Friday, May 23, 2014

JERUSALEM TOUR: Chevron Road: Beginning and End

You can See more buildings made out of Jerusalem Stone. That would be right over here, to your right and left, in Jerusalem. It is a unique stone to Jerusalem, as the rest of the world calls it limestone.

We are now traveling up Chevron Road, called Chevron because you will reach Chevron if you continue a half an hour past the end of the road, and make many turns. Chevron Road does take you to Beit Lechem. Beit Lechem Road is the street under Chevron Road which does not lead to Beit Lechem. Like every other road in Jerusalem, Chevron Road connects to Jaffa Street at some point, after it has changed its name a good 8 times.
Roads change names every few feet, as to honor the many people that have toured the city whose names now take up a block. Let us continue on this very complicated tour of Jerusalem. We are now on a different street, but do not worry, it is the same street.

We are not going to go into Beit Lechem, but we will take a little jump into Kever Rachel, the Tomb of Rahel. To get the full Beth Lahem Jewish experience, we are now driving threw barricades. Do not worry, the barricades are on both sides. You will be able to safely drive through Beit Lechem without seeing it.
We are now at the Tomb of the Rachel, the matriarch. Those people are not trying to push over the tombstone. They are praying. One of the finest prayer spots as we learn that she cries for her children, Jews have been going to her grave-site for millenia to cry about how their children have also let them down.
If anybody would like to purchase red string, now is the time to do it. You can be assured that this has been rapped around Rachel's gravestone and is not the yarn racket they have running in the old city.
Is everybody enjoying the tour.

Mishkanot Sha’ananim was the first Jewish neighborhood built outside the walls of the Old City. Now it is a guesthouse. Yemin Moshe gets credit for the rest of the neighborhood, because it is easier to say.
Moses Montefiore had something to do with this. He had money and like any Jew living outside of Israel with money, he purchased real estate in Jerusalem. Thus starting the tradition of unaffordable housing for the locals.
There is a windmill and a carriage that Montefiore must have ridden on at some point in his life. Apparently it got stuck right under the windmill. The windmill is a monument created by the city of Jerusalem so that people can tell their dates where to meet.
Following in the non-citizen purchase role, Moses Montefiore renovated the Tomb of Rachel.

Enough of that. Lets check out the Mount Zion Hotel. This is a nice looking hotel. With the classic Jerusalem feel, this hotel sticks to the oval Jerusalem structure in the rooms and gives the tourists the ancient feel of Jerusalem stone and discomfort.

Lets cross back over the Bnai Brith walking bridge. This is an example of an organization that could not find anything of substance to donate. It is a bridge, and cars cannot drive on it. I am also at a loss. Hadassah gave a hospital. You can do better Bnai Brith.
The Menachem Begin Heritage Center. Its a museum. This museum commemorates the life and lessons of Menachem Begin. As you experience this lover of Jews, as you walk through the museum you will learn that not one achievement was in thanks to Ben Gurion. That is the message of the museum.
Lets take a three hour tour of the museum. I understand that you paid me $500 to show you around. And here I am showing you that this is a museum.

How did you all like the museum? The day is over already. I am off the clock. I hope you appreciate the knowledge I imparted to you all today.

Wait, we just missed the Jerusalem Cinematheque. Its a theater. They show movies. Uniquely, it is in Jerusalem. For tomorrow's tour, we will be hitting the movies. And we will have the Israeli movie experience of watching movies with subtitles. Nice.
Maybe I will even drop you off at the Shai Agnon House. Shai Agnon used to live in the house. Now, this deceased Nobel Prize Laureate for literature does not. That is it for the next two days of this tour; museums and movies. If you are good, I will work overtime and show you a mall.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

JERUSALEM TOUR: Government Buildings & What Have You

Givat Ram is an area which houses a lot of government buildings and museums.
The Givat Ram campus of Hebrew University was completed in 1948, when the Jews had no access to Mount Scopus, after many years of classes being held in random homes and buildings around Jerusalem. They realized they had to build a campus when they noticed that many of the classrooms' poor attendance was due to people not answering the door.
The university always kept its classes going without a campus, the ancient equivalent of a degree online. I am not racist, so I will not project that it had anything to do with Jews ranking academically very hi on the Bell Curve, or Jews valuing education.
Har Hatzofim campus is back and running and I have no idea what they are doing at Givat Ram. They might have classes. The overseas students are at Mount Scopus as they have buildings there. The Israel library is housed at the Givat Ram campus, with every Hebrew book in their catalog. That is one room in a building. I do not know what the rest of the campus is there for.
The campus is housed right next to the Jerusalem Botanical Garden with 600,000 types of rare plants that you will not notice.

We are now passing the Israel Museum housing the Shrine of The Book from the Qumran Caves, in a Tajin shaped building, because the people who found the Dead Sea Scrolls like Moroccan food.
The Israel Museum now houses the Bible Land Museum. You will also find ancient Egyptian artifacts and other valuable ancient stuff that the Israeli government felt it was better that they steal.

The Knesset, is the main building of the Israel parliament, and that is located to your side. There is a lot of  fighting going on here. There are 120 members, similar to the leaders involved in the Great Assembly at the time of the Second Temple. The only difference is that the leaders involved in the Great Assembly had to be knowledgeable.
Statements come out of the Knesset, like 'Iran has a nuclear program,' and other stuff that everybody has been saying for the past 10 years. All of the citizens of Israel vote for them to make these statements.
The main thing as a Jerusalemite is to have a view of the Knesset. The goal of a Jerusalemite is to say, 'I have a view of the Knesset,' and then to point so your guest know what you are talking about. Built by the same guy who built Ramot Polin and that building on the corner of King George and Agron, the Knesset is thankfully one of the ugliest buildings. But I do have a view of it and I am proud.

Israel Supreme Court- The Beit Hamishpat HaElyon (for those who understand transliteration), has 15 seats, as to allow for more arguments. You will notice it is shaped as a pyramid, because Jews like building pyramids. The new building took 3 years to build, after 7 years of planning. As one Knesset member said, ‘It would have been built faster if the Egyptians would have told us what to do.’

The Jerusalem Cinematheque has now been built as a homage to people who still do not have internet.

Friday, May 9, 2014

JERUSALEM TOUR: Moving Down Herzl Road

Here are the hotels, purposefully built outside of walking distance from anything you would like to see.

We are going to pass Beit Hakarem. Non-religious people live here. They are not interesting. These people used to be religious, but made the decision to not be religious once they realized that tourists do not look at nonreligious people.
There is nothing to see here. You can see people grocery shopping if that interests you. However, for all of our sake, we will keep moving to an area where people look different and look down on us.

We are now moving along Herzl Road. We just passed Yad Sarah. Yad Sarah supplies medical equipment, such as crutches, for sick or handicap people, who have to go and pick up them up at Yad Sarah. However, they do not deliver. Yad Sarah also provides prayers for people who cannot walk without crutches, and cannot pick them up because they cannot walk, which is why they needed them.
We will now say a blessing for all of the sick people who are not healthy and can thus not use Yad Sarah.

If you look to the other side of the road, you will see the Sha'arei Chesed Hospital. It is a hospital. It is known for treating people who are sick and could thus not be helped by Yad Sarah.

Let us move back to the other side of the street.
Mount Herzl, also known as the Mountain of Memory, hosts the main military cemetery of Israel. Herzl is buried here. If Herzl fought in a war or did not is not important. The point is he is buried in the cemetery. This is quite ironic, because it is called Mount Herzl.
Yom HaAtzmaut Celebrations begin here. Yom HaAtzmaut, Israel Independence Day, begins right after Yom HaZikaron- The Day of Remembrance for the fallen soldiers. They kick the ceremonies off, right after the memorial services. As the Jewish saying goes, ‘Always remember the bad when celebrating.’ As in every holiday, you will notice that people use a Yahrzeit candle to remember their close relatives. Many people then take the glass the candle was in and use it as a shot glass, to confuse the children. Jewish tradition is steeped in not wasting stuff you will not use. As such, it is traditional to keep every plastic bag.
Other Jewish sayings: Never enjoy the good times. Make sure your child feels guilty for getting an ‘A.’ Make sure your guests eat a lot and are made uncomfortable. It is only as good as it is bad. Am I chopped liver? You are going to give me a heart attack.

On the other side of Mount Herzl is Yad VaShem. Opened in 1957, the entrance gate looks like the entrance to a Concentration Camp, thus giving you the full feeling of ‘Do not Enjoy’ that Jerusalem offers.
There is also the Valley of communities. 5,000 Jewish communities destroyed.
The Hall of Remembrance has a cattle car. The Cattle cars would ship the Jews to the concentration camps, as Jews were treated like animals on their way to slaughter. You are expecting something funny now? You malicious bitter spiteful cruel vindictive disgusting person.
There was the children’s memorial, commemorating all the children who were murdered. Their only sin was being born to a Jewish mother.
Many of you have expressed the feeling of burden and punishment, being born to a Jewish mother. The amount of guilt you felt growing up. However, that is the punishment of love.
I would try to be funny here, but I have a heart. That is the point I wanted to make. I have a heart and I care. I am an awesome guy, and any mother-in-law would be happy to have me.

Saturday, May 3, 2014

JERUSALEM TOUR- Paz Station to Kanfei Nesharim

We are now coming back to the entrance of the city again. Yep, this tour was not planned very well. 

Here you can see the Paz station. This is the gas station where people tell you to meet them, instead of picking you up from your house. 
There is a very popular tremping technique (known as hitchhiking in other countries, and thus dangerous in other countries) in Israel, where you use the phone to get the tremp from somebody who is not a stranger. What makes this hitchhiking, is that your friend treats you as a stranger, once you enter their car. The one with the car knows that they are getting a call, as their ‘friend’ does not want to chip in for gas. As such, they do not pick them up from their house, nor do they drop them off anywhere near their destination.
If going to the same destination, it is fine to get out once the car is parked. If not, the passenger-stranger-friend must jump out along the way, somewhere in traffic, not causing any inconvenience to their friend-driver. If inconvenience is caused, there will never be another tremp opportunity. This comes from a long standing tradition in Jerusalem to not go out of ones way to help.
The reason for meeting at the gas station is to hint to the passenger to chip in for the gas.

Kanfei Nesharim is the street we are on right now and the area. This is the home of the famous Angel's Bakery, who has helped feed the Israelis throughout the many wars and has still not figured out how to make a tasty rugulach. As they are also living with the theme 'טעם של פעם,' 'The the taste of Old,' they have not changed the ingredients to the ancient chocolate rugulach. The ancient rugulach, which was apparently traditionally made dry and with very little chocolate.
Off of Kanfei Nesharim are a number of different areas and industrial parks, as they have nothing to do with touring.
Nefesh BNefesh is located down there, if you want more people to make you feel guilty about just visiting.
The Post Office is located down there, with no space for a car to park or drive through, for those of you who have packages to pick up.
You can see all the many buildings, built in the parking lots, which is why we are going to continue our tour and go back to Herzl Road.

You can see the Jerusalem Walking bridge. Really part of the central bus station area, connecting to Kiryat Moshe. Kiryat Moshe is where Rav Kook’s Yeshiva is, Merkaz HaRav. This is the starting point for Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem day, as
Designed by the German architect in the 1920s, Richard Kaufmann, Kiryat Moshe was also not built on a grid, to make it impossible to find your way out of the neighborhood. The same way Beit HaKarem and the following neighborhood of Bayit Vagan were made to not be accessible. For these reasons, Jews have historically settled in these areas, once they got stuck in them.
People use walking bridges to walk up stairs and over a street. You could also Jwalk and be there much quicker.
Watch out for walking tickets, as terror is too hard for the cops to deal with.
Catching pedestrians is the strong point of the Jerusalem police and we take pride in their expertise.