Yom Ha’aztmaut - The Way Things Were
Deborah Sharavi
by Meir Ronnen
Half a century ago in Jerusalem, we cooked our food over smelly little
kerosene stoves called petiliot (from the Hebrew for wick) and tried to
preserve what was left of our rations (there were rarely any leftovers)
in something called an ice chest. The kerosene was delivered by donkey
cart and the ice by truck, both announced by the tinkling of a handbell
but at no previously announced or known hour or day. We not only queued
for these necessities, but also for water, being the only town in Israel
that didn't have any.
The pervasive smell and taste of kerosene permeated not only our
clothing and uniforms but also our palates, but we were glad of it. This
fuel kept us warm to some extent through the snowy winters of 1949/50.
Between 1948 and 1967 Jewish Jerusalem was little more than a small hill
town surrounded on almost all sides by the Green Line on the armistice
map, manned on one side by the Beduin units of the Arab Legion and on
our side by the raggle taggle reservist units of the Jerusalem Brigade.
There was only one decent road into the city, the one that came up
through Bab el-Wad - now Sha'ar Hagai - but it was then barely wide
enough for two-way traffic. From the summit of the Castel it meandered
down the hairpin bends of Motza's Seven Sisters, where trucks and buses
battled each other at every twist of the narrow road. The bus journey
from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem took three hours.
A few meters beyond the beginning of Bab el-Wad, the Green Line not only
cut the direct road to Tel Aviv but cut Jerusalem off from the Latrun
pumping station, held by the Arab Legion. Piped water became a thing of
the past. The lucky Jerusalemites were those living in old properties
with cisterns filled from the rooftops during the winter. After the
armistice, emergency drilling at Kfar Uriya put water into Jerusalem's
leaky pipes every 17 days or so and then only for an hour or two.
Following a hasty, usually cold bath, the tub itself would be filled
with water which was later boiled for cooking. Buckets, jerry cans,
saucepans were all filled with water. The toilet was flushed with
washing up water. Everything smelled. JERUSALEM also smelled of the
border; wherever you walked, you came across the border wire, thick
layers of it festooned with irretrievable rubbish. No Man's Land was
also filled and bordered with shattered buildings, all giving off the
peculiar stench of dried feces left behind by desperate defenders.
The smelliest place of all was Camp Schneller, a former German Templer
church school and orphanage complex, which the IDF still uses today.
Schneller was where we shivering reservists assembled in the winter to
receive greatcoats, rifles and a few machine guns prior to setting out
on winter nightwatches and ambush points in and around the city.
Cavernous Schneller was dank and rank with damp and reeking Turkish
style toilets, and colder indoors than out.
At Schneller, the meager army meal of stale bread, margarine, half an
egg, rancid herring and lukewarm tea all smelled, like our filthy
greatcoats, of kerosene and gun oil. Winter nights were longer than
balmy summer ones. Every sundown we were dropped off in a different
position, anywhere from Talpiot to Mevo Betar, from Lifta to Ma'ale
Hahamisha. We lay in the rain and snow for up to 12 hours, gloveless,
our hands frozen to the rifle bolts. At Mevo Betar one of our sergeants,
a father of four, lost his way in a rainstorm, came upon our positions
from the wrong side and was killed.
These ambushes, mostly uneventful, went on year in, year out, but during
these years I met Jerusalemites from every walk of life and we remained
friends.
One evening I was assigned 30 men and told to spread them out along the
hilltops between the Monastery of the Cross and Sheikh Badr, near what
is now the Holiday Inn. One of them was a gentle but unhappy little
yeshiva bocher from Mea She'arim who refused to carry a rifle on
religious and pacifist grounds. In an inspired flash of talmudic pilpul,
I took his rifle and gave him my NCO's Sten gun, without the magazine. I
explained to him that without the magazine the Sten was no longer a
weapon. Once we were in position, along the rocky summits now occupied
by the Givat Ram Hebrew University campus and the Israel Museum, I
retrieved the Sten. The little student, like most of us a married man,
was released the next day.
In those days there was no animosity between haredim and secular
Jerusalemites. (Mea Shearim market was a popular place.)
Opposite Sheikh Badr was the hill on which the Knesset would be built.
When the Knesset moved to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, it was for years
housed in a small building on King George Street. Hebrew University
students attended lectures at Terra Sancta until the Givat Ram campus
was completed.
Reserve service also put one into the fortified houses that lined the
border. I was once given a blockhouse at the foot of Rehov Hanevi'im
just 50 meters from my home. A few meters further down the street was
the house in which my father was born but I was unable to see it until
1967, just before it was bulldozed away. In this blockhouse I had an
American bazooka. Facing me, about six meters away, was a Jordanian
armed with a British anti-tank Piat, pointed at my bazooka. I couldn't
get him to smile. IN THE 1940s and 1950s one could walk almost
everywhere in the city without effort (excluding the outlying suburbs of
Arnona, Beit Hakerem and Ein Kerem, then serviced by rickety little
Hamekasher buses). But with the border all around security was dicey and
there was frequent sniping. Oddly enough, Jerusalem was safer at night,
because there was no street lighting and I could walk home from The
Palestine Post in safety.
During the day, there were times when one had to cross Mamilla Road at a
run. Watching people in besieged Sarajevo recently reminded me of this,
but we weren't under machine gun fire; the Jordanians had only
bolt-action Lee-Enfield rifles at the time. However, these British Army
rifles were deadly accurate. Jerusalemites were sometimes hit walking
along a certain point on King George Street, near the park. Whenever I
took a curious look at matters behind the Hotel Fast (now torn down) a
Jordanian on the wall put his rifle to his shoulder; I'd wave and nip
back.
On another occasion I set up a sketching easel amid the wreckage of
Yemin Moshe, then a slum, in order to paint a watercolor of Mt. Zion for
my father. Jordanians on the southwest corner of the wall opened fire on
me; perhaps they thought my tripod was a weapon. I completed the
watercolor at home.
Eventually, high anti-sniper walls were erected around the city, making
it safe to cross Mamilla, Hanevi'im and other border streets. The walls
were all pulled down the same day in June 1967, symbolizing the
unification of the city. Israelis crossed into eastern Jerusalem and
Arabs crossed into western Jerusalem, clapping in delight whenever the
traffic lights changed at Zion Square.
The most glamorous border post was the Mandelbaum Gate, an official
crossing point for anyone who was neither Israeli nor Jordanian. Guarded
by immense concrete "dragon's teeth" the Mandelbaum House was also a
meeting place of the Israel Jordan Mixed Armistice Commission. The
Israeli delegation to the commission was headed by Maj. Shaul Ramati and
I was lucky enough to accompany him to several meetings chaired by an
American, Col. Garrison B. Coverdale, a name I have been unable to
forget. The Israelis served boiling tea in very full glasses to the
dismayed American and Arab Legion officers, who were unable to pick them
up.
FOUR DECADES ago there were still few private vehicles in the city and
my army disposals motorcycle was much envied, if only because it was
easier for me to locate the ice truck (and return with the block of ice
on my knees, wet but happy). Eventually my father sent us a small
fridge, and neighbors all along Rehov Hanevi'im came to see it, all
uninvited. A certain Rabbi Hochberg rhapsodized over the little
Kelvinator and pronounced a blessing - which was nice of him because he
was clearly green with envy.
As I discovered after parting with the motorcycle, walking everywhere
offered tremendous advantages, apart from keeping fit: one was able to
take in all the wonderful architectural details from oriental ironwork
in the Bukharan Quarter to Bauhaus apartments in Rehavia.
I remember what a pleasure it was to walk past the King David Hotel and
the YMCA and come upon the beautiful greensward olive grove where sheep
could safely graze. This wonderful Omariya area is now covered by the
Laromme Hotel and a park surrounded by iron railings. Yes, many
important cultural events take place in this formal park, but the area's
natural beauty and its feeling of Jerusalem as it was a century ago, has
been lost forever.
Walking also meant that one got to know everyone, from Hassidim to
tinkers; the latter were fully occupied repairing ptiliot and primus
pressure stoves as well as tinning the insides of the copper receptacles
used for cooking ( my daughter still uses tinned copper for large
numbers of guests). One Jewish tinker survives near the Mahane Yehuda
market and another in Beit Yisrael. There are a few Arab tinkers left
too.
Back in 1949, when I descended Ben-Yehuda Street on my way to The
Palestine Post, shopkeepers emerged to say hello and those with headgear
raised their hats. A certain wine dealer wore a cowboy stetson and
always raised it to me. Most of the shopkeepers were yekkes, who treated
customers as old friends and chatted with them about the latest concert
or art show, switching between Hebrew, German and English. One bumped
into them again at Saturday morning openings at the Artists House, then
located in a huge Nissen hut next to the King David Hotel.
Saturday mornings in Rehavia, which was then almost solidly yekke,
provided an unusual sight, a phalanx of up to 100 yekkes walking between
the art galleries; they often assembled outside the Nora Studio in Rehov
Ramban and then combined esthetics with exercise, joined by the more
observant yekkes emerging from the Yeshurun synagogue.
The yekkes, most of whom did not read a Hebrew newspaper even if they
could, for the most part treated The Palestine Post as Holy Writ, and
its staff as royalty. German-speaking waiters and waitresses at the Cafe
Europa on Zion Square and at the nearby Alaska and Atara cafes gave even
the most humble reporter or sub-editor preferential, even deferential,
service.
In the days before TV and private cars, cafe society in Jerusalem
existed in much the way it once existed in Berlin and Vienna, complete
with hand-held wooden newspaper racks. One had the feeling that everyone
knew everyone else, or at least the gossip about them. The cafes were
full of genuine characters, mostly the middle-aged from Mittel Europa.
IN THE '40s and '50s, one was also nearly always hungry. The cafes that
served real meals asked you for your ration coupons. Some places offered
lighter meals without coupons. At the little Tnuva opposite The
Palestine Post in Rehov Hasollel a formidably myopic Lithuanian-South
African lady with lenses an inch thick would serve you two slices of
fresh white bread and marge with a real fried egg, plus a cup of leben
and a glass of tea. Heaven! Eggs were rationed but a Histadrut
enterprise was evidently exempt. However a line was drawn somewhere:
asking for two eggs was out of the question.
Then the King of Felafel, near the Eden Cinema, whose cafe was festooned
with his own remarkable naive portraits of Weizmann, Ben-Gurion, Herzl
et al, would serve you plates of humus and felafel and pickled beets,
also without ration coupons. And not far from the Edison Cinema was a
garden restaurant that served huge sausages and soup, German style. Both
were bright red and left red stains around the mouth and on the tongue
and teeth. What was in the sausages was never disclosed. The soup also
remained unidentified. Coupons were not demanded. But we ate there only
in extremis. The place was closed in 1950 or 1951, allegedly by the
health authorities.
A certain Mandatory elegance remained in 1949. The now-defunct Eden
Hotel had a tea dance, as did the Europa, with live music and potted
palms. The waiters were in black tie.
The best place to eat was Fink's Bar; I had my first meal in Jerusalem
there. When meat coupons were no longer required Fink's charged tourists
stiff prices in order to provide cheap and rich goulash soup for its
Israeli regulars, most of them former Palmahniks. Early on, it also
cooked boar or porcupine but this was served only to the hunters who
brought in the game.
Fink's would often accept art in exchange for food. It was the favorite
hangout of UN observers and foreign journalists and magically supplied
any drink you asked for. Nearby, the My Bar was a favorite trysting
place of UN officers and local ladies of the night, some of them Israeli
informants.
Just opposite Fink's, Alla Gondola served the only genuine Italian food
in the country; its meat and cheese canneloni were outstanding. But
after the tourist influx it went kosher and has not been quite the same
since. Also opposite Fink's was the Histadrut Workers Canteen, which
served the worst meals in the city.
A top restaurant was Hesse's, a pricey yekkish place frequented by
government officials; its premises are today occupied by Yossi Peking.
But there was little upmarket restaurant demand in impecunious Jerusalem
of the 1950s, even when rationing ended. The hungry masses went to the
Mahane Yehuda market and ate a mixed grill at Abu Shaul or humus and
something stuffed at the market workers tables at Rachmo.
During the rationing period known as Tzena (austerity) the
Mapai-dominated socialist government inexplicably allowed the
introduction of the Scrip Shop, the shelves of which were covered with
imported canned food, chiefly corned beef and condensed milk as well as
some dry goods, available against dollar scrip sent to Israelis by
relatives abroad. The one in Jerusalem, located next to the downtown
Steimatzky's, was run by a Fagin look-alike.
Blackmarketing was an indictable offense at the time. The discriminatory
scrip shops were a sort of blackmarket and brought an outcry from all
those who did not receive scrip, and this blot on the socialist
escutcheon was soon removed.
In early Israeli Jerusalem, city life began at the top of Ben-Yehuda
Street (still scarred from a terrible terror bombing) and extended
through Zion Square and Jaffa Road, down Shlomzion Hamalka (then
Princess Mary) and up Julian's Way (now King David Street). Zion Square,
where newsboys hawked The Post, Ma'ariv and Yediot outside the Zion
Cinema, was the fulcrum. The cinema, where we all trooped to see the
gorgeous Marina Vlady play a splendidly naked witch, was flanked by the
original Kapulski's. Opposite, Menachem Begin harangued crowds from the
balcony of a hotel. On Independence Day, we danced in the square.
All the shops lining the above-mentioned streets were lined with
upmarket shops and cafes: couture, books, carpets, antiques and
fantastic Roman and Persian jewelry; just talking to the proprietors was
something of an education. Sadly, this has all changed, replaced by
impersonal shlock.
JERUSALEM HAS traditionally been divided into Up (Heavenly) and Down
(everyday) but also between rich and poor. Before 1948, the really rich
were mostly Arabs and Armenians; the Jewish rich were not really rich at
all, but middle-class intellectuals and professionals, teachers and
lawyers and doctors (not to mention a few well-educated plumbers). The
Arabs built the mansions of Talbiyeh and Katamon and lived peaceably
next to the Jews of Rehavia.
Both communities were products of Arab and Jewish enterprise of the
Mandatory period. The real Jewish rich were chiefly aristocratic
Sephardi Jewish families who owned large chunks of downtown and derived
their wealth from rents and whose children were also professionals. But
the bulk of the Jewish poor were also Sephardic communities, not to
mention the poverty-stricken Ashkenazim of Mea She'arim.
Things were different under the Turks, when a much smaller population
lived largely in poverty and when it was difficult to tell a Jewish shop
in the Old City from an Arab one. Disease was rife. My grandmother and
my father both contracted trachoma (a fly-carried eye disease later
stamped out by Dr. Avraham Ticho) and smallpox too, yet somehow
survived, but my grandmother died in her mid-Twenties, a not unusual
occurrence at the time; and my father's eyes bothered him for the rest
of his life.
For most of the four centuries of Ottoman rule, Moslems, Jews (always
the largest single element in the city), Christians and Armenians all
shared a similar type of oriental home and life style.
Things began to change only after 1860, when Jews, followed by other
communities, began to build distinct quarters outside the Old City,
beginning with Yemin Moshe and Mea She'arim. The German Templers brought
a European touch to their eminently bucolic but stolid homes around Emek
Refaim.
Large families were the rule among Jews and Arabs, an indirect way of
combatting high infant mortality. But families were crowded into one or
two rooms. Jews of East European origin brought their life style with
them. Young children slept in the same room as their parents, who slept
in separate beds for reasons of ritual purity, head to head against a
wall that could be screened off. Furnishings were sparse. The table,
used for both eating and study in the center of the shtub, was also the
center of family life.
Some European Jews and Christians brought their furniture with them.
Christian Templers were often artisans and they ran a carpentry shop at
the Schneller Orphanage complex. Like the trade schools of the Alliance
Israelite Universelle and the Franciscan Mission, the Templers turned
out furniture for all classes of Jerusalemites. Damascus style inlay was
popular, with Jews as well as Arabs.
Later Jewish carpenters became famous among the Arabs as well as the
Jews. My old friend Mendel Cohen of Tel Arza, now long dead, did the
interior of a palace for the Emir, later King Abdullah of Transjordan,
to his own designs. A yekke designer-manufacturer was Leo Wissman, a
refugee from Hitler who brought a touch of modern German Bauhaus design
and precise efficiency to hundreds of Jerusalem homes, including my own,
always with a smile. Wissman rebuilt my bathroom; I paid for it by
selling my motorcycle. During the Mandate, he also built hiding places
for handguns.
The yekkes were also fascinated with the Orient. A number of them opened
very fine antique shops and yekke homes mixed German furniture with
Damascus inlay, Beduin carpets and lamps made from antique copperware. I
especially loved Miss Czapski, a charming middle-aged yekkete with a
shop near Zion Square who spoke fluent English as well as her native
German. She made us enduringly beautiful lamps with shades.
JERUSALEM HAD always had its slums but the end of the siege in Jerusalem
saw a rash of jerry-building common to all of the newly established
Jewish State. Refugees poured in from the Arab states as well as Europe.
Many Jerusalem homeless, their homes shattered by Jordanian shelling,
moved into abandoned Arab homes in Katamon and Baka, or into the German
colony, together with new immigrants. Mansions were divided into
apartments.
Large numbers of refugees from Iraq were accommodated at a ma'abara in
Talpiot, at first in tents, later in huts and eventually in ghastly
shikunim (low-cost housing units) that were later to spread and ring
Katamon. Others squatted in empty border homes in Musrara and Yemin
Moshe, as well as in Baka.
Between 1948 and 1967, the divided city of Jerusalem was a generally
pleasant backwater of impecunious white-collar workers and a few
artisans. The boom that followed the reunification of the city in 1967
changed matters entirely. Ethnic differences among Jews became blurred
as economic factors increasingly stratified the population. The mix was
greatest in all the newly built outlying suburbs, particularly those
consisting of one- or two-family structures. A garden became a prize and
rooms became bigger.
Not long ago the Israel Museum mounted a superb show devoted to life in
Jerusalem and this helped jog my memory. The only thing missing at the
exhibition was the smell of kerosene
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