A Snapshot of Jerusalem

Spent the weekend (Friday and Saturday) in Jerusalem.

As I was about to get on the bus at 8 am on Friday, I received a call from my find Nurit who lives in Jerusalem advising me of a change in plans: the Annual Jerusalem Marathon was taking place and the start was precisely at the entrance to the Israel Museum, so it was closed. Goodbye Dead Sea Scrolls.

On the bus to Jerusalem, I realized the bus had WiFi. Maybe I should have looked out the window more.

I arrived in Jerusalem about 50 minutes later, and it was cold. Very, very cold.  Nurit picked me up and off we went, to spend the day in Jerusalem.  She asked me where I wanted to go, keeping in mind that many streets were closed off. I said we should go to the Old City of Jerusalem, to see the Kotel. She agreed and we headed that way, but immediately realized so many streets were closed off for the Marathon that it was going to be hard to get there. Not to worry, said Nurit, we will manage.

Thanks to the road closures, what we managed to do was go to Ma'aleh Adumim.

Ma'aleh Adumim is a planned community built from scratch about 20 years ago, in the West Bank, on a hill overlooking Jerusalem, seven kilometers away. Ma’ale Adumim is mentioned in the Book of Joshua as the border between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. It also is the site of the Good Samaritan parable in the Book of Luke. As a so called settlement, it is controversial, but certainly not to the 40,000 people who live there.  It is an architecturally beautiful community. 

View of Jerusalem 7 km away, from the Aroma Cafe

Nurit told me she had been reading the blog so we found an Aroma cafe right away. It was in a very modern mall, and we sat down to enjoy each other’s company for a while (i.e., until the marathon was over, so we could head back to see the Old City). What I found very interesting in the mall was the clearly mixed clientele of Arabs and Israelis. So much for “Israeli apartheid.”

Nurit Fosh Baltiansky and I were classmates in Chile, and the one thing I remember most about her is that I used to eat her lunch. I don't mean this metaphorically; I mean it for real. She thought her mum packed her too much to eat and I was happy to oblige. The funny thing is, she remembers this too.

I also remember that Nurit was always a sweet-natured person (see above note about lunch) and she hasn't changed one bit.

Not only was it cold and windy in Jerusalem, it was pouring rain. And I mean, rain coming at you from all sides, blowing the umbrella inside out, sort of rain. Rain, and a harrowing wind. And Nurit, like a saint, walked with me across the Old City towards the Wall, always with a smile on her face, stopping to point out interesting things about various spots, never once showing the least bit of impatience even though I am 100% sure she could think of 999 places she would rather be than walking in the cold rain to the Kotel with me. 

Nurit at Jaffa Gate. Rain had not yet started.

Entrance to the Old City

View of East Jerusalem from the Old City

(I did not take many pictures that day because I had to keep my hands inside my rain coat.)

The Wall, a remnant of the ancient wall that surrounded the Jewish Temple's courtyard, is on the eastern side of the Old City, on the western side of Temple Mount, so if you park outside Jaffa Gate, you have to go through the Armenian quarter to get there (a schlep, really).  When we finally got there, I thought I had gotten my Tanach all mixed up: it was raining so hard that it seemed to me I was not praying at the Wall but about to join Noah's Ark.

After a few prayers and "telegrams" at the Wall (all the while trying to hold on to my Shoppers Drug Mart special-price umbrella), we headed back. Nurit asked me if I wanted to go back through the Arab Quarter (a shorter route) or the Armenian Quarter (the way we came in). I remembered seeing the riot squad as they were finishing their shift when we arrived. Each Friday, the Israeli Army deploys the riot squad to ensure there are no riots as Muslim Arabs leave Friday prayers at the al-Aqsa Mosque located inside Temple Mount (think of the sermon they must hear), and they mean business (never mind the Vancouver Police at the Hockey Riots last year).  I opted for the longer route.

View of East Jerusalem from the Old City

We headed back to a new mall that just opened outside the Old City's Jaffa Gate, called Mamilla, and walked in to a great restaurant -- with the most space heaters I have ever seen.

Mamilla was originally established in the late 19th century as a mixed Jewish-Arab business district. Until the 1967 Six-Day War, it was located along the armistice line between the Israeli and Jordanian-held sector of the city. It went into decline after many of its buildings were destroyed by Jordanian shelling. Today, it is a $400 million major mall and entertainment complex. Hello Rolex, MAC, H. Stern, Nike, Polo Ralph Lauren, Nautica, Bebe, and Tommy Hilfiger… by the Jaffa Gate.

Nurit enjoying a warm bowl of soup

With Nurit, both thawing...

Our lunch; I didn't eat hers

 After a long and leisurely lunch where we got caught up with each other’s lives (Nurit is a translator in the film industry; I guess I can thank her for the subtitles on TV shows that are helping me improve my Hebrew), Nurit dropped me off at the home of Aimee and Fred Tischler.

Fred and Aimee, along with their lively boys Ezra and Adin, are from Vancouver and are in Jerusalem spending a year here on a Sabbatical.  They were very generous and hospitable and invited me to spend Shabbat with them.

We had a great Friday night dinner, and were joined by friends of theirs. Fred and Aimee have a house rule for Shabbat, which is to speak only Hebrew, so we all conversed in Hebrew (some of us more than others).

On Saturday we went to synagogue to a lovely shul, a block or so away from their place (and it was a good thing too, as it was still very cold, but at least it wasn’t raining). The congregation is “modox” (modern orthodox), and made up mostly of Anglos and French immigrants, but the rabbi speaks only Hebrew. The building is very new and modern, and it was full. There wasn’t a place left to sit either in the women’s or men’s sections, with lots of kids running around. I simply loved it.

After lunch, Aimee and I (along with their dog Rosie) went for a walk between their place and the Old City. It was sunny (but not warm) and Aimee took me down narrow alleys of Mishkenot Sha’ananim district, which was the first Jewish neighborhood built outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, on a hill directly across from Mount Zion. The views are, to put it mildly, inspiring.

As the day ended, I took the bus back to Tel Aviv – and learned the hard way that inter city buses do not run on Shabbat.