Jerusalem, Intimately
Nesvisky, Matthew
JERUSALEM, INTIMATELY There's a new book that goes a long way towards helping the visitor cope with the City of Gold. MATTHEW NESVISKY Six intimate walking tours of Jerusalem's most historic and...
...She makes this very point early on in her new guidebook, Jerusatemwalks...
...When she reaches a site, for example, that has a historical marker or inscription, she does not simply tell you to read it...
...Kaminker, a city planner, presents well-researched and detailed walks which, happily, do not overlap greatly with Rosovsky's...
...I'm cranky enough to quibble with a book even as good as Rosovsky's...
...The Jerusalem Guide, however, is more than ten years old and in need of updating...
...That I'm always willing to help tourists is no boast...
...I collect them, study them, and often—although not often enough—I enjoy them...
...A neatly dressed little man looking thoroughly desperate had entered the gate to my courtyard...
...Surely this is an exaggeration...
...MATTHEW NESVISKY Six intimate walking tours of Jerusalem's most historic and enchanting neighborhoods, with maps, photos, and a selected list of restaurants and shops Nitza Rosovsky I'm crazy about tourists...
...Deliveries were made by pushcarts and donkeys, as in the shuk today, adding to the confusion...
...But I'm still always glad to see them, and because I love Israel and want them to love it as well, I make it a point to offer help...
...While the sabras spend the afternoons sipping coffee and mulling the stock market in a cool corner of a caf?, the tourists are out there resolutely staggering about the streets, strafed out of their skulls by the sun and benumbed by all those historical facts they've been told they must absorb...
...From the grocery stores came the smell of ground coffee, soap, cakes, goat cheese, pickled herring and black and green olives...
...Even if they are in fact safer in Jerusalem than they would be in New York—or for that matter in Pittsburgh or St...
...More important, Rosovsky neglects to mention that the top of the column bears the curious figure Villi, indicating that even the Romans had trouble with Roman numerals...
...Now I am happy to add Nitza Rosovsky's Jerusalemwalks to my list of recommendations...
...Of three of the most commonly-used walking guides to Jerusalem published in English in Israel, the best is Sarah Fox Kaminker's Footloose in Jerusalem...
...I subjected the book to the armchair test on sections of the city that I know very well and found it precise, thorough and pleasurable to read...
...Dogs barked, children cried, old men leaned on their staffs and haggled over the price of some overripe vegetables...
...For example, she points out the well-known bagel-maker at Zahal Square, but should also point out that the bakery is frequently closed by the municipal health authorities (that's one reason why the place is well-known...
...I am, first of all, delighted that they have come to Israel...
...I think I may have even saved a few marriages...
...But Rosovsky's is certainly a welcome addition to the literature of the footsore and the farblonget who frequent my neighborhood...
...In all these respects, Jerusalemwalks measures up...
...For special friends I would also suggest the literary-spiritual guide called Retrievements: A Jerusalem Anthology, edited by the angelically-mad poet, Dennis Silk...
...Like the other cities covered in this publisher's series (London, Paris, Florence), Jerusalem is an eminently walkable town...
...Rosovsky has designed six walks, each discrete and featuring its own character...
...Accuracy is the first test of a guidebook, and this one is among the best in this respect...
...The Jerusalem Guide, by Giora Shamis and Diane Shalem, has the advantage of Brian Lalor's numerous drawings...
...On another occasion, she writes: "On the left is Havazeleth Street, named after one of the earliest Hebrew newspapers . . . Today the offices of Ha'aretz, Israel's best daily newspaper, are on this street...
...And like virtually everything else she has to say there, this bit of information is highly reliable...
...Discussing a building that housed the forerunner of Israel's national library, for instance, the author notes: "Its librarian was a man who had gone to Germany to learn a trade and returned equipped with a sock-knitting machine but could not make ends meet...
...This presents two itineraries, neither of which is included in Rosovsky...
...An extraordinary number of auslanders believe that Israel simply is not a safe place to visit...
...Rosovsky offers only photos, and any archeologist or graphic artist will tell you that line drawings are superior to photographs for conveying important matters like perspective, scale and highlights...
...For example, Rosovsky for some reason screws up her list of banking hours...
...Make no mistake, touring is hard work, and I always maintain that tourists deserve a vacation after a trip to Israel...
...And in the Jewish Quarter, Rosovsky gives passing mention to the home of sculptress Lea Majaro-Mintz, but neglects to mention that the house is open to the public...
...the stench of the sewer often had the upper hand over the pleasanter aromas of fresh bread and spices...
...When it comes to straining marital ties, touring must rank right up there with the herpes virus...
...Similarly, she thoughtfully points out quiet and shaded spots along the walks where you may sit and digest her background material before continuing along her itinerary...
...The impression given is that Ha'aretz is published in Jerusalem...
...Since I live in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, I come in contact with tourists every day...
...Israelis are often ambivalent about them—mildly tolerant of their behavior, frequently scornful of their polyesters, always appreciative of their hard currency— but me, I love 'em...
...But as indicated earlier, no single guidebook is perfect, and frankly, I wouldn't go touring anywhere with only one text at hand...
...I learned a great deal and, because Rosovsky is so attentive to detail, I couldn't get lost if I tried...
...One favorite: "How the hell was I supposed to know there are two Hadassah Hospitals in Jerusalem...
...Yet were I go to undertake the awesome task of writing a Jerusalem guide, I would be pleased to be let off with criticisms as minute as these...
...And I do not use the term "companion" loosely...
...Matthew Nesvisky is an editor and feature writer at The Jerusalem Post and a frequent contributor to MOMENT...
...You want to see those darned Chagall windows, Edna, you find them yourself...
...Visiting hours are listed by the gate...
...But I'm proud to say that I politely helped even this befuddled intruder...
...Tipping his hat, he asked, hopefully: "Der TempleplatzV I was sorely tempted to exult: "Ja, ja, dis ist der Templeplatz und Ich bin der High Priest...
...They fascinate me as much as the city fascinates them...
...Since a tourist is presented with a bewildering array of guidebooks in Jerusalem shops, it might be appropriate here to say a few words about some of the most popular ones...
...Marty's is accurate enough, but very shallow and offensively written: King Solomon "was probably the biggest swinger around," archeologist Kathleen Kenyon "was one smart cookie"—you get the idea...
...SO YOU CARRY THEM...
...Nitza Rosovsky happily keeps both the ambulatory and the sedentary reader in mind...
...And in all cases she is, like good company, very often amusing...
...But there I go again, quibbling away...
...It would thus be an excellent companion to that companion...
...Elsewhere, the author states that the base of a certain Herodian column in the Jewish Quarter has a diameter of six feet...
...Others, like the Russian Compound and the Prophets Street walks, are of lesser-known neighborhoods that tourists would never see—or if they did happen to stumble upon them, would never comprehend without this book...
...Here's an example of how this native of Jerusalem admirably keeps her rhapsodizing in check: "One hopes that when all the construction is finished the street will come alive again...
...This is a sorry omission, as Lea is an especially warm and interesting veteran of Jerusalem, loves visitors, and has crammed the gardens, roof and three stories of her house with spectacular sculptures...
...And everywhere there were beggars...
...Virtually every tourist I talk to—and I talk to a lot—tells me that some friend or relative expressed grave concern when learning of his travel plans...
...I know that each morning when I take out the trash I will see at least one tourist, brow furrowed, map in hand, one forefinger raised as he pivots about on his heels trying to get his bearings...
...Such tourists exude a puppylike innocence that makes one feel protective towards them...
...I will admit, too, that tourists amuse me, especially the ones hugging their bottled mineral water or blithely wearing "cruise clothes" that they would be too embarrassed to wear at home...
...The author's choice of areas for exploring also prevents her book from repeating the material in earlier Jerusalem walkabout guides...
...It's common to get carried away to the realm of rubbish when writing about the Holy City...
...Then, of course, tourists frequently get lost, and nowhere more easily than in the labyrinth of the Jewish Quarter...
...in fact, its headquarters are in Tel Aviv, while the dingy little offices on Rehov Havazeleth contain only its Jerusalem bureau...
...I'm going back to the Sheraton...
...Eager to pounce, I first nitpicked my way through Jerusalemwalks, eager for errors...
...I found very few, and I admit those were hardly important...
...Another: "Now look, Ben, you're the one who said the kids would flip for these Hebrew Coke bottles...
...But one must not over-romanticize the past and must recognize that the street, like the [Jewish] quarter, was poverty-stricken...
...Once I was even pulled away from my typewriter by a timid knock at the door...
...Mach schnell, ve're just getting ready to barbecue der rot heifer...
...My heart also went out to the tourists this summer who posed Israeli troops for pictures at the Rosh Hanikra border checkpoint (a sign forbids photographing, but the convoys to Lebanon quickly became a "must" for every tourist's slide collection) while just a few miles up the coastal road terrorists were still being flushed out of orchards and refugee camps...
...In the first weeks after I moved in I was contemplating leaving a trail of bread crumbs from my door to Jaffa Gate, so I can sympathize with the newcomer stumbling about our twisting lanes and alleys...
...Here food was sold, and merchants called out to passersby to come and examine their wares...
...And I walked those of its itineraries that I know less well and found the book an eye-opening tool...
...Such a traveling companion must be readable (taste, if you have not already, Melville and Twain on Jerusalem, or for that matter, the classic 1876 Baedecker's Jerusalem and Surroundings...
...A guidebook should be a good friend— informative, interesting, respectful, never a bore and, if possible, entertaining...
...When I said a guidebook should be respectful, I meant both of its subject and of its reader's sensibilities...
...Cotton spinners worked silently, while the clatter of tinsmiths' and cobblers' hammers resounded through the street...
...she gives you the text in the book, in the event that you are in fact re-relishing your walk at home...
...the truth is that despite their often abrasive manners, virtually all Israelis are quick to aid tourists...
...His " Unofficial Rumors of the War" appeared in these pages in October 1982...
...Then there's Marty's Walking Tours of Biblical Jerusalem, by Plaza Hotel PR man Marty Isaacs...
...He looks like nothing so much as a large plaid weathervane which has somehow fallen to earth...
...No guidebook is perfect, and none is all-inclusive...
...Louis—I always feel they need help...
...I could go outside and lie down next to it and measure it, but it's too damn hot right now, and besides, only tourists circulate in the noonday sun...
...But these are about the only nits I've picked, and in any event accuracy is by no means the only criterion for a guidebook...
...And indeed, there is something heartwarming about watching tourists blissfully cooing over the "cute" women soldiers at Jaffa Gate while only 500 meters away in the Moslem Quarter, Border Police are clubbing rioters to their knees...
...It should be worthwhile company both on your ramblings and in your living room...
...It is common on Jaffa Road to see fuming tourist-husbands stomping along five paces ahead of their steaming tourist-wives...
...I've taken to jotting down some of their classic mutterings...
...And if you don't believe Nesvisky, you can ask Nitza Rosovsky...
...It was unpaved and filthy...
...Better still, I'm just as happy when the writer says that Warren's shaft is "fantastically deep" and leaves it at that...
...Because I care about Jerusalem, and about tourists, I care about guidebooks...
...For many years Rehov Hayehudim was the nerve center of Jewish commercial life—noisy, crowded, smelly, but alive...
...Some are of the required tourist areas, like the Jewish and Christian Quarters...
...In the past when friends came calling from abroad, I customarily recommended Kaminker's Footloose...
Vol. 7 • November 1982 • No. 10
