Crazy house

In Jerusalem on the famous old Street Jaffa in 1946 my parents met. Mom was eighteen, she walked on Jaffa with a worker. Started rain, the boyfriend offered to pop up to his cousin and wait for the rain. This cousin and later became my father. All my childhood he told me: "Don’t go this rain, you would not born". Since then I love rain and this street.

Unattainable shrine

Monastery Notre Dam de Zion near the new gate – also my favorite place. Before the six-day war, when the border was still running through Jerusalem, my dad wrote a lot of poems that it is necessary to capture the old town, freeing it and make our. He wrote about Mount Tsofim, about the temple grief, and in the evenings drove us into those places where it was possible to see another half of Jerusalem, located on the other side of the border. We went to Abu-Tor to look at the temple mountain and climbed to the roof of the Nothre Dame Monastery. If you get up on the tiptoe and stretch your neck, you could see a pair of upper bricks Wall Watch. Dad showed them and explained that the day comes when I grow up, I will become a soldier and I will fight for this city. He wrote a wonderful poem about the monastery, which began words: "Roof of the monastery of Notre Dame
Was like a mountain of neo
I will see the shrine
But I can not get closer to it". Father felt himself Moses, seeing the promised, but not able to stand on her. My political views differ from daddy, but these walks on the roof very much worried me.

Biblical Zverinets

This is a very funny zoo, it is called the Old Testament. At the time of my childhood, it contained only those animals that are mentioned in the Old Testament (today there are already penguins, and giraffes, and other animals, which in the Old Testament). Each cell was an excerpt from the Old Testament, which refers to this animal. The first director of the zoo was a Jew from Russia, Professor Shulov. He was a friend of father. When we came to the zoo, he personally drove us from the cage to the cage. My dad knew the Old Testament! Once we stood at the cell of Lion and Dad told us about the place of a lion in the Old Testament. Suddenly, the lion turned to our back and peeped on dad (lion urinates back and makes it very sighting, so he managed to get dad from the distance eight meters). Dad is terribly offended, but Professor Shulov told him: "Yitzhak, he probably pulled out the threat emanating from you – this is a compliment", And dad calmed down a bit. But me, a little boy, shook the situation itself: the lion was in my middle of Jerusalem! Professor Schulov, by the way, very much wanted in his zoo, the scenes from the Old Testament would also be played. He dreamed of laying a wolf next to Lamb, but the budget for the purchase of a new Lamb every day he has, of course, was not. Many years later – I was already about twenty – I went to spend Shulaov in the zoo. He brought me to the corner of the wolves, and I saw a wolf lying on the floor and semi-limit from fatigue. I asked: "What about him?" "He was at the Lamb", – said Professor. It turned out that Schulov came up with a great solution: he took the eight-month-old Voltochka – a large enough, but still a puppy – and placed it in one pen with a large ram. Baran all day Bodel Volchonka and chased in charge. In the evening, the poor fellow went home to recover. Then the border of the city passed almost at the most zoo, the city was not only much less, but much quieter. Therefore, we heard how the lion growls at night in a kilometer from our house.

Crazy Street

The area where I lived in childhood, Kiryat Moshe – right at the entrance to Jerusalem – consisted of block concrete houses. It was absolutely not like Jerusalem Bulgakov or Jerusalem, how he is trying to present the church or Israeli Ministry of Tourism. It was an ordinary worker area, as in any other city of the world. Right near our house there was a school for the blind, a little away – a crazy house, and not far from him – the orphan coach. When we moved to Jerusalem from the village of Naalal, I spoke to dad: "Where you brought me? This is a city of crazy, blind and orphans!" Father answered: "So it is, this is this, Jerusalem and good". There were no walls – we played with blind children, the crazy walked around the area, it was an incredible place. Today, Kiryat Moshe has changed very much, they built a huge stitching – "Mercise A-Rav". Now this is the area of ​​religious settlers, one of the most striking religious regions of Jerusalem.

Terrible mystery

Another important place for me is the Greek monastery in San Simon, where in 1948 there was one of the most severe fighting in our history. In the student years I was friends with the local monk and came to his backgammon. In addition to the stunning species, this monastery is Slanged by Mystery: almost no one knows that a very famous and beloved poet Shaul Chernichovsky died there in Israel. In 1942-43, he stopped from time to time to the monastery cell – came with a Christian wife and one of these arrings died from a heart attack. The Board of Jewish settlements wanted to hide that the Great Jewish writer died in the monastery. His body secretly was taken to the hospital "Adasa" And only after that they reported. Old driver "Emergency" Once he told me: "I want to reveal you a secret. IT I transported the body of Chernihov". He told me about this tone, as if it was about the terrible secrecy "Mossada". And took an oath from me that I won’t say anyone.

Closer to the bomb

Those who want to try real Jerusalem cuisine should go to "Ban" (in Arabic it means "bomb"). This is a very Jerusalem name: when I was small, new areas were built in Jerusalem and there was no heavy machinery, which wears the rocks – they were exploded with dynamite. A niche drove into the rock, dynamite was laid in it, and the builders shouted in full range: "Ban! Ban!" – In order for everyone to run and hid at home, because the fragments of the rocks flew into all directions. The restaurant is located on Jaffa Street, and there you can eat an authentic Sephardic Jerusalem meal, because Daniela, the owner of the institution, comes from the old Sefard family and is preparing. If you like a good hummous, in the western part of the city there is a restaurant "Tami", and in the eastern, in the Christian quarter, – "Lina".

Taste of Jerusalem

What kind of morning without a herring. Israeli breakfast is no worse than in "Baruda"
Finely cut the salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, pepper and onions; Fill with olive oil, lemon juice and salt. Apply scrambled eggs from two eggs, freshly baked bread, soft goat or cow cheese (can be grain cottage cheese). And be sure to herd.

Addresses

THE BIBLICAL ZOO, POB 898. Tel. (02) 675 0111, www.Jerusalemzoo.Org.il

NOTRE-DAME DE Sion, 23 Ha’oren ST., Ein Kerem. Tel. (02) 641 57 38. Tourists often stop in the monastery.

San-Simon, Katamon Neighborhood, Bnei Betera St. Tel. (02) 679 27 42,

Yeshivat Mercaz Harav Kook, 12 Ben Dor St.

Barood, 31 Jaffa St. Opening hours: on weekdays 12.30-01.00, Sunday 12.30-01.00. Tel. (02) 625 90 81.