Yemin Moshe/Old City

Yesterday, our class took a field trip to Yemin Moshe and the Windmill, a neighborhood next to the Old City. I've been meaning to go there but felt really, really lame. So I was happy that I had this opportunity to go. It's soooo beautiful that I'll have to learn to take my visitors there if I live in Jerusalem! My class actually just read about this in our textbook. I will actually translate that passage:


In the 19th century, the Jews in Jerusalem only lived inside the Old City. The conditions in the Old City were hard and the water was not clean. The apartments were small and families were huge.
Mose Montefiore, a rich Jew from England, loved Eretz Israel with great love. He came to visit Jerusalem in 1860. He saw the Jews' situation in the Old City and wanted to help them. He bought land near the walls of the Old City and built a new neighborhood- Mesheknot Sha'anaim. It became the first Jewish neighborhood outside of the city walls. the conditions in Masheknot Sha'anaim were great: The apartments were huge, and the water was clean, but the Jews did not want to come to live there because they were afraid. the new neighborhood was in the mountains, far from the Old City, and there weren't walls. What to do, Montefiore? He gave the people money and then they came to live there. In the painting only eight families came down to the new neigbhorhood. They came to the neighborhood for a day, then at night, they left the Old City.






In 1866, a difficult diease came to Jerusalem- cholera, more people became sick and died. Only in Mesheknot that no one was sick. Then the Jerusalamite Jews saw more good from outside the city walls.















In 1891 , a neighborhood was put in next to Mesheknot: Yemin Moshe.
Today, the neighborhood has quiet and beautiful streets and the houses are special and expensive. It is a center for music, restaurants, and hotel and the meals originate in Jerusalem. Writers and artists from all over the world come to visit and to live in the hotel in Mesheknot Sha'anaim.










The huge windmill in the neighborhood was used for grinding flour. The area is quite picturesque. Here are some of the pictures.

Then, today, I decided that I had done enough work to earn an afternoon off to romp with Meredith M and Rebecca. We decided to go into the Old City and I'd give them a tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (again!). In the past, I had forgotten my camera and the architecture in there is too beautiful that I have to remember it. I also wanted to find the Arab pastry shop. So at the last minute, a friend of Rebeccca who had just met on the bus, Talia, joined us. She made aliyah two years ago on a yeshiva and is engaged to be married in two weeks. A little scary for me- this girl, just my age, doesn't really have a full time job, is doing ulpan for the first time.... I don't know.

Anyway, we made it to the Church from the Damascus Gate, which I had never gone through. It's certainly huge and I felt like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz because outside, it was quiet, modern world. Inside was the bustling life of the Arabs that almost reminded me of being in Aladdin! It's so incredible- the Muslim quarter is truly nothing like the other quarters in the Old City, it's the heart of the Arabs in East Jerusalem.

The Church was fine.... nothing surprising. We let Meredith wandering around since she's Christian and what not.

Then we ran into a couple of American tourists looking a bit lost and wanted to get to the Jewish quarter. I took them with us as we headed back to the Muslim quarter since the main road would take them to the Kotel. I found the pastry shop- Jaffar and Sons Pastry. It's speciality was kanafeh, a slab of sweet cheese with grinded piastachos and grains with sweet honey syrup over it. It's baked on a pizza pan and served hot. I also bought some baklava. It actually became my dinner later- I didn't need anything else except it was so sweet that I had to have some bread afterwards! I wouldn't necessarily have it again... baklava is still my favorite Arab pastry. But I was actually kind of disappointed in the quality of these baklavas. Really homemade baklavas are the best, not from plastic wrapped covered trays.

So then we decided to wander around a bit so we did.... and eventually we actually ended up totally getting lost!!!! We walked and walked for what it seemed like forever around the Muslim shuk, trying to find a way out to Jaffa Gate or Damascus Gate. We actually ened up going through their food shuk, including their meat section. Oh, now remember Mom and Andrew talking about it on their last day in Israel... I was really amazed by the originality of the place. It's really like being in the Aladdin movie. The Arabs kept all the traditions and there's really no sign of modernity.

By the way, I stopped at a drugstore to buy some more ibuprofren so I wouldn't have to walk all the way to the center to buy them. Thanks to Paige's medication situation, I asked how many milligrams the ibuprofren pills that the guy was giving me. They were 600 mg- 10 of them for 15 shekls. I thought, hmm this is a huge bargain, I'll take it since I usually take 600 mg for when my hip acts up from running. Later, I did a unit price per pill math between this packet from the Muslim Quarter and a box from Super-Pharm. It came out to be whopping 75% savings by buying them in the Muslim Quarter!!! I think I might go in one more time next week... When I told Paige about it later, she asked if they were really ibuprofren or cheap drugs! I did double check later to make sure- they were definitely ibuprofren... I laughed to myself.