Photo by E. Nahmias

Close Encounters - Nahlaot: Old mosaic

By Allan Rabinowitz

(February 3) -- A walking tour in the heart of Jerusalem rewards the urban tourist with historical riches --

Mahaneh Yehuda, the produce market in the heart of western Jerusalem, hemmed in between Jaffa Road to the north and Rehov Agrippas to the south, spills over with shouting and pushing, as music blares, trucks honk and workers load stall after stall with piles of beautiful fruits and vegetables from all over the country.

But cross Rehov Agrippas, go under its arches and into its alleys into the nearest square or courtyard, and you have entered a bubble of tranquillity. The noise of the city hovers around its edges, but this neighborhood, known popularly as Nahlaot, is like an urban village. Traffic is blocked from all but particular arteries traversing the neighborhood.

Upon the polished stone pathways, haredi boys rush to their yeshivot, or weave their bicycles around passersby carrying overflowing baskets from the market. Their sisters, in dresses buttoned down to the wrist and up to the throat, push the strollers of younger siblings. Old Sephardi women sweep out their immaculate, if tiny, courtyards, which are lined with lush gardens of flowers planted entirely in rusted olive cans.

An artist stops to sketch a lopsided arch within an arch. Artisans work away in their little nooks of workshops. A woman with wavy gray hair tosses scraps to the cats in a shrub-bordered square. Builders carry supplies for one of the numerous additions being squeezed atop an old narrow stone building, perhaps by a well-heeled American willing and able to buy quaintness and comfort.

They all rub shoulders here, in this patchwork mosaic of old Jerusalem neighborhoods built up from the mid-to-late 1800s and onwards.

In fact, Nahlaot comprises several neighborhoods, and each of the separate enclaves that have merged and melted into one complex of alleys, courtyards, arches and tiny parks had its own name and identity.

JEWISH symbols are everywhere in Nahlaot. Opposite Mahaneh Yehuda, the Star of David appears frequently on the walls of Rehov Agrippas, carved in stone, or in the spaces within a stone. In other places it is stamped in iron doors, carved in wooden ones, outlined in iron railings.

There are signs requesting modest dress for women, charity boxes built into the walls of the old synagogues, elaborate inscriptions over the old synagogue doors announcing contributions from a foreign community or the building's dedication to a great scholar and rabbi (though by no means are all the present-day residents of the area observant Jews).

Jerusalem's growing Jewish community asserted more responsibility for its own destiny, even under fickle and corrupt Ottoman rule. Every courtyard, every long row house might represent a different Jewish community, from the congested Old City or Russia or Yemen. These neighborhoods helped shape most of Jerusalem's developing areas as distinctly and specifically Jewish. But while still engaged in religious study they built a wider economic base, lining these streets with stonecutters, leatherworkers, jewelers, masons.

Each neighborhood created its own little universe, with its own synagogue, kosher slaughterhouse, yeshiva, mikve, burial organization. By 1910, 45,000 Jews filled Jerusalem, an absolute majority of the population, with these western neighborhoods providing standards of living and new opportunities that were unknown a generation earlier.

ALLOW yourself to get lost in the confined area of these Nahlaot sub-neighborhoods and you can find some of the signs and gems remaining from this past blooming. Here are a few of them:

* Along Rehov Agrippas, opposite Mahaneh Yehuda, stands the archway and engraved inscription leading to the Ohel Moshe neighborhood. This was built in the 1880s, in honor of the famous Jewish philanthropist, Sir Moses Montefiore, who was so influential in helping Jews first make homes beyond the Old City walls.

* Just one street further east along Agrippas you'll enter the old Mazkeret Moshe neighborhood, also named for Montefiore. Its building fund granted interest-free loans to encourage construction. The backs of the houses face outward, and entrance to them was through a central courtyard, to allow a measure of protection.

* Knesset Yisrael, a row of low stucco houses located between Tavor and Rama streets, was established in the 1890s to absorb Russian refugees who had been filling the Old City. The land was acquired only after harsh competition with Christian organizations also wanting to buy and build here. The quarters and grounds were spacious and luxurious by Old City standards, and married religious students received free housing. Still a haredi center today, the residents here rub shoulders with students attending the nearby Bezalel Art Academy.

* Adjacent Beit Broida (to the east), with its central courtyard and gate, its elaborate dedicatory inscription, its several levels of apartments, its long porches running along each level, and a tower containing a toilet for each level, provides a good example of the self-contained communities.

* The synagogue at the corner of Shilo and Beersheva streets, started in 1891 by Jews from the Syrian city of Aleppo, attracted Kurdish and Persian Jews as well, and the community soon played host to immigrants from southern Turkey. The synagogue, small but elegant, boasts gorgeous decorative curtains covering the Torah arks.

There are so many nooks and crannies and enticing courtyards here.

BRING a map and wander. Bring a camera, or a sketchpad, or simply your own wide-open eyes. Tiny stucco and concrete huts abut beautiful pink stone homes. Stone pathways bulge above the large cisterns, over 100 years old, that supplied water to the residents here (the capped portals to these cisterns punctuate the alleys, and during the 1948 War of Independence, when Jewish Jerusalem was under siege, cisterns like these provided vital water and helped save the city).

You'll find iron filigree painted purple, corrugated metal roofs slanting to the pavement, vines crawling up rusted drainpipes, crazily angled stairways and porches and walkways, all bordered by iron railings crisscrossing in intricate patterns that make you feel as if you are walking round and round in an Escher print.

Allan Rabinowitz is a licensed tour guide. He can be reached at allan@jpost.co.il.