The Manchester Garden in the Jerusalem Forest

Another plaque was found late February 2019, proclaiming this area to be a garden forest planted by the Jewish Sportsmen's Committee of Manchester, England.

The Hungarian Zionists' part of the Jerusalem Forest

The plaque to commemorate the Hungarian Zionist Students, stating that this part of the Jerusalem Forest is the Maccabiah Forest. Early March 2019

The Ottawa Road In Jerusalem

In the Jerusalem Forest, below Har Nof and Har Herzl, the road leading out of Jerusalem has been built in 1992 with the help of the Morning Prayer Group of Ottawa's Agudath Israel congregation.
Also mentioned are Dorothy and Herb Nadolny,
Dundi and Lyon Sachs of Montreal
Robert and Roger Greenberg
Minto Development, Inc.
The plaque's location is here. Early April 2019.

This Machine Produces Water From Air

Yesterday I was at the Western Wall and was spared having to look for fresh cold water, because I found this new machine facing the women's section. The machine hummed, and dispensed cold fresh distilled water by pulsating semi-bubbly streams. I looked up the info on the manufacturer's site (Watergen), and it is what it says on the information around the machine. It probably works in a way like a chiller or air dehumidifier and produces crystal clear mineral-free, sediment-free pure water.

Exploring The Valley of the Gehinnom And A Sudden Lunch At A Hole Into The Netherworld.Then Hakeldama. And Saddam.

I just had to revisit the valley of Gehinnom. Panoramic shots!

The top center - one can see spooky, millennia-old caves with mortuary tunnels.

The Valley widens into the famous Hakeldama, (in Jeremiah), or Field of Blood in Aramaic. The seeping spring water keeps the trees green in this rainless season. 

For me the place means a peaceful lunch break. 

In this grotto I found this chair. In the back of this grotto you can see a gaping hole. I said Greetings in 6 languages, English, Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and heard nothing but resounding echoes of myself. I threw a rock, and it took a long time to hit the bottom. I forgot to count the seconds.

I cleaned up the chair, had a snack of granola and dried peas, drank plenty of water. 

 I came out of the valley. An Arab saw me, and told me all I already knew about the place, added a slightly changed Islamic version, and then raised his finger and almost whispered: "It's is very bad to be here, because the spirit Saddam Hussein is here, underground."

I do like panoramas.

Mad Max, Kassam, Calatrava, and Purim

I this post:

MAD MAX OF MITZPEH RAMON
RABBI URIEL
PURIM,
KASSAM ROCKET, and
CALATRAVA BRIDGE, not necessarily in that order.

I found a picture from the Machon Meir's Chanuka '97 or 98 trip to Mitzpeh Ramon. This guy stood out. I met Mad Max when Andrew Casden and I were exploring a small oasis in the middle of the arid desolation of the crater, or caldera, as some scientists call it, this guy on a motorcross bike barreled onto the scene and warned us not to break any vegetation or disturb rocks. I immediately counter-questioned him regarding the impact of his terrain-plowing bike. He was an open-minded type and soon we got into an amicable conversation. He is formelry from Lithuania, and now he is a park ranger. I told him is a pure Mad Max. He said, sure, he often gets mad at arrogant people tearing up vegetation, digging for rare rocks, scaring wildlife, endangering themselves with rattlesnakes, scorpions, and littering.


You remember Rabbi Uriel? I have just found out from Shalom (in the picture below) that the rabbi has died some time ago. I think his last name was Horowitz, and that is how it appears on the Halachoh Beruroh Talmud's list of editors. The rabbi learned with everyone, be it the basics of Judaism with complete beginners and converts, or high-level Gemoro studies with other rabbis. I started to learned Yoreh Deoh a month or two up to Pesach of the year 2000.


Anyway, this Purim I took my family to our friends in Sorotzkin neighborhood, and while trasnfering buses (NN. 23 to 2) surveyed the interestingly scary Calatrava bridge. The welding decks are still marking the joints of the pylon sections. Some wires still look sagging. They are still working on something as you can see in the 7 pictures below.







Purim joy:


And this is a jeep from Sderot. Towards the back of the roof note one of many Kassam rockets that have fallen on the town.

And the celebrations in Sorotzkin.

See you soon?

Adam's Waterfall, Bus Passes

This drawing was given to me by Adam Teitelbaum, from Texas, who came through Machon Meir. Soon I will post scans of group pictures from that era.

That was an interesting era. Amitai, Andrew Casden, Rabbi Kenny Cohen, Menachem Listman.
They are all in the pics to come.

Also that was the time I could not fathom the concept, or think of Jerusalem monthly bus passes. Eventually I got married and matured to start buying them. This was the period when I actually scanned them.

So many security features. So much money.

Jerusalem Snow '08

This is the second morning of waking up to snow in Jerusalem. No work, no transportation, no hot water from solar batteries, since they are blanketed with the chilling snow blanket, which counteracts even the heating with the built-in electrical element.

The lonely snowman, with buttons of what could be Pri-Gat juice bottles, surrounded with police barriers never used and left over from the Bush visit, note the Release Pollard campaign stickers:



Here is the picture of the aquarium from a previous post on this pretty morning:


And walking onto the Herzl Avenue, one can see the Yad Sarah headquarters on the left,



to the right of the traffic light post is the intentionally bent pylon for the supposedly to be famous Calatrava bridge (to carry the entirely impractical light rail trains) still together with an idle crane,
closer to the foreground, immediately to the left of the traffic light pole is the abstract sculpture, a gift from some city, the sculpture used to sit quarter of a mile away on top of Mt. Herzl,
and further to the right in the background is the former Hilton Plaza, now Crowne Plaza, or a variant on the name.

Secret election campaigns in Jerusalem

A casual walk along the Herzl Avenue yields intriguing discoveries of what must be a shadow, alternative, anarchistic even(?) movements roiling amidst the tempestuous political scene of Jerusalem, the city divided and to be divided by any influential politician, and along any imaginable opinion lines. We are not talking about Kadima, Mafdal, Likud, Hadash, UTJ, Labor, United Arab Front, the Organization To Kill Zionist Entity, Fateh, Hamas, Hizbullah, PFLP, The Al-Aqsah Martyrs.

Since the shadow-anarchist-underground movements seem to avoid standard commercial methods of advertizing, they seem to resort to the ubiquitous graffiti ( more here), especially on concrete blocks that the city likes to use to hold up utility poles (since it saves them man-hours needed to drill, dig and fill for the poles). These are just samples:



Along the same avenue, the list of contractors for the Jerusalem's Light Rail transformer station by the Shaarey Zedek Hospital is printed up as a mixture of political and commercial advertizing, unsurpassed exponent of political cronyism and bid rigging(? - when common sense suggests a trolley bus system, a few street cars serving along the only thoroughfare is a far cry from moving public through traffic jams):


Keep in touch for the impending results of our election campaign research.

Off The Beaten Track in Beit Vegan

Beit Vegan might appear a s a stodgy and boring community of Jerusalem, but there is Pinchas Amitai, Israel's expert on infectious diseases and insects that transmit them. I discovered him when out for a walk on the Achida street while suffering from an unusual mosquito bite. Seeing this mosquito on the side of the house I knew this was the greatest helpful coincidence.


Pinchas is Israel's pioneer on getting the country rid of malaria. His house is surrounded by hundreds of original and unusual plants and trees, the names of which he knows by heart.

Walking along Beit Vegan street, i spotted this famous aquarium installed by the ground-floor resident for public enjoyment:

It is always nice to discover nice little things like these in this austere, beaten-down city, awaiting the visit by GW Bush, who sees the city as Olmert's bargaining chip.

The Radar (Migdal) Synagogue

I searched the whole Internet for an in-depth story or a picture of Beit Vegan's Migdal Shul and found none. I am providing my own photo of the building.

The story I pieced together from talking to the locals is that at the British built here one of the first radar stations that had a radar mounted on top of the tower, visible in the picture. The radar must have been the first non-naval radar station for its times, or outside Europe, or in the Middle East.

The Wikipedia's Beit Vegan entry is not so correct ("During the British Mandate, the army built one of its radar stations in Bayit VeGan. A synagogue, Beit Knesset Migdal ("The Tower"), now stands on the spot."), since the tall grey tower is the radar tower.

The shul is a major center for Young Israel, though the crowd seems to have aged. Most minyans nowadays are literally staffed by Charedi, as can be seen on Friday nights at the shul's main synagogue hall. The daily morning 7:25 am minyan is a hodge-podge of locals valuing it for its 30 minute shacharis. Most young Mizruchniks and Kookniks attend shacharit at the Avreichim 2 doors behind the Migdal, where the Shearis Isroel and Litvishe organized derech wins, hands down, everyone over.

Hydrocarbon Graffiti and Cornucopia of Cream

Hopefully this graffiti artist becomes famous. His hydrocarbon molecule art decorates just about anything in Jerusalem. These are on a construction fence on the Shaarey Tzedek corner of Herzel Avenue:





And these are from a typical dairy section of an Israeli grocery store (Shefa Shuk, Beit Hakerem, near the Shaarey Tzedek Hospital):


It keeps on going:



and going:


and more:



















And this is Yossi Peking, on the Dania Square, at night



And the posters at the Dania Square. Note the famous Rabbi Avner Kawas lecture notice, a web yeshiva, Amir BenAyun, Russian cardiovascular over-the-counter medications, and alternative, off-beat music bands:

Talk to you soon.