Say It in Hebrew

“Yesh ha-na-KHAH?”
“Is there a discount?”

My friend K. and I discovered yet another bargain-basement store last night. Its giant two-shekel sign gleamed over an entrance decorated with blue paint and glass blocks. It looked as though Gaudí had tried to design a Paris metro stop but was plagued by cheap materials and a short attention span.

This place has the usual shrine to Tupperware knockoffs and other plastic abominations, as well as an odd assortment of housewares. Of the three stores we’ve found like this, K. and I agreed that this one was the one suffering most from the cheap-thus-ugly syndrome.

Nevertheless, we turned up some interesting finds: paper lanterns, socks and stickers with the American flag on them, and packs of kitchen items made in China–including one container of sponges with this written on the packaging: “Healthy life…Begin from the clean garbo.”

How true.

# # #

If I weren’t so paranoid, I would shop in the shuk. Fresh pita, fresh produce and herbs–and everything is incredibly cheap…unless you’re a foreign construction worker.

A man in his forties from Southeast Asia, in clothes flecked white from plaster or paint, filled a plastic bag full of bok choy and green onions, at one vegetable stand in the market, last night. I watched as he held up a small bunch of green onions to the stand owner, who stood with his arms crossed.

This conversation went on in Hebrew for five minutes, repeating every ten seconds:

Construction worker: Half a shekel.
Stand owner: Shekel and a half.
Construction worker: No, only half a shekel. They’re small.
Stand owner: Shekel and a half.

Finally, the owner threw up his hands and gave in. The worker smiled, parted with a big fifty-agorot coin, and walked off into the maze of the market with the makings for soup.

Many of the foreign construction workers pay an agent close to $8,000 simply to come here to work. Once here, they work for extremely low pay, and live in cramped conditions with other workers. Like the Filipino women who work as caregivers for the elderly, here, they seem to live in enclaves, out of view.

Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains.

“Ha-EEM ef-SHAHR la-ree-KOOD ha-ZEH?”
“May I have this dance?”

Jerusalem, Part 2

After bumping into a long-lost friend of J.’s in the cafe with piles of burekas, we wandered slowly back to the inn, where we collapsed.

Since there was no Weather Channel, we turned on the BBC and then flipped through a lot of subtitled American tv. The “HOT” channel apparently broadcasts throughout the Middle East, so we were able to note that “Beverly Hills, 90201″ would be on in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qatar at 3:30 am.

That’s right. Let’s hear it for the Western media.

J.’s first comment on looking over the rooftops of the Arabic quarter in Jerusalem was, “Look at all those satellite antennas!”

Not everyone is watching Al-Jazeera.

Then again, maybe they’re all tuned in to the Arabic version of the Weather Channel.

Stumped at this loophole in regional attitudes toward the West, we went to bed. Ah, a night in Jerusalem, home of quiet, deeply contemplative citizens, most of them focused on their faith: if you can’t get a good night’s sleep here, where could you, really?

Nowhere.

THUMPthumpetyTHUMPTHUMP. THUMPthumpetyTHUMPTHUMP.

We were sleeping on top of, or in very close proximity to, a disco where the good people of Jerusalem lived it up until 3 a.m. I began to think thoughts unbefitting a visitor to a holy city, and then virtuously hoped that they would all get drunk and fall asleep…and then maybe I would get some sleep.

The next morning at breakfast, J. blinked at me over an omelet and piles of sliced red peppers and white cheese.

“I didn’t hear anything,” he said happily.

We packed up and headed for the Israel Museum, about a twenty-five minute walk to the west. The Museum is on a vast park on a hill; the Knesset tops the hill, while the Museum is south of it. On our hike there, we stumbled through what looked to be basic training: about twenty college-aged kids, marathon-running through the park, spurred on by guys perched on IDF trucks on the side of the path. We were bundled up against the morning cold and wind with three layers and scarves; the recruits panted by in shorts and t-shirts. Gee! It’s great to be in the A-a-rmy!

The Israel Museum’s collections and exhibitions are stunning; a fraction of the highlights are here. We arrived around 10:30 am, along with four hundred first-graders, all clad in a variety of sweatsuits and all wildly enthusiastic about art and archaeology at full volume.

We started in the Art Wing, and wandered around the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, through the Moderns, until we arrived in front of a tour group of elderly-looking Israelis examining a Roy Lichtenstein canvas with skepticism.

Midway through the Archaeology collection, we detoured to lunch; afterward, we continued through Archaeology until I stopped in front of a sympathetic-looking mummy and said, “I’m not going any further.” The mummy’s arms remained crossed and he wore a world-weary expression…like me. (Sadly, there aren’t any images of the Archaeology collection and its minute and beautiful mosaics.)

So we went through the Judaica and Jewish Ethnography Wing more quickly than we would have preferred. Two synagogues, one from India and one from northern Italy, are contained in this wing–picked up, packed, preserved, and reassembled here, in striking detail.

We stumbled on to the Shrine of the Book, behind which loomed a giant white cloud to the west. This was the sandstorm that would follow us back to Rehovot. Inside the Shrine of the Book–which looks a little bit like a tagine, if you ask me–lie the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in the late 1940s near Qumran. The scrolls contain the earliest known biblical texts, as well as apocrypha and sectarian literature.

The Scrolls aren’t large texts; you couldn’t unfurl one with a flourish. They look more like the fragments of something you’d stuff in your bathrobe pocket…if you were a prophet with a bathrobe.

The writing is small, delicate, and exact. The scrolls appear to have weathered two thousand years buried in jars in a cave pretty well. They are now preserved in an even bigger jar (the Shrine has this shape), protected from any and all elements in a hushed environment that invites only awe.

Here’s something of interest: the Israel Museum website notes, “The first display of the Dead Sea Scrolls took place in 1949 at the Library of Congress in Washington.”

Was anyone we know there?

After spending all morning and part of the afternoon at the museum, I felt like we had seen half, or fewer, of the collections; you really need two days to see it properly…although if you hadn’t spent the previous two days walking, you might be better eqipped than we were to take in as much as possible.

We rode to the train station with a taxi driver who seemed extremely concerned about his livelihood, after quizzing us on why we took the train round-trip, and how much it cost (much less than taking a taxi the whole way).

“I could drive you to Bethlehem,” he offered, as we left the museum parking lot.

“No, thank you,” I said. “Some other time.” Say, when it’s not on the other side of the border.

“Really!” The taxi driver sat at the intersection. “It is no problem at all; you just go left here…”

“No, we need to get home,” my husband told him as I began to contemplate getting out of the cab.

The taxi driver sighed, apparently calculating the cost of hundreds of tourists like us who preferred the Eurail approach to Israel.

We still can’t figure out why he gave us a discount.

“Ets.”
“Tree.”

Monday was Tu B’shvat, the fifteenth day of the month of Shvat, which marks the new year for the planting of trees. This process fulfills the orders spelled out in Leviticus: Years 1 through 3–don’t eat the fruit; Year 4–harvest the fruit to praise God; Year 5–you may now eat the fruit. I would want to be close friends with people who were about four years ahead of my planting schedule. Or else I would have to give up pie.

Here, the holiday is akin to Arbor Day, if Arbor Day in the U.S. were celebrated with a great more zeal throughout the country. A couple of weeks ago, here, baskets and boxes of dried-fruit arrangements started showing up in stores, and the call to fund the planting of trees in Israel grew stronger in the media. (I’m talking about baskets the diameter of Hum-Vee wheels, with an assortment that would make Harry and David weep.)

There are numerous restrictions on cutting down trees in Israel, and the Torah forbids the cutting of a fruit tree. Two and a half months ago, controversy arose over settlers’ demolition of Olive trees in Arab West Bank villages; the settlers counter that villagers had previously damaged settlers’ trees.

Meanwhile, we still have bowls of dried dates and candied kumquats (both of which looked quite tasty, at first) that aren’t getting any younger.

“Heets-ta-nuh-NOOT.”
“A cold.”

Actually, this word really sounds like a sneeze, if you read it out loud.

Survey of head cold remedies

Raw garlic. I like spaghetti aglio e olio, but this is a whole other ball game; it’s the medicinal equivalent of getting mugged in a dark alley by the ball stadium. Mincing a clove of garlic renders the anti-biotic compound allicin, which supposedly can knock out a cold, or at least reduce its duration. Sadly, at this up-close-and-personal level, garlic is noxious, and three minced cloves did nothing to reduce my cold. Moreover, the unfortunate side effects of this remedy are enough to make the sanest of any spouses downright hostile.

Ginger. Antiviral, antiseptic, antioxidant; nature’s wonder drug; blah, blah, blah. So far, nothing has come of chopping up a knob of ginger and making tea from it. This confirms my belief that its proper place is candied, in cakes. Or in a stir-fry…not candied.

Steam. A powerful way of loosening sinuses, standing over a pot of steaming water, or the teakettle, is also an excellent way to singe the hairs on the inside of your nose right off. That’s helpful, because the ensuing pain will at least distract you from the sinus anguish and the fact that the towel you’ve used to cover your head and keep in the curative vapors–the towel dangling near the burner–is now on fire. You cannot have the vapor and boil water for tea.

Drinking liquids. In my view, another myth, no doubt invented by the makers of Charmin. By my count, I’ve had two gallons of water / juice, and still feel lousy.

Chocolate cake and roses. Now you’re talking. Best results when administered by husband.

A regimen of three days of all of these will hopefully keep me out of the waiting room of the Clalit clinic…

“A-va-KAYSH leesh-LO-akh et ha-muh-sha-REH-tut.”
“Please send the chambermaid.”

If it’s Tuesday, it must be Jerusalem.

Rehovot–>Lod–>Jerusalem. At the ticket counter, this translates to “Re-HH-o-VOT le Yer-u-shal-a-YIM–Mal-CHA, hasa-VA Loooooouoooood.”

Roughly two hours later, the train rolls to a stop in front of the Biblical Zoo station in Jerualem. (Ignore the checkpoint a few meters away, down in the valley. They couldn’t possibly have run the train route that close to the Green Line. Could they?) Sixty seconds after this stop, the train pulls into the Jerusalem-Malcha station. Why the Biblical Zoo got its own stop, I don’t know. But don’t the pairs of animals find it hard, walking up all those steps? Ha-ha!

Anyway…

Because I’m a coward and don’t ride buses here–scroll down to see why–we took a taxi to the general vicinity of Horkanos Street, where we found the B&B we would stay at, that night. (I find that the term “B&B” is less likely to inspire pangs of pocketbook-dread in one’s own, or one’s husband’s, heart than the term “Hotel”, which was plastered over the door of our B&B.)

“Don’t worry,” I assured J. as we walked up to the reception floor. “It says ‘INN’ first, see?”

A small woman who turned out to be responsible for the second “B” in “B&B” appeared and dialed the reception man, who descended the central staircase of the building in sock feet to show us our room and babysit our backpack for the day.

“Here,” the reception man said, padding to our room. “You can see inside, and have the key. No problem.”

We went in and looked around. Not bad. Soon, someone in the building started pounding away on a piano with a respectable rendition of some familiar tune. No, wait… It couldn’t be. Why, yes, someone was playing “Hotel California”.

Horkanos Street is within a couple of minutes of the main shopping/eating/spending parts of the new city; we ended up on Hillel Street at an Italian restaurant, where the possible combinations of pastas and sauces — and how much of both we consumed — was staggering.

First, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which, much to my chagrin, we hadn’t been able to find, last time. This time, we found it by taking a left at the mosque, but it didn’t look at all like what I’d expected it to. Reputedly, there are six different Christian sects who “maintain” the church, which means that they argue over who gets which part and who pays for the maintenance, I guess. The church really does appear to be the object of a religious custody battle, with some sections lavished in candles and decorations, while other sections are neglected and walled off in reinforced concrete.

The most confusing aspect of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, to me, was that it seemed to lack many of the trappings of normal churches, such as…pews. Moreover, where was the Church, really? Was it the wooden shrine off to the left, where pilgrims were lined up by the dozen…seeming to enter, but not exit? Was it the altar below the mosaic that I could see behind the concrete wall with the ribars sticking out of it? Was I supposed to prostrate myself on the stone slab under the row of glass lamps at the front of the Church, like the others? The lack of order and narrative markers explained why there was a line of men outside the Church, offering to act as guides…

From the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, we wound up in front of the Church of the Redeemer–tower entrance, 5 shekels. Since one of us has a penchant for climbing towers (and it’s not me), we hiked up this one. In addition to the clear panorama of the old city, with the Temple Mount right in the center, I could see a tiny line of red, green, and white flags strung somewhere in the maze of rooftops. Anyone know what these stand for?

Another view from the tower of the Church of the Redeemer is that of Papa Andrea’s Rooftop Bar and Cafe, just past the market and notably closer to the ground than the tower. On the rooftop of this cafe, you’re at eye level with or above the top floors of other buildings in the Christian Quarter; you see women hanging out the wash, workers repairing a roof, and, in the distance, boys in black pants and sweaters playing in a small schoolyard.

Next, near the Citadel and David’s Tower (which is really an old minaret). Near Jaffa Gate, various men ask us, in English, if we need to change money. “No, toda,” my husband replies; as we pass, the vendor, in a last-ditch effort, says, “You are a very lucky man.”

Since I have been walking for a good part of the week, so far, am wearing all black (now more dusty than black), resemble no models in this century, and have an expression of So-help-me-if-I-have-to-climb-another-tower, it was a desperate sales pitch.

The 2700-year-old fortress structure forms one of the main foundations of the old city; the museum’s artifacts chronicle Canaanite, Muslim, and Christian influence on the city’s character and appearance. The museum’s film about the history of the old city of Jerusalem is unintentionally hilarious, in parts, due to the paper-collage animation of wide-eyed figures who dismantle and rebuild the old city as though it were a Lego structure.

The citadel grounds also house a number of Dale Chihuly sculptures, dating from an installation in 2000, including this chandelier, which hangs over the entrance.

(The green spiky things in the garden are also Chihuly works, and not, as I believed, part of the sprinkler system.)

Worth reading: Chihuly’s artist’s statement for the 2000 “In the Light of Jerusalem” installation.

After discovering that we could see the wall, aka the security fence, to the east, we headed back toward the new city. Near Zion Square, we had coffee and plotted the approach to dinner, but were still so hungover (gastronomically speaking) from lunch, that we went to another cafe and chose from a pile of burekas.

Walking down Jaffa Road from the first cafe, I saw an empty, lighted bus in the street, and a police officer diverting traffic. We went into a bookstore to browse for a while, and as we were paying (for what proved to be a lousy French cookbook/pamphlet), the cashier said, “You need to go out and turn left, not right, when you leave.”

Oh? I pushed open the door. To the right, Jaffa Road was deserted and police officers were walking up the sidewalk. To the left, police officers kept a crowd of people from proceeding up Jaffa Road or toward the bookstore. The road was empty, except for the vacant bus. Immediately in front of me, an officer waved us to the left, down the sidewalk and toward the crowd.

And that’s why I don’t ride buses.