy enough to get to: take any downhill street or path from Helene Malka. It is a lovely neighborhood which went through a period of overcrowding and poverty between the Independence and Six-Day Wars, when people with enough money to live elsewhere considered it undesirable because it was right on the border. Musrara houses at least ten art and cultural institutions, and it is one of the few Jerusalem neighborhoods in which Jews of various religious practice, and none, live together without overt hostility.

Copyright 2014 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

Jerusalem Poppies

Returning from the excellent Herod exhibit at the Israel Museum, we walked around the Monastery of the Cross's back wall.

Poppies.

Not the calaniot. No white ring around the base of the petals. Nurit, I think, though there is a third variety. Here and there flowers which might be rakefet -- but that would be primroses. Not that I'm sure what a primrose looks like, but I think they are actually cyclamen.

Anyway, gorgeous.

Copyright 2013 Jane Schulzinger Fox

Havatselet Street

Markers like the photograph-on-stone signs I first saw on the walls of the little stone houses in the Nakhalaot across from the Mahaneh Yehuda market are appearing elsewhere in Jerusalem. Walk up Havatselet Street and look at the walls for snippets of history. Note the office-supply shop that's been there for many decades. Near the top, where a bridge over your head connects one part of turn and look back down the street.the Hadassah Technical College to another, turn and look back toward Zion Square (named, I'm told, after the Aion mocie theater that used to be there). Not the renovated ironwork.

Turn back and continue to the top. On your left is an eye clinic in the building of an eye hospital from a hundred years ago. It's worth walking into the yard.

Turn left off Havatselet and watch for a forlorn looking wooden door on your right. Through it is a happy place in a building that seems to have aged for over a hundred years without renovation inside or out. Here children brought to Israel for heart surgery stay with their mothers before the operations and while recuperating after release from hospital. When I visited there were babies and toddlers from Gaza and Iraq. I wondered whether their parents had trouble when they returned home, but Gazans have grown used to getting hospital care in Israel and the Iraqis were Kurds.

Copyright 2013 Jane Schulzinger Fox

Details

Many old houses are as full of interesting details as of history. Over the doorway of one on Emek Refaim in the German Colony, a tiny lion looks about to fall asleep.
The Templars came to the Land of Israel starting in the mid 1800s. full of love of the land and humanity and belief in the equality of all of us. One third of their children and grandchildren joined the Nazi party during the 1930s. Education does not always work.

Copyright 201 Jane Schulzinger Fox