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Jerusalem, Jerusalem
By Moshe Kohn
Life in the eternal capital of the Jewish People has its
funny side.
STREET WISE
The taxi in which I was riding was approaching my destination
in a neighborhood that included a cluster of streets named
after the Biblical kings of Judah, such as Hizkiyahu (Hezekiah),
and another cluster named after the Hasmonean (Maccabean)
heroes and their line, including the father of the five Maccabean
brothers, the priest Mattityahu (Mattathias), who launched
the revolt against the Greek-Syrian occupiers of Eretz Yisrael
nearly 20 centuries ago.
The driver reported to the dispatcher on the intercom that
he would shortly be available for another call.
The dispatcher told, the driver to proceed - after letting
me off - to Hizkiyahu Hamelech (King Hezekiah) Street.
Because of the static, the driver apparently didn't hear
clearly, and he called to the dispatcher: "What did you say?
Mattityahu Hamelech?"
The dispatcher snapped back over the static: "Hizkiyahu Hamelech!
Mattityahu was never a king!"
PLUMBING SONG OF SONGS My sister, Malka Jagendorf of Jerusalem,
was once shopping in a hardware store. A man came charging
into the store urgently looking for materials and tools to
repair a burst pipe that was flooding his bathroom. "Not to
worry," said the proprietor, rapidly fetching the various
required items, as he quoted from Song of Songs 8:7: "Much
water cannot quench love..." The proprietor's assistant promptly
completed the verse: "...and no flood can sweep it away."
WATERS OF EDEN
My friend and his wife, American tourists, were shopping
in the Supersol supermarket at the top of Agron Street. They
were already at the checkout counter when his wife suddenly
remembered she wanted some mineral water, a particular brand
called "Mei Eden" (Waters of Eden).
She returned to the shelves, but couldn't find what she was
seeking, and she called out to her husband: "Where's the Mei
Eden?"
The cashier piped up: "Genesis chapter 2, verse 10."
She was right.
FAR FROM HOME
"The scoundrels!" exclaimed the Jerusalem taxi driver.
When we boarded the taxi, he had said he never heard of the
place we wished to get to, but "we'll find it, God willing."
(He was bareheaded, which did not necessarily indicate anything
about the extent of his religiosity or secularity.)
I noticed and remarked to him that he had no intercom in
his taxi, indicating that he was not associated with any taxi
fleet.
"That's right," he said. "I like my freedom. I drive where
and when I want, and I don't have to answer to anyone or share
my earnings with anyone."
We had hailed him in the Kiryat Hayovel neighborhood in southwestern
Jerusalem, where we live, as he was heading back towards downtown
Jerusalem about three kilometers away. When I asked him where
he lived, it transpired that at the point where he had picked
us up he was a 30-40 minute drive from his home in the Neveh
Ya'acov neighborhood in northeastern Jerusalem.
I said: "You're pretty far from home."
"You call this far from home?!" he exclaimed sarcastically.
"For 2,600 years I was even farther from home. Two thousand
six hundred years ago Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylonia sent
us into exile. But we never - never! - let go of the connection
with Jerusalem!"
MESSIAH AND THE CABBIE
My friend Dr. Jenny Weil of Jerusalem was chatting with a
taxi driver about his never having been abroad.
"He was bareheaded, and there was nothing in his demeanor
that suggested he might be religious. Jenny asked: "Aren't
you at all curious to see some of the world?"
"The cabbie replied that he had no intention whatever of
going abroad, not even for a brief visit. "It'll be just my
luck," he explained, "that davka when I'm abroad Messiah will
come, and I want to be here when he comes!"
BERLIN BUT NOT GERMANY
One of Jerusalem's streets is named for Rabbi Haim Berlin
(1832-1912), who had settled here in 1906, and was head of
Jerusalem's Ashkenazi community during the last three years
of his life.
"My friend Rabbi William Eidelsberg, who had recently come
from his native New York with his wife to settle in Jerusalem,
was looking for Rabbi Berlin's street in the city's Kiryat
Shmuel neighborhood. He stopped an elderly lady and asked:
"Can you please tell me where Berlin Street is?"
"She replied indignantly: "What do you mean, 'Berlin Street'?!
Do you think you are in Germany? Here you must say Rabbi Berlin
Street!"
BAD RENDEZVOUS
"I was awaiting my turn in the Leumit Health Fund clinic.
Two men came along and sat down next to me. One was telling
the other that he was not there for himself, but had accompanied
his elderly mother; she, however, had wanted to go up the
stairs to the third floor alone, without his help.
"Soon the mother came along, saw her son and started shuffling
toward him.
"Suddenly she noticed the other man, whom she knew, and said
to him in Old Jerusalem-style Yiddish: "Vos toost doo doh?!
Dir vill ich in Bays Hamikdosh zayn, nit in Kupat Holim!"
/ What are you doing in this place? You I want to see in the
rebuilt Temple performing your priestly functions, not in
any medical clinic!"
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