For all those out there who are hanging on my every word, I apologize for not posting last week. Time just got away.
We have friends from Chicago who are here in Israel. We live 5 miles apart, but we have to travel 8000 miles to get together with them.
One friend is in Haifa for a month. He came to Jerusalem for a couple of days last week. We hadn't gone to the Kotel yet, so it seemed like a good idea to go with him. As you may or may not know, there are daily knife attacks in Israel. Enrollment in self-defense classes and sales of pepper spray are at an all-time high, and people don't move about as freely as they once did. Not that anyone is hiding out at home, but they are taking precautions. We could have taken a bus to the Kotel, but we decided to walk instead. There are a couple of ways to get from Jaffa Gate to the Jewish Quarter. I like going through the Armenian Quarter because it's the shortest way, and that's how we went. It was crowded, mostly with groups of soldiers who are taken on a tour of the whole country as part of their basic training. We felt very safe, but there was more to it. We normally go back to Jaffa Gate via the Christian Quarter. As often as I've gone that way, the sights and smells continue to captivate me. But at a time when anyone can pull out a knife, it's prudent to take a different route. This impacts the store owners, which is the crux of the matter. The leadership of the Palestinians, whether Hamas or Abbas, skim plenty off the torrent of money that pours in from Europe, the US and the UN. It's in their best interests to keep their population under control by threats and intimidation, and to keep them beholden by creating conditions of economic dependency. If shopkeepers go out of business due to a lack of tourists, so much the better. So we went back the way we came.
At the kotel. I'm glad they are armed.
We stopped for dinner at Capit, one of my favorite restaurants in Jerusalem, and saw a delightful play - First Date - which is actually an American production that appeared on Broadway a couple years ago. Very funny, cleverly written, great cast.
Last Friday, at 615AM we were awakened by drops of water coming from the light fixtures above our bed. At first I thought I was dreaming - so did Sid. But sure enough, the ceiling was dripping. About 15 minutes later our downstairs neighbor knocked on the door; she came up to see if we had water. We started to explain about the dripping ceiling, but she said no, she wanted to find out if we had water in the taps. Yes, we did. Then we showed her our ceiling. Something was clearly amiss. We decided to find out what was going on upstairs and when we got to the landing between our floor and the one above it was flooded. The source was the apartment above us. A pipe broke during the night. He called a plumber who told him to turn off the main valve to his apartment. In the middle of the night he inadvertently turned off the wrong valve. Mysteries solved and the downstairs neighbors got their water back. As our dripping gradually abated, we were assured that this wasn't unusual
for a building that was built in the 30's, and most probably there was no real damage. If a fuse blew when we turned the bedroom light on, all we had to do is flip the breaker. Fortunately whoever renovated this apartment installed circuit breakers. I remember the days when apartments had fuses, and if one blew and you didn't have a replacement you had to get a copper coin to reconnect the circuits. As they say, those were the days, and the only damage was to our ceiling, which instead of water is dripping paint.
Dori's 21st birthday was yesterday. We were sort of surprised at how low-key she was about it. We went to dinner at Sushi Rehavia, which was very good, even tho I eat my food cooked.
Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem,
Peggy and Sid
No comments:
Post a Comment