Lights On Jerusalem

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As luck would have it, after writing yesterday's post about the derelict decaying empty buildings, I saw a notice at Haaretz today about a different but similar problem.
One new solution is called Turn on all the lights in Jerusalem.
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At the project's website Mayor Nir Barkat addresses the absentee foreign landlords thus:

" . . . the number of Jerusalem homes owned by people in the Diaspora has created a troublesome phenomenon in the city resulting in a shortage of affordable apartments available for young people in the city. In addition, certain neighborhoods are beginning to feel like 'Ghost towns' with large proportions of their residents away most of the year round.

According to the data available to us, there are approximately 11,160 such apartments in Jerusalem, 8,000 of which stand empty for most of the year, while about 7,000 young people leave the city every year, mainly due to the shortage of residential solutions.

Dear friend, we must ensure that Jerusalem's lights will continue to shine even in the months when you are not in the city. If you own a residential property which is not in use throughout the year , we urge you to please rent it to top-tier students or other young people who are so vital to us in the city.

In order to make the process easier and to provide confidence in renting your property, we have selected several leading property management companies, all of which have been carefully vetted for their reliability and quality of service. You are invited to contact the selected companies next time you are in Jerusalem."
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Great, fine idea! Now if the Municipality would also solve the problem addressed in yesterday's post, so much the better.
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Use it or lose it

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A dirty door with broken glass for today's Monday Doorways.
And to my further chagrin, ISRAEL COINS & MEDALS CORPORATION is what the metal letters on the door say, both in English and Hebrew, in between the menorahs.

If you enlarge this photo, look for the sign next to that door.
It says DANGEROUS BUILDING, NO ENTRY.
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The smaller signs says No Parking, to no avail.

In addition to housing the Coins and Medals office/store, this must have been a hotel once, judging from the remnants of a sign.
This decaying building just off Keren Hayesod Street is one of several in central Jerusalem that have been standing empty for years, caught in legal battles between contractors, investors, and government bureaucracy.
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As I hope your news media have told you, the past month is seeing an unprecedented wave of grassroots "social justice" protests all across Israel (well explained here).
For one thing, young people are demanding affordable apartments to buy or rent, saying that the cost of housing has risen 50% in the last two and a half years.
And thus the current tent encampments of protestors in the big cities now.
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Some of the students went around finding and photographing buildings like the one shown above and then digging in municipal files to find out why the structures are caught in limbo.
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They presented their findings to the Jerusalem Municipality and also got time on the evening TV news.
These young people claimed that these buildings could be renovated and turned into hundreds of available apartments much faster than the years it takes to get permits and finish construction of new housing.

Not to mention that Jerusalem is almost out of space to build new places, at least if we want to stay inside the Green Line (the previous border) and not to encroach on the surrounding green lungs (e.g. the forested Jerusalem Hills).
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This post can surely be for That's My World.
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Al Shami goat with a mouthful

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I walked down in the woods across the street and found my neighbor's buck tethered to a small tree for browsing.
(See the leaves in his mouth?)
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This breed is new to me and looks weird.
Apparently the Cyprus (Damascus) Shami goat is popular in the wider Middle East.

Emirates 24/7 News has a video about a recent beauty contest, saying "Jordan hosted the maiden beauty pageant of the famed Al Shami goats that are known for their silky fur and curved nose."
Warning: video shows the long ears cropped.

Four pretty does were browsing freely not far from the buck.
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These four-footed neighbors are for Camera Critters.
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Shabbat of Consolation

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The bus goes down down down from high altitude Jerusalem to below sea level Dead Sea.
With reflections of the skilled driver in the mirrors for Weekend Reflections.


A few days ago, on Tisha B'Av, Jews mourned the destruction of the Temples and of much of Jerusalem and the beginnings of our exile.
But God in his mercy does not leave us totally in this doom and gloom.
Instead, on the first Sabbath after Tisha B'Av he gives us Shabbat Nachamu, the Sabbath of Consolation, named after this day's reading from the prophet Isaiah 40:1-31 which begins "Nachamu nachamu ami," meaning "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people."

1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins. 3 A voice cries: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
. . . 9 Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!" 10 Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. 11 He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms, he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. . . .

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Shabbat shalom!
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Ezeh keta!

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Form [sic] 9:00 to 18:00 only public "transpotraion" is allowed on this congested section of Agrippas Street in central Jerusalem.
Well, at least the Hebrew original is OK, almost.
I wonder how the Arabic translation fared on this big sign.
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Let's send it to the Signs, Signs meme--and maybe back to the printer too.

This is what the street looks like.
Standing or creeping buses as far as the eye can see.
It doesn't look like the private cars noticed the sign prohibiting them.
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Until a few months ago, most of this traffic went along the wider Jaffa Street.
But then came the new tram and most of Jaffa St. was closed to vehicles.
Agrippas is a mess.
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Location, location

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An unusual view of the famous old YMCA from the back.
The tall tower and the dome are part of the Y.
In back of it you see the venerable old King David Hotel.

But what's the big new building going up next to the YMCA?
The round sign on the fence says King David's Crown.
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The eight-story crown-shaped residential building will have 200 apartments with underground parking and a tunnel to a new sports complex being constructed by the YMCA.

A 1.25-acre park designed by Israeli sculptor Adani will be artistically illuminated at night and include waterfalls and canals. It will be open to the public, they say.

Here's King David's Crown and the Y seen from the other side, from Keren Hayesod Street.
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Take a virtual tour of the project at their website.
Look at these prices for an apartment, in millions of shekels!
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Other posts about the YMCA are here and here.
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Doorway to a den

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Doorway to its den?
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This Rock Hyrax lives right near the shore of the Sea of Galilee, at Tabgha.
In Hebrew the Procavia capensis is called shafan sela (literally, "rock rabbit").
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They are also plentiful in the desert near the Dead Sea, e.g. at Ein Gedi.
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The D's are for ABC Wednesday D-Day.
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UPDATE! By happy coincidence Prof. Todd Bolen of BiblePlaces Blog also posted about hyraxes today.
Apparently the little critters are becoming a nuisance in Israel, migrating to the towns.
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Tisha B'Av begins

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Tonight and tomorrow Jews around the world remember the destruction of the First and Second Temples and many other calamities that befell our people on this day, the 9th of Av.
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More about Tisha B'Av:
How I sat on the floor and read Lamentations by candlelight--here and here
Tisha B'Av at the Western Wall
Diorama of Titus breaching the city wall of Jerusalem
Remembering the destruction on the wall of one's house
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That's My World today--collective remembering for thousands of years.
And for Shadow Shot Sunday too.
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Turned into stone

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Just a little post to answer some of your questions about yesterday's fossil.
Here you can see how big it is. It is very heavy.
Belongs to friends, not me.
Don't know it origin or history.
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Leif, I found out here that
"Because the half-life of carbon-14 is 5,700 years, it is only reliable for dating objects up to about 60,000 years old."
This beautiful fossil must be way older than that.
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Fossil in last sunlight

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Ancient spiraled creature
out of the shadow
of eons gone by.

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For Camera-Critters and Shadow Shot Sunday and for Cloudia of Comfort Spiral.
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Keeping cool in Ramadan

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Is that a reflection or a shadow on the floor of the entrance to Jerusalem's Museum of Islamic Art?
Does it go to James' Weekend Reflections or Tracy's Shadow Shot Sunday?
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Enlarge the picture better to see what created the reflection/shadow.

The delicate pattern from the windows is even echoed in the museum's benches.
And hey, there's definitely a shadow under the bench!

Here are the holes in the bench from above.
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You still see a few examples of this on upper windows in the Old City.
The mashrabiy or rushan is an element of traditional Arabic architecture used since the Middle Ages up to the mid twentieth century.
The wooden lattice would prevent people down on the street from seeing the women in their home and yet would allow the women to see what was happening in the street. Or so it was explained to me.
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In addition to the social aspect of privacy, the rushan was like a primitive air conditioner.
Wikipedia says "The wooden screen with openable windows gives shade and protection from the hot summer sun while allowing the cool air from the street to flow through. The wood itself absorbs the humidity from the air."
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This year Ramadan falls in August, the hottest month of the year.
Not drinking or eating during the long hot day must be a real test of character.
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Wishing Ramadan kareem to our Muslim readers.
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Fun in the fromagerie

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When stood on edge, cheese wheels really do look like wheels!

One of my favorite memories from Switzerland--Gruyere!

Welcome to the Shuk Mahane Yehuda store of "BASHER, The King of Cheese."
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The hole-y Swiss Emmental was tagged "special price" but I didn't see how much it cost because I was having too much fun just taking pictures.
And I'm sure all these imported luxury cheeses are beyond my budget anyway.

Cheesemaking is such an art and such hard and satisfying work. (This I know from working a year and a half in the cheese dairy of an Israeli sheep farm.)
That's why I was so excited to see the nearly one thousand kinds of cheese in this fromagerie today!

Their website says that Eli Basher travels every month to Rungis, the famous wholesale food market at the outskirts of Paris, to select the cheeses.
Of course, he has plenty of great Israeli cheese and dairy products too.

The store has just been renovated and now it is very open and even more inviting.
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When printing took some effort

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We have come a long way since this Alexandra iron handpress was made in London in 1730.

It has a place of honor in the front window of our National Library at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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Creepy cistern

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Welcome to ABC Wednesday C-Day.

I always wondered what was in the big (260 dunams) empty nature place locals call Gazelle Valley.
It, and what was originally a herd of 17 Gazella gazella gazella, is surrounded by Jerusalem urban development.
On one side is a fire station, seen in the first photo.
But when I was roaming there exactly a year ago, much of the land was charred black from a recent brush fire.

Within sight of the Fire Department, I was surprised to discover one still-standing long-abandoned stone house almost overgrown by trees and weeds.

Caution to the wind, I came closer to snap a photo of the interior.
From outside, that is; I wasn't cuckoo enough to find a way in. No.

Through the basement window I cringed to see a ghostlike drape hanging on the wall.

Courageous or crazy?
Had I gotten too close to this hole in the ground, something might have crumbled or collapsed.
And then only the jackals would have found me--for dinner.

The thick plaster lining of the hole made me think this was once a cistern, now a creepy cistern.
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Urbex/UE/urban exploration could be fun, but not when one is alone and without a cellphone.
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Postcard-worthy Hills of Jerusalem

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The dry Jerusalem Hills of summer.
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The Jerusalem Hills are a hilly region in the Judean mountains, with Jerusalem nestling in the middle.

"This region is blessed with some 100 springs, in the valleys between the hills and on the hillsides. Most of the springs flow from cracks in rock formations and every one of them is a celebration of nature.
Many of the hillsides have ancient terraces built on them, silent testimony to ancient agricultural efforts.

Scattered among the hills are also the remains of agricultural settlements from the First Temple period (3,000 years ago); such as Khurvat Kfar Sum, farm houses and agricultural systems from the Second Temple and Roman-Byzantine periods, such as Sataf and Ein Khandak; and Crusader sites such as the church at Abu Ghosh, the Tsuba fortress and the Ein Khemed monastery.
The Jerusalem hills also have many sites commemorating the fierce battles waged here in the 1948 War of Independence, such as the Kastel in Mevaseret Tsiyon and the Burma Road."

From GoIsrael. More about our Hills at their webpage.

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants. We City Daily Photo members are posting today on our August 1 theme, Postcard-worthy.
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This post is also for the round-the-world meme That's My World .
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