Shabbat in Jerusalem

Many Israelis love Tel Aviv for its nightlife, café scene, its bustling beach scene lined with restaurants, paddle-ball players, volleyball, beach soccer, and beautiful people. It’s a young city, primarily singles in their 20’s. The beach scene is closer to that of Ipanema in Rio de Janeiro minus the riff raff than the scene of South Beach in Miami. The architecture is primarily dated from the 1940-50s and is very tired. All buildings are condos owned by different families. I know of no apartment complexes owned by a single company. The residents never seem to agree to come together to clean or paint the outside of the buildings. This has resulted in dreary buildings, brown from the car fumes and the desert dust storms that blow through. Often, stucco is bulging out or has fallen off completely. The buildings are weather-beaten and tired. They are constructed from poured cement and could probably outlast the weather and whatever (G-d forbid) violence could pass through. Where the USA strives for speed in construction with cheap stud construction in modular buildings that can easily be collapsed when deemed structurally obsolete, Israel builds to last for centuries. They just outlast the obsolescence like wearing ties from the 1950 for an extra 40 years until they come back in style. The ties don’t look so good but they still cover the buttons. The ultra-consuming USA has imbedded in its culture that we can just chuck the remnants of the buildings in the landfill and start over.

The city does a good job with employing workers to clean the streets and the citizens often take that for granted. Trash covers the beaches until the next morning and, besides the cigarettes that are always thrown to the ground, there is often garbage blowing in the whirlwinds generated by the slots between the mid-rise condos created for narrow streets. Cats, AKA Israeli squirrels, cruise the streets and pour in and out of the garbage cans. This was land that, until 100 years ago, was desert that led to the sea. There is little green here.

Last weekend, a friend I travelled with a friend, Margarita, who was visiting Israel from Moscow to Jerusalem. I had little energy as I had a cold that could have been brought on from the temperature change from the mandatory closing of the summer and Opening of autumn in September. Jerusalem, only an hour away by car, is starkly different in every way. It sits in the mountains with cascading valleys on all sides. Some are green and lush and some are dusty brown. Those that are green were refurbished by the Zionists that planted trees and crops in what had been virtual desert for centuries prior. You approach through an ancient valley that has been the only road from Jerusalem to the sea for millennia. It is, of course, now, a highway. It is always referred to as “ascending” to Jerusalem. In the distance you feel its majesty, regardless of whether you believe in a god or not. Walking through the neighborhoods you see that all houses are made of golden Jerusalem stone blocks. They were built so solidly that when you want to add floors, you don’t worry about the structural elements. They are solid thick stones. You can build up now or later. Often, you can tell the machine ground stones on the upper floors from the centuries old hand-carved ones. Bursting flowers often pour off of the verandas and balconies of the homes. They out-charm the brownstones of the most beautiful sections of Manhattan. There is grass in courtyards even though it only rains (and sometimes snows) during half of the year. Rolling hills and views of valleys are throughout the city. It is so clean.

It is comforting to see hundreds of people pushing their baby carriages with small kids trotting under the wing of a mother who has her hair covered in a lovely white…uh… do-rag? What do you call those things? Some of the toddlers and boys have tsi tsis (fringes) dangling from underneath their clothes with the beginning wisps of the payos at their temples. Muslim women in burkes are mixing in with the crowds. Strolling the city is a joy with people watching as well as knowing you are strolling through millennia of recorded cultures (In respect to some in my family, pre-history is just unrecorded history. There were still families and cultures abounding prior to written legend). It is Middle Eastern in architecture and it feels more European than American. While the sun sets over the Mediterranean Sea every night in Tel Aviv (except for official holidays), the sun sets over Jerusalem, glistening through the trees and fauna, allowing shadows to frame buildings to accent the details that we could not have distinguished in full daylight. There are endless unique views at sunset in this city. The early autumn chill at sunset is refreshing after so long in humidity of the coastal lowlands only an hour away.

I was able to see my friend Rabbi Adam Frank’s (see blog entry from June 8, 2007) new baby while throwing his 4 year old son for loops in the air and body slamming him on the couch. The sun glitters through the vines and leaves of the lemon tree as it sets to illuminate the children playing in the backyard like theatrical set. A friend of mine that I worked with to raise funds for the African refugees had invited me to his home for Shabbat dinner. He told me to let him know when I would next be in Jerusalem. I dropped my American attitude and invited myself. He confirmed that we were welcomed to eat with him at his parent’s home that Shabbat. When we entered the home I was struck by the hundreds of hardback books lining the walls. I started out by speaking Hebrew only to learn that the family moved here from the USA 17 years ago. His father had been a famous professor of bible studies at Harvard for many years before he decided to move to Israel. His name is James (Jim) Kugel and he is one of the world’s most renowned Torah scholars. He is fluent in many languages including dead ones such as Aramaic. Somehow, the conversation at the dinner table stayed on obscure 19 century Russian poets. My friend, Margarita (who prefers her Jewish name, Esther) and the family enjoyed talking of the works of these poets while I made awkward jokes like: “That wallpaper is so realistic looking. It looks like you have hundreds of real books from floor to ceiling”. Jim has published many books and has gotten great critical reviews. He will be speaking in Atlanta on November 17th http://www.jameskugel.com/speaking.php.

We were also able to be at the Kotel (Western Wall) at sunset on Friday in time for the festivities. We approached through the winding cobble stone pedestrian only streets that wound through Arab and Jewish neighborhoods. On Shabbat, the Arab markets were still busting for the tourist and few seculars who still wanted to get that gift. The plaza at the Kotel was excited with thousands of fuzzy fur-hatted, Hassids that were wailing at the Wall. They were dancing, singing, bobbing and weaving. Above, the Golden Dome of the Rock and the Silver Al Aqsa Mosques looked down at the revelry with their quiet plazas grimacing at the joyous revelry below. The plazas on each side of the Wall are like bleachers on opposite sides of a stadium during a rival football game.

Although I have not chosen to pursue such and observant lifestyle, I find it therapeutic to visit this majestic city from the secular capitalist small-talk culture of Tel Aviv. It is a country the size of New Jersey but I am reJEWvenated every time I venture out of my immediate environment.