Settling In : My New NeighborhoodAfter a few delays, and many Jewish holidays, I have made my way to my final destination (at least through May): Jerusalem. This evening, in a couple of hours, the holiday of Sukkot will begin (because the Hebrew calender marks the beginning of a day, and thus a holiday, with the coming of sundown). It is called the "Feast of Tabernacles" in English, as cumbersome as the name may be, because it is meant to recall the period of 40 years during which the ancient Hebrews wandered in the desert before entering the holy land, carrying the ark of their covenant in a portable sanctuary, or tabernacle.
Well, I can't say by any stretch of the imagination that I feel I have been wandering any desert, but one does get tired of living out of a suitcase, and it feels good to set up camp, and to know that I will be based here for some time.
The place where I am living is really quite wonderful, and I am happy to finally be here. My street fits only pedestrians, and the carts people lug around when buying groceries for the family at the local outdoor market, or "shuk." Oh yes, and right now, it also fits the temporary booths, or "sukkot," being raised on people's balconies and in front of their homes as I write, like this one ... Over the course of the next week, people will eat all their meals in their sukkot. Traditionally, one is supposed to sleep in them as well, in order to reenact the historic experience, though I'm not sure how many people around here will do so. Anyway, I've always liked the holiday of Sukkot, since, besides the historic significance of wandering the desert attributed to the moment, its origins probably date back to a pre-Jewish (in other words pre-monotheistic) Near Eastern harvest festival: the booths are decorated with palm fronds, fruits and vegetables and all of the holiday's festivities take place outside.
My neighborhood is small. It's buildings, like all the buildings in Jerusalem are built (by city ordinance) with a pale peach or salmon colored stone (except that it has something of a yellow or off-white tinge to it as well) culled from nearby areas, called "Jerusalem Stone." Here, some of the homes have been redone on the inside, others are more run-down, as one can tell from standing on the rooftops, but they are nearly indistinguishable from the front, as their walls are built immediately next to the walls of other homes, and they share the same wall to the street as a result.
As to the place where I am living, it is a sort of in-law apartment/small studio next to my landlady's elderly mother, while she lives with her husband and four children (the youngest daughter, Shiraz, is in the photo at the top of this entry, at my door) a few houses down. Last night I went to introduce myself to the grandma, who has been living here for 20 years after moving from France (I assume to be near her daughter once her husband passed) but hardly knows Hebrew - she speaks only French. We somehow managed, despite both my poor French and the fact that she does not have the strength, it seems, to speak in anything louder than a barely audible whisper. She offered me tea and I found out that her father had been an archeologist and that they had lived all over the world, that she had met her future husband in Morocco and gave birth to her daughter, Florence, there. I also learned (I would have had to be rather dense not to have, for her small little place is stocked with piles upon piles of oil paintings), that she was a painter, and that she wants that her paintings be put up in an exhibition, not here, she explained, but rather, she hopes, in America. I don't think she paints anymore, as she is quite frail, but it was touching to see her so committed still to her work. She also told me her impressions of life here: there was too much "guerre" here, she told me, but I had a hard time catching the French for war. "Milhama," she furthered, in Hebrew. Ah, yes, I said, wondering exactly how she saw this from the vantage of her little home on this little street, which she never leaves.
When inquiring about the neighborhood before moving in, one Israeli told me - speaking in a euphemism of sorts - that it was a "mixed" neighborhood. Meaning, some people here are rather poor, most are religious, and, I guess on certain streets, which Florence has advised me to stay away from, the area is known for its drug addicts. A lot of the friends of Florence's family whom I've met thus far speak French, and I've heard English spoken among some of the Orthodox Jews I see in the area, so I guess you could say it was mixed, yet that's not the adjective that would've first come to my mind as I set foot here: to me it feels sort of quaint, charming, and calming on my street, where no cars pass. Still, for as different as this city is from Tel Aviv, I was almost comforted to know that wherever you go, Israelis never seem to fail to have a certain unmatched directness all of their own: walking down my street, on one last mad dash to the shuk to buy toothpaste and warm pitas before everything closed for Sukkot, I passed for the umpteenth time by two young men building a wooden sukka into the balcony of a family living there. In the plaza underneath the men (I am assuming they were hired construction workers), there was a young couple seated, the girl clad in her fully olive-green army uniform (she must have been home for the holidays, as all young Israeli young women, except for the very religious, go to the army here for a year and a half; young men go for three years). They were talking about something intensely, not yelling though, although I didn't pay attention to what, when one of the construction workers called from the balcony above: "Hey, would you two mind taking this philosophical conversation of yours elsewhere?" The couple said this wouldn't be a problem, sardonically I'm guessing, and made motions to leave. I later thought how ironic it was that these men, the ultimate producers of din, with their drills and their hammers, which inevitably disrupted the relative quiet of the neighborhood throughout the day, should find it hard to concentrate on their work because of a serious conversation taking place below them?!? And that they should ask the couple to take it elsewhere?!? It seemed almost fit for an absurd theater piece, or novel, but no, it was actually my neighborhood.
