The agony and the ecstasy in Jerusalem’s excavations
Filed under: History and Culture, Holidays, Travel
by Yossi Yeinan, Keshet
Ancient stairs uncovered in City of David
It’s been 50 years since Irving Stone wrote his popular biography of Michelangelo, “The Agony and the Ecstasy”. If not for copyright restrictions, The Agony and the Ecstasy might be the title for a new history of Jerusalem.
Life here is like that – exciting and intense – and every so often there is a news story or a new discovery that captures that intensity perfectly and encapsulates what life in Jerusalem is all about.
I experienced a moment like that just recently when I toured not-yet opened areas of the City of David National Park. Over the last five years, archeologists have uncovered a monumental staircase nearly half a mile long that ran – in Second Temple times – from the Shiloach (or Siloam) Pool at the southern end of ancient Jerusalem up to the Temple.
A drainage channel lined with beautifully dressed stone runs directly underneath the staircase along its entire length and will be opened to the public later this year.
Flavius Josephus and the rabbis of the Talmud describe these stairs in Temple times at Succot – the harvest festival. Imagine the scene: the granaries and storehouses were overflowing with the bounty of the summer harvest and tens of thousands of pilgrims – men, women, and children – would come to Jerusalem and ascend these stairs festooned with bright torches and jugglers for the festive occasion. The Jewish people would give thanks and pray for the fall rains before returning home to plant the winter crops.
The unity of temple times gave way to infighting (will we ever learn?), the Romans destroyed the Temple, and some of the surviving Jews hid in the drainage tunnel underneath the stairs – only to be smoked out and murdered by the Roman conquerors.
We know the story because Josephus recorded it, and because in the last few years we’ve found the cooking vessels and household items left behind by the Jews who lived and died here more than 1,900 years ago.
Parking maven
Filed under: Entertainment, General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life
Our lot was something like this, but worse
So I was pleasantly surprised the other day with a particularly Jerusalem parking experience. We had cautiously parked in a rock-filled lot that was being used by several venues, Theatre in the Rough, Chutzot Hayotzer and probably some other summer event. It wasn’t even really a lot, just a roughly cleared space that dozens of cars were using for parking because the other nearby lots were mysteriously closed. (Why the city plans events and then doesn’t plan parking is another question.)
We were done early — having attended the wonderfully clever performance of Romeo and Juliet in Gan Bloomfield — and headed to our car. As we began pulling out, another car headed down toward our spot, clearly planning on taking it once we left. But that meant we couldn’t pull out.
And then our parking angels appeared. One was a jovial Israeli guy who told my husband — pleasantly — that his best bet would be to pull out, let the other car back in and then back out himself. You have to understand that very often when Israelis — usually men — give parking and driving directions, they’re know-it-all and you find yourself not wanting to do what they advise. Then another guy appeared, and began giving excellent directions for the exact maneuvers necessary.
“Turn the steering wheel 30 degrees, then straighten your wheels,” he said. “Great, great.” “What about that big olive tree he’s about to brush up against?” said the other guy. “I see it, I see it,” said the second guy.
Meanwhile, my husband and I were starting to laugh, because these two — who didn’t know each other — were making what could have been a tense situation much more pleasant, and, they knew what they were doing.”
“I’m the national directions-giver,” quipped the second guy, using the word ‘mechaven’, which means to direct, as in traffic. “They hire me out.”
He got us out, and the other cars in, with nary a scratch. We drove out, commenting that was the last time we would park in that lot. Until we exited onto the street and were confronted with a tow truck smack in front of us, and no where to go unless onto the truck bed. Turns out the tow truck driver had parked in the middle of the street and run into the local gas station store to grab a cup of coffee. Hey, there was no place to park! What’s a guy to do?
Sweating the small stuff too
Hutzot HaYotzer arts and crafts festival
While it’s the big news that gets all the headlines, sometimes it’s the small stuff that’s the hardest to sweat. Last week, terrorists attacked along the Israel-Egypt border just north of Eilat. The ensuing days have been filled with IDF strikes and Gazan counterattacks. More people have died.
Meanwhile in Jerusalem, the seminal rap-rock band HaDag Nahash was playing a concert at Sultan’s Pool as part of the annual Hutzot HaYotzer arts and crafts festival. Our 17-year-old daughter Merav had a plan to dance up a storm with her friends at the show. She got all dolled up, then received a phone call.
“There’s a terror alert in Mamila (the mall that is adjacent to Sultan’s Pool). Everyone’s been ordered to get off the street and hide in the stores. There are police everywhere. It’s really serious,” her friend on the phone said.
“What should I do?” Merav asked us. “I want to go…”
“…but you don’t want to die,” I finished her sentence.
“Right,” she responded.
We checked the news. There was indeed a “high alert” going on in Jerusalem, but it was mostly along the highways entering the city from the north and west – Highway 443 was reported to have back-ups for up to 10 km coming towards the checkpost from Modi’in. But nothing written about trouble in town.
“If they’re locking down the mall, they must have some good lead,” I speculated.
“Maybe I could get to the concert from the other side,” Merav offered.
“No, they’ll have closed everything,” I said.
“And the other way is kind of dark,” Merav remembered. “Oof, this sucks! I really like HaDag Nahash.”
“And I really like you…alive,” I replied. I wish I were trying to be ironic.
Merav sat in the kitchen, now with two of her friends. While we’d tried to leave the decision up to Merav (with some strongly worded parental advice), one of her friends had much stricter marching orders.
“My mom says I can’t even leave your house,” she said gloomily.
The truth is, this kind of terror lock down has been pretty rare in recent years. During the early 2000s, it was a nearly daily occurrence, but nowadays we take for granted that we can sit at a Café Aroma and sip an iced limon-nana on a warm Jerusalem night with carefree abandon.
But an arts and crafts festival with tens of thousands of nightly attendees makes a pretty good spot for an attack. It’s a reminder that, despite our protestations and blogs to the contrary, Israel is not quite yet that “normal” nation we proffer it to be.
And yet the contrary is just as true: we say (and we mean it) that we won’t let the bad guys stop us from living our lives. If Merav had received a call just then saying the threat had passed, she would have been on the next bus to town, with our blessing.
The girls wound up reluctantly taking a pass on the show. We watched a family movie instead: “The Invention of Lying.” It was an amusing distraction.
Later, Merav talked to a friend of hers who had made it to the show. It was amazing, Merav quoted. “But he said everyone was terrified. They spent the whole concert looking around, trying to spot if there was a terrorist in the crowd.” She added, almost parenthetically, that she was, in fact, glad she hadn’t gone in the end.
There was no terror attack and the threat level was lifted by morning. My wife and I are scheduled to attend the festival and show on Tuesday (Ehud Banai is playing live). And unless the roads are closed, we’ll be there, defiant, proud and enjoying a warm Jerusalem evening.
Terror returns to Jerusalem
Photo from Ynet earlier today
At about 3:10 PM, my daughter Merav called me on my cell phone from school. Someone had said there was a bomb and did I know anything. I quickly checked the Internet. Nothing. But I already could tell that wasn’t the case. All the way from across town, I heard a boom. It could have been a firecracker or a garbage truck but it was followed by more simultaneous sirens than I’ve heard since the murderous days of the Second Intifada.
I kept pressing refresh on Haaretz and Ynet in Hebrew until eventually the story appeared (it was a good ten minutes more before the English language sites picked it up). I began reporting to Merav who, I could hear in the background, was forwarding the news to her classmates.
What’s the first thing you do when the news is bad? Tell your wife? I decided to spare her, at least until there were more details.
The phone rang. It was from the U.S. A friend had already heard the news. Soon Jody was calling to me. She couldn’t reach Merav on her cellphone. All the lines were down. I quickly calmed her: I’d already spoken to Merav, everything was fine.
Of the hundreds of thousands of people in Jerusalem, what are the chances that it would be one of our kids who’d be involved in a terror attack? That’s one reason why Israelis get on with their lives so quickly. But we have another experience. In 2002, our cousin Marla Bennett was killed in the Hebrew University cafeteria bombing. Every attack is personal now.
It’s been nearly 7 years since the last bus bombing in Jerusalem. And this wasn’t a bus attack per se, nor was it a suicide bomber. That doesn’t make it feel any better. Even worse, our son’s bus from Tel Aviv stops every night at that same kiosk near where the bomb was placed. He called and asked if I could pick him up tonight. Merav decided to walk home.
Will this be a return to the early 2000’s? I doubt it. But it’s a painful reminder that we are not at peace, and it may be a long time before the threats around us are gone.
From Boston to Jerusalem with love
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, General, Israeliness, Sports, Travel
Massachussetts Governor Deval Patrick and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu share a laugh yesterday in Jerusalem. (The Boston Globe)
Over 30 New England business leaders led by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and frequent visitors New England Patriots owner and philanthropist Robert Kraft and his wife Myra are here this week on the governor’s Innovation Economy Mission.
The group has been taking part in industry forums, company visits and meetings with Israeli business leaders and government officials in Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem.
Yesterday, Patrick met with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and with Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, who read a proclamation in the Knesset welcoming Patrick and the delegation to Israel, including “my very good friend, Robert “Bobby” Kraft.’’
“It’s amazing to be acknowledged from the floor of the Knesset,’’ Patrick told The Boston Globe.
It isn’t all business and politics for the delegation however. Today, Kraft and some of the group will be visiting the Kraft Family Stadium in Jerusalem to watch tackle football games of the Israel Football League.
Established nearly four years ago through the donations of the Kraft Family Foundation, the stadium has become a magnet for American sports in Jerusalem and the Kraft Family Israel Football League has recently expanded its grassroots efforts to offer a high school tackle football league to the Israeli public.
“We have been extremely fortunate to have the support of the Kraft Family as we continue to grow tackle football in Israel and any chance we get to have the Krafts attend a game is really special for us and for our players,” the IFL Commissioner Uriel Sturm told The Jerusalem Post.
In addition to their support of the stadium and tackle football the Krafts have also been highly supportive of the Israel women’s flag football national team, which this year placed fifth in the IFAF Flag World Championships and is currently training for this year’s EFAF European Championships, to be held in September.
“Myra Kraft has been such a tremendous supporter of our quest to make women’s flag football an international contender,” said Shana Sprung quarterback of the women’s national team.
So while the crafts and the rest of the downeast delegation might still be shaking off the loss in the NFL playoffs by their beloved Patriots, they can take solace in seeing this week how football is flourishing in Israel thanks to their help.
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