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When birthright met the IDF

Here’s a slice of synchronicity courtesy of an Israeli/American intersection that took place last week.

Daughter Sarit serving in the IDF was in Jerusalem for four days as part of a commander’s course – her unit visited historical sites in the Old City, educational facilities like Yad Vashem and had classroom time at the hostel they boarded in near the Holocaust museum in the neighborhood of Bayit Vegan.

Returning to the hostel after a day’s activities, the soldiers encountered around five groups of American college-age youth here on their Taglit (birthright) trip who had just arrived at their Jerusalem base, the same hostel.

Amid the culture clash and the general excitement among the American kids at seeing live Israeli soldiers in their midst, Sarit happened to notice a familiar face in the crowd.

“Melissa!” she shouted. And a young woman looked over and screamed “Sarit” and they ran to each other in embrace. Melissa is Sarit’s cousin from Long Island, the daughter of my wife’s first cousin. They had spent some time together a couple summers ago, and had kept in touch via facebook.

We knew Melissa was in the country and were planning to see her the following night, but we had no idea at that point where she was staying in Jerusalem. A quick call home from Sarit with a “guess who I just saw” informed us as to her whereabouts.

Like Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, of all the youth hostels and hotels in Jerusalem, the two cousins from Long Island and Jerusalem had to walk into the same one.

They spent the evening catching up and introducing their respective friends to each other, integrating the young Americans and Israelis. For both sides, it was likely an interesting education and one that will do wonders for understanding their shared and disparate cultures and backgrounds.

Nostalgia Sunday – Jerusalem City Center

Last week, Jerusalem’s Light Rail project entered the trial run phase. This included changing the city center’s traffic patterns and causing no little havoc. Not at all like what’s been promised in the pictures… but we’ll reach this idyllic stage eventually…

Image: Jerusalem Municipality website

The municipality has publicized the new traffic arrangements but that hasn’t seemed to calm the population’s ire — particularly cab drivers who are now barred from driving on Jaffa Road. In their minds, it should be as spacious and accommodating as it was in the days of these horse-drawn carriages driving towards the Old City…

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Meanwhile, Jaffa Road has been closed to all traffic except for the good old pedestrian kind — not too different from when King George Street was inaugurated.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

King George eventually did get paved and trees lined the boulevard…

Image: Harry Charles Farmer, Palestine 1947

…while Jerusalem’s few cars passed by Froumine House, home of the first Knesset. But those days are long gone and the need for a public mass transportation system is absolutely critical. Do you hear me, irate cabdrivers and nasty Egged bus drivers?

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Everything will settle down by August (we hope) and the first line of the new Jerusalem Light Rail will take us conveniently from French Hill to Mount Herzl, passing the Jerusalem Central Bus Station on the way. Which, by the way, used to look like this. Who says there’s no such thing as progress!

Image: Egged archive via Pikiwiki

Good homes

It’s helpful to live in a city such as Jerusalem, with a large selection of historical, architecturally interesting homes, particularly when you write for the Properties section of the International Herald Tribune and the Great Homes section of the New York Times. That said, it doesn’t happen that often, since there’s only so many articles about ‘great’ Jerusalem homes that IHT and NYTimes readers want to read, but let’s just say that the supply is sufficient.

And when I have one of those pieces in the paper, as I did several weeks ago, it gets a good bit of notice, both for me and the person whose house was ‘covered.’ People want to know how you find the homes and how you gauge whether a place is right, or ripe, for coverage. In the case of this last piece, it was about a great home that belongs to a friend of mine, and which I’d wanted to write about for a while. If you read the article, you’ll see why it fits the Properties section. But the timing had to be right, both for me and for him.

Another fairly recent piece had been suggested by someone who knew the owners; turns out the place was perfect for a writeup and the owners were amenable — two details necessary to my final product. But Jerusalem being the small town that it is, there a plethora of great homes, and, I often know the owners or eventually get to know them. For this Baka home, I didn’t know the owners when I interviewed them, but then their daughter married the son of friends, bringing the story full circle.

Yet as I often say, a ‘great home’ isn’t about size, price or budget; it’s about that certain something that sets it apart from, well, most of our homes. It’s a sense of design or color (see this one about a house in Zichron Yaacov), or about living comfortably in a small space.

Certainly, this most recent piece fits all those markers. I wasn’t the only one who thought so; see what blogger Shira Abel had to say a couple of years ago.

In any case, as I always say, viewing a great looking home just inspires you to do a little something with your own place, whether that means rearranging the pictures on the wall or buying new furniture, if the budget allows. Enjoy your abodes.

Foto Friday – Celebrating Ethiopian Ledet with Matanya Tausig

Freelance photographer Matanya Tausig has always been fascinated by religion and religious subjects. For his final project at Jerusalem’s Hadassah College, Tausig chose to document the priests from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

The Ethiopian Church has two centers in Jerusalem: the historic Deir es-Sultan on the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Debre Gannet constructed in the 19th century on Ethiopia Street. On one hand, both locations are only a short walk from the college; on the other hand, they are worlds away.

The resulting series went on to win second prize in the Local Testimony exhibition of regional photojournalism, (which runs concurrently with the annual World Press Photo exhibition).

The series is part of a larger project of documenting religions and religious ceremonies all around the Holy Land. “I generally work on things that take a long time; they percolate for years,” he says.

So, for example, last night Tausig was in Bethlehem, continuing work on his ongoing project by documenting the Orthodox Church’s Ledet (Christmas) midnight mass.

Ledet falls on January 7 in the Gregorian calendar (which is December 29 in the Ethiopian calendar). It comes after 43 days of daytime fasting known as Tsome Gahad (Advent), with a and is celebrated with processions, the mass service and a breakfast meal of traditional Ethiopian fare: cooked meat and vegetables served on injera (flat, spongy buckwheat bread), and washed down with tella (beer) or tej (a sort of weak mead).

In two weeks, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church will celebrate its most important festival of the year, Timket (Epiphany; also Timkat), a three-day festival commemorating Jesus’ baptism by Saint John in the Jordan River. Again, there will be processions and feasting.

Tausig maintains contact with his subjects and is planning future projects with them as well. Meanwhile, there are more photos to enjoy of the Ethiopian Orthodox priests on the Local Testimony site. And Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has more information about the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem.

Disturbed singer vacations in Israel

Anyone attending pianist-singer/songwriter Ben Draiman’s show last week at the Off the Wall Comedy Club in downtown Jerusalem might not have given a second glance to the black-clad bald man watching intently.

If they had, and they were under 30, they would have recognized Ben’s brother David, who just happens to be the vocalist for one of the most popular hard rock bands in the US – Disturbed.

The elder, more famous Draiman frequently visits Israel to see his brother, grandmother and huge clan of relatives, the continuation of a life-long love affair with the country.

“I love it here, “ Draiman told me last week in Jerusalem, before he prepared to shoot down to Eilat for some scuba diving with his girlfriend, TV host and former pro wrestler Lena Yada, who was making her first visit to the country.

“I told her to take the most confident Greek and Italian men and put them together, and you’d have an Israeli guy,” he said.

The exotic-looking Yada would undoubtedly have no problem fending off aggressive would-be-suitors. And based on the glances from pedestrians and missed green lights by motorists that occurred when she crossed the street outside her hotel to run into a boutique at the Mamilla Mall, there would be lots of suitors.

Draiman, who spent a year studying in a yeshiva in Jerusalem after high school, remains an ardent Zionist and said he’s constantly defending Israel and his Jewish faith, with his words, and if need be, with his fists. He described encounters with anti-Semites and skinheads, some of which ended up in discussion and some in non-verbal interaction.

Growing up in an observant environment at five different Jewish day schools/yeshivot, Draiman excelled in hazzanut and studies, but rebelled at the religious conformity and was eventually asked to leave each institution.

While no longer observant, he was confident that with a little brushing up, he could lead the High Holiday services from beginning to end with no problem. So if any shuls are looking for a second rabbi/cantor next year, here’s your man.

 

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