Mount Zion Parking Lot

Entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem has been nigh near impossible as of late due to the changes in the traffic rules. The Jerusalem Municipality decided that private cars (except for local residents) could not enter the Old City.

Whether this is a good idea or not is up for debate.

This of course made things very difficult for drivers in Jerusalem, as there was no where near enough convenient parking for people trying to get into the Old City or to the Kotel.

The Givati Parking lot is lot smaller these days ever since they discovered the palace underneath it.

And the Mamilla parking lot is excellent, but it can be a long walk if you are trying to reach the Jewish Quarter.



The Jerusalem Municipality finally did something very smart to handle this problem - they rezoned the Mount Zion parking lot.

For years, the Har Tzion parking lot had space for about 20 cars, and the rest was designated for buses. Lot of buses.

Archive Photo

Yesterday when visiting the Old City, I decided to chance it and see if I could find parking on Mt. Zion. To my surprise, there were no buses parked there at all, and the entire parking lot was converted to parking for cars.

Rumor has it they are planning on building a multi-level parking lot on the site.

While 100 new parking spots may not be much for convenient access to the most important city in the world, it's better than the 20 we had before.

I'm happy to see that the Jerusalem Municipality made a positive change for Jerusalem drivers - something they haven't done in a long time.

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SL

Herod's gate to be re-inaugurated

Herod's Gate, more commonly known as Sha'ar haPrachim (the Flower Gate), will be re-inaugurated tonight (June 28, 2010) as part of a larger conservation plan of the Old City.

The gate was first inaugurated in 1539 CE.

The gate was was named Herod's gate either due to a mis-attribution, or alternatively in Herod's honor.

(Picture courtesy Wikipedia)

SL

Jerusalem of Lights

It's been the Jerusalem of Lights festival all week, and the Old City of Jerusalem of Jerusalem was lit up, outside, inside, and even underneath (in Tzidkiyahu's Cave).

Enjoy the photos.

This is a video projected on the wall near the Jaffa Gate:

A crooked city near the Rova parking lot:

A big shoe of lights:

Hanging Laundry:

 Men climbing the walls:

A projection on the Hurva:

SL  

The Churva - Opening Soon

We've been following the progress of the rebuilding of the Churva Synagogue in the Old City on this blog.

I took a number of beautiful closeup shots of the detail work, but unfortunately the files got erased.

The synagogue will be officially opened this Monday, March 15 in a big ceremony.

Arutz-7 has a video on their site where you can see what this amazing shul looks like.


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I've got a secret

One of the most familiar sites connected to Jerusalem is the Tower of David Museum, which among other things used to be a fortress.



I haven't been there in a while, and I was happy to see that they uncovered yet another secret tunnel.




You can really get lost in this place with all the different passageways.

Another new edition to the museum is this recently discovered model of Jerusalem made in the late 1800s!




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Hurva update

The Hurva reconstruction is coming along quite nicely...




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Lighting Up in the Old City

While there were signs up everywhere that the Old City would be closed and to use the free, public transportation to get there during the Passover holiday, the municipality forgot to mention that the roads around the Old City would be, for the most part, closed too, and just to avoid those areas if you were going out.

After some fancy maneuvering, we parked under Kikar Safra.

Every night, the city offered a spectacular lights and fireworks display all evening along the walls near Jaffa Gate (Sh'ar Yafo). People filled up the entire area to watch.



Even the tunnel alongside the Old City (between Mamilla and Jaffa Gate) was closed up and filled to capacity with people watching the extravaganza.




And of course, here is our regular update on the progress of the rebuilding of the Hurva synagogue.

SL

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Update on Hurva Reconstruction

The Jerusalem Post has an article about the Hurva shul nearly being completed.

Original Building before 1948

Symbolic Reconstruction after 1967

Convenient timing that article, as I was just there and took an updated photo.


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The Missing Menora

In case you were walking in the Cardo of the Old City and couldn't find the solid gold Menora, don't worry.

It wasn't stolen.

It was just moved to the stairs leading down to the Kotel.




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Jerusalem Divided/United

Where Yafo Street and Shivtei Yisrael meet, and Shlomo HaMelech Street turns into Road 60 is a corner of the Old City as well as the Jerusalem Municipality - it is also known as Kikar Tzahal.

40 years ago, when Jerusalem was divided, this street was a border of divided Jerusalem.

Below you can the new (square) and old (rounded) sections of the Jerusalem Municipality buildings.

If you look close up, you can see the remains on the older section of the building from when Jordanian snipers used to shoot at the people inside the building from the Old City, just across the street.

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On Exits

There's still plenty more to see in the Old City, and we'll be revisiting there in the future to photograph more streets and track the progress of the reconstruction of the Hurva Synagogue.

In the meantime, here is (temporarily) one last picture of Jaffa Gate (Sha'ar Yafo) and the Old City walls at night (with Mamilla village at the bottom).

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Out with the Old, In with the New

For many years, the south end of the Old City was kind of ignored. There was some archaeological digs left open, such as in this picture, but for the most part not to much was done with that section.


A few years ago it was decided to build a playground over there, and so they did. A nice one with courts, and a children's play area.


In the background we see the ancient Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives. An interesting contrast between new and old, and living and dead.

SL

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Archways and Stairs

I saw this street of archways and stairs and simply had to take a picture of it. Stunning. The name of the street is Shonei Halachot.

And this street is a continuation of Misgav Ladach Street that we discussed the other day.

SL

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Time Travel

Lying half hidden between Chabad Street and Hayehudim Street in the Old City is the Cardo.

Back when the Romans were still around, they used to build a main thoroughfare, called the Cardo, in cities they controlled. The Cardo ran North-South, and often a secondary road that went East-West intersected with it, but I am unfamiliar with any East-West road in the Old City, so we’ll leave it at that.

The Cardo itself was lined and filled with shops.

After Jerusalem was reunited in 1967, the Cardo was uncovered and refurbished. The section in the pictures below was left exposed. The rest of the Cardo was covered over by residential housing to create an enclosed semi-underground mall.


Parts of the Cardo are again lined with shops.

The columns you see below are designed in the Corinthian style.


In this picture we see the solid gold Menorah located in the Cardo.

Further down the road you can look down some tunnel and see even older and deeper parts of the road.

SL

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The Rova Revisited

Taking a look at the reconstruction of the Churva Synagogue we can see that the dome is progressing nicely since the last time we looked at it.

And here is a picture of the Rova, the central square in the Jewish Quarter.

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The Dividing Line

Starting off at Jaffa Gate (Shar Yafo) the quickest way (though debatable by some if it is the safest) to the Kotel, the Tunnel Tours, and the Temple Mount is by going straight ahead.

This road is known as David Street and turns into the Street of the Chains (Bab al-Silsilah Street in Arabic). Most people simply know it as the Arab Shuk.

It is the road that divides the Christian and Arab Quarters on one side of the city with the Armenian and Jewish Quarters on the other.

Though before the Jews were driven out of the Old City in 1948, when Jerusalem was divided, the definitions of the quarters were mostly irrelevant as Jews lived in all the quarters and apparently made up the majority of residents of the Old City.

Turning right on this street towards the end of the Shuk we find ourselves at an upper entrance to the Kotel on Misgav Ladach Street.

Misgav Ladach Street is the street where the original Misgav Ladach hospital was located when it was founded in 1854, until it was destroyed in 1948. You can learn more about the intersting history of the Misgav Ladach Hospital while it was in the Old City here.

Today, the rebuilt building, houses the dormitories for the Sephardi Center.

SL

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The Churva

In 1267, the Ramban (Nachmanades) founded his Shul (Synagogue) in the Old City of Jerusalem. In 1589 the Ottomans closed the shul. In the 1700’s on the courtyard next to the Ramban shul a new shul was built. In the mid-1800s it was finished.






This shul was destroyed by the Arabs in 1948 and became known as the Churva.


In 1978 the commemorative arch for the shul was built.




And now in 2007, the construction has begun to rebuild the entire shul in all its glory.


Photographs and Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurba_Synagogue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramban_Synagogue

(Except for the last photo of the reconstruction process).

SL

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Sukkot of the Old City of Jerusalem

Sukkot may be over (until next year), but we still have a ton of pictures. We present to you the Sukkahs of the Old City of Jerusalem. (We’ll do a more comprehensive review of the Streets of the Old City of Jerusalem another time).



The Sukkah on the Stairs

Look on the roof.

Look to the left.

SL

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