Urban

Beginning on the first day of the Hebrew month of Elul, many Jewish communities wake up before sunrise to recite selichot, prayers asking for atonement of sins.  They continue this ritual for 40 days, through Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. “It is a really intense and special atmosphere on the streets at this time of […]

There are dozens of natural springs in the hills and forests surrounding Jerusalem.  In fact this system of streams, pools and underground water sources has helped sustain settlement here for more than 3,000 years, providing a source of life for people, crops and animals. Now, many of these springs provide the perfect place for hiking, […]

As darkness falls over Jerusalem each Thursday evening during the Hebrew month of Elul, groups of visitors will make their way to Mount Zion. Among the ancient ruins, a tour guide begins to talk about King David, who, according to Jewish tradition, conquered the city and built its first temple.

When Ruth Wexler started working as a nurse at Jerusalem’s Hansen Hospital in 1983, it was still a place that many people feared. Just a short walk from the Inbal Hotel, this complex behind stone walls was where people were treated for leprosy.

In the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, a small shop called Elia Photo Service, offers a window to the city’s past. The glass cupboards, walls and countertops are covered with black-and-white photos that Elia Kahvedjian took in and around Jerusalem and other parts of Israel for more than six decades, beginning in the 1920s. There are photos of camels in the desert, horse-drawn carts on Jaffa Road, and the interior of the Old City’s Hurva Synagogue before it was destroyed in the 1948-49 war.

A red-headed boy leads his sheep across a grassy field, interspersed with trees. The music of a flute plays and the rolling, rocky hills of Judea rise in the background. These are the opening scenes of the new evening sound and light show King David, which transforms the 1,000-year old stone walls of the Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem’s Old City into a surround-sound movie theater five nights a week. Once the sun sets, David and his story come to life in this Crusader-era citadel via 18 laser projectors and 20 speakers.

A Place for Art and Culture; old and new

Before the state of Israel was established, botanist Baruch Chizik and artist Aharon HaLevy traveled around rural Palestine, cataloguing all of the plants they encountered. Chizik studied and identified the various flowers and cacti while HaLevy painted them.
It was part of a larger cooperative scene of scientists, artists and linguists who worked together to find, document, and even create modern Hebrew names for the plants growing in the Holy Land.

Along the shop-lined cobblestone pedestrian Yoel Solomon Street in the city’s Nahalat Shiva neighborhood, one store stands out among the others because it has two names. The door reads Cadim, but the sign on the building says Altogether 8. While it can be confusing, the shop does indeed have have two names because two different ceramic art cooperatives–among the oldest businesses on the popular street– recently joined forces.

In one corner of Jerusalem’s Hebrew Music Museum, a group of visiting children and adults are sitting in a circle, playing drums. All the drums and other instruments they are using are from Yemen and Ethiopia and other lands in the region which have been home to Jewish communities throughout the centuries. Nearby, in the sprawling museum built inside ancient stone buildings in the city’s central Nahalat Shiva neighborhood, other rooms are filled with instruments from Europe, Morocco and Central Asia, also home to historic Jewish communities..

So many married and long-term couples have visited the cozy Tmol Shilshom cafe while they were dating that the cafe published a book about some of those who met their life-partners here. That book, Stories of Love, features ten couples, and is just a glimpse of the important role this place has played in the lives of so many people in Jerusalem