Aaaah, Jerusalem

I’ve had it with elections! So much of what is disseminated to innocents like me is false or hyperbole or the opinions of lots of less than erudite people, expounding on their own takes, which are often totally off the mark. Nonetheless they are paid well. Truthfully, one person’s fact is another’s opinion, and both are often irrelevant and irreverent! 

Rant over! 

Now I turn to something truly meaningful, eternal and beautiful, our own holy city, Jerusalem. 

With all the world capitals, why is it that one stands apart and continues to grab my heart, my destiny, my focus, and my soul? It’s not Rome, with its countless intricately chiseled fountains, spraying the air with cool and refreshing water. Or San Francisco, with its rolling hills drawn to the sea. It’s not New York, with its powerful landscape of soaring skyscrapers skirting the heavens. It’s not Paris with its monuments, towers, and elegance. It’s not even our own Newark, where the skyline is not at all dramatic but the message is a lifetime of memories and roots, forever homeward bound. 

For all of us, we people known as Am Yisrael, Jerusalem is simply incomparable. It is our city, our connection to our majestic and historic peoplehood. It is ours forever, cherished, noble, magnificent, and also mundane, down to earth, but spiritually uplifting as nowhere else in our universe. In particular, for us, my husband and me, who have been blessed with many hundreds of visits, short ones and very long ones, it is not foreign. It is our sanctuary. We have spent wars in its shelters, and fortunes in its restaurants. We have pounded its challenging paths, with their charming but hazardous cobblestones, and dreamt in its star-filled nights. We have engaged with its cabbies and cats. It is our beloved place.

You might want to know what we still do that inspires us to continue our love affair with this divine place. What is there that we haven’t already done? Or that we choose to do again and again?

We have become, in recent years, serial riders of the newish light rail, a wonderful, aboveground, smooth-as-silk, inexpensive train with expansive windows that runs frequently, reliably, across the amazing city. It’s many times superior to what you’ll find at any airport or Disney creation. It runs for miles, its quietly functioning engine enhanced by the “babel” of multilingual passengers, alighting and departing, in their often exotic costumes, for their individual destinations, those destinations situated across the city spanning unique neighborhood immersions, originating at Hadassah Hospital, perched high on its Ein Kerem campus, and continuing all the way to Neve Yaakov. This, the first iteration of the system, is the Red Line, a remarkable modern addition to the city that is now feverishly working on the addition of a new Green Line and a Blue Line. 

These lines will eventually crisscross the city, hopefully easing traffic congestion and providing simple and safe transit from the center to the many outlying neighborhoods. There is simply no easier way to traverse Jerusalem than with the light rail, which places its passengers in the hearts of the city, end to end, spanning a wonderful panoply of local life. The ongoing development of this remarkable mass transit system will continue to make the city more and more accessible. To us, this is no simple mode of transportation. It is an outstanding attraction, and we ride it every time we visit.

Another incredibly interesting activity is taking taxis. Taxis are not a substitute for the light rail. They are a markedly different type of experience. Both complement each other without competing. The taxi will always be door to door and will often provide one-on-one conversations. Many of the drivers speak some English and are representative of the numerous factions of Jerusalem city life. 

Chatting with a taxi driver is always fascinating and certainly a departure from our daily lives in New Jersey. They are pretty much universally friendly, whether Arab, as I approximate about half are, or Jew, and they all seem to be opinionated, which makes for great conversations, if not agreement. We use an app to get our taxis. It’s called Gett and it works exactly like Uber in the States. It will identify your pickup point, and you add in your destination. This can be done in English or Hebrew, and the program is almost always very intuitive. As in most other places throughout the world, taxis are not cheap, but they get you where you want to go, and the scenery doesn’t disappoint. An especially lovely activity is to take a taxi to the airport in the middle of the night, a trip made more convenient if you have a particularly early flight and are luggage-laden and unwilling to deal with the hourly train. I call this a ride by moonlight, and the sights are breathtaking in the utter stillness of a 2 a.m. ride. It’s more pricey than the train, but I consider it a not-to-be missed attraction.

Of course, one of our favorite activities is eating! We’re always looking for tempting new places and always return to outstanding favorites. One of our very best chalavi (dairy) restaurants is the never disappointing Cafe Denya. This is now a growing chain, but we love the one on Denya Square in Beit Hakerem, which happens to have a light rail stop directly across the street. Their beet ravioli is legendary and an item I look for in America and have yet to find. We have never ever been disappointed there, and their desserts are overwhelmingly calorie-laden but the whipped cream is real and you’ve never enjoyed so many calories so much!

We especially like two steakiyas in Talpiot. We return time and time again to Ezra and Tzidkiyahu. And we’re very far from the only ones! They both operate with the same type of service. Sit down and pretty much instantly, a server will appear with plates and plates of little salads, everything from eggplant in various manifestations to multitudes of vegetables in amazing sauces, to freshly deep fried felafel balls, tehina, and a giant fresh laffa hot off the taboun. Ezra includes hummus. All of these are unlimited and will be readily refilled on demand, before you even glance at the menu and decide which of the incredibly delicious main courses you will have. Most are on skewers but some, like steak, are not. All will be memorable, cooked to perfection, and more than any human can consume. Except me!

Aaaah, Jerusalem!

Rosanne Skopp of West Orange is a wife, mother of four, grandmother of 14, and great-grandmother of 12. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. She is a lifelong blogger, writing blogs before anyone knew what a blog was! She welcomes email at rosanne.skopp@gmail.com